Upgrading video card issues!

[wandl]

I have an older system I just upgraded video cards, its an athlon 1800+ with 512MB of PC133 (yes...PC133) ram. Anyhow it had a GF4 MX420 64MB AGP card which ran fine, I just upgraded it to a Ti4600 128MB and only when playing a game, the screen freezes about several minutes into it, forcing me to reboot. I've updated the drivers, then I thought it was a faulty card or maybe too powerful so I went and got a Ti4200 64MB ABIT brand new from newegg and it does the exact same thing!! Is my mobo a superold ECS K7S5A incapable or did I get 2 faulty video cards?

The screen doesn't freeze during windows, only freezes when I play any type of game....even when i play the games in safe-mode it still freezes....help?

 

[Vertical_Zer0]

It could be one or both of 2 things:

1.Check your power supply, make sure it meets the requirements and that all the rails check out normally. You might not have enough power.

2.Watch your heat. You are likely overheating your ti4600/ti4200. What is your cooling setup in your computer?

 

[stratcatprowlin]

Sounds like you need to get rid of the old drivers with "driver cleaner".
Then install new ones.Make sure you read the "read me" file.

Or,you pc case is very hot.The TI4200's run hot to begin with .Make sure it's kept cool.
Use driver cleaner anyway.That should fix it.

 

[stratcatprowlin]

Oh,dont forget to install the newest chipset drivers too.That way you wont get stuck in pci mode by accident.

 

[Nandro]

You could also try changing the agp from 8 to 4x. I have had issues like that in the past that changing it helped.

 

[wandl]

thanks for your replies! I've tried something else, a friend of mine has a 450W PSU system on his MSI Delta mobo with a 2400+ cpu....it has 4 case fans among others and I installed it on his system (he had an ati 9500 pro) and did the same thing....which sort of rules out the power supply shortage...

both the ti4200 and ti4600 has a big chipset fan on it..actually the ti4600 has 2 fans on the card....but I put a PCI-slot fan (attaches to the PCI slot right next to the agp slot to no avail....and this mobo ECS K75SA only has AGP 2x I think...not even 4x...hehe.....

should I just rma these cards? or anything else I may be able to try?? THANKS!

 

[wandl]

oh i'll try driver cleaner next...but upgrading from an nvidia mx420 to another nvidia?

 

[stratcatprowlin]

Yes,they are unified drivers.All the drivers work on all cards.

 

[stratcatprowlin]

Oh,I gotya.Yes even though your still using Nvidia drivers,its good to get rid of all the traces from the previous driver.Thats why I suggested it.

 

[Nerull]

this could possible be a AGP voltage issue (been doing some searching but can not find anything with the AGP voltage for the K7S5A). Or this could be a AGP driver issue. SIS's drivers should include the AGP driver.

Try to update the drivers as listed above and also try the cards in your friends system. If the card(s) work in your friends system and not yours eve after updating the drivers. You could possible be having a AGP voltage issue, even though the AGP is 2.0 compliance, as old as it is, it might be loosing voltage somehow (either through a slightly leaking resistor/capasitor or the AGP voltage regulator might be going out).

One last thing. When was the last time you have done a complete reformate and install on your OS?

ADDED:
(just read a review that had a GF3 card running on one, so the AGP voltage should be enough to support a GF4 card, unless it is possible doing like I stated above)

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

i've had a few k7s5a's. they make for cheap computers for friends and family. my 9700pro runs fine in it, at 4xagp mind you.

that board could probably use an updated bios though. ECS doesn't do too good a job at updating them, i used to use hacked bios', if you do a search on google you should find some.

have you tried disabling fastwrites?