Radeon9800Pro on Asus A8V Deluxe - crashes, please help!

[8bit]

Hi all, sorry it's a little long...

I was posting about this in the Catalyst 5.1 thread but I've since reverted to Catalyst 4.12 among other changes and thought it more appropriate to start a new thread.

I recently replaced my aging motherboard and AMD CPU with an athlon 64 3500 (winchester) on an Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard. I kept my OEM Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb, Creative Audigy (the original one) and 1Gb PC4000 RAM. Only the CPU and mobo changed basically and before they did the machine *never* crashed.

I did a clean XP Pro and SP2 install, latest VIA chipset drivers, DirectX9.0c, installed the Cat5.1 drivers (had still been on 4.12 before the upgrade without any issue) and isntalled Lock On Modern Air Combat and HalfLife 2. Basically on the new hardware and fresh XP install after about 5 minutes play while playing either game or sometimes when attempting to adjust the Catalyst AA or AF settings in the vanilla Catalyst control panel the machine froze, screen went black and had to be reset to reboot.

I thought I fixed it by turning AGP down from 8x to 4x. I also switched Fast Writes off in first Catalyst and then the BIOS (which is on latest revision BTW). Now I get up to an hour or so play then it does the same thing so it's lessened but not cured the issue although is still not acceptable to me given it was meant to be an upgrade!

Can anyone suggest anything I can try to help because I can't see what else to try? I have the AGP aperture set to 128Mb because I assumed that's the correct setting given i have a 128Mb card. Was that correct? I have been told to try setting AGP voltage from 1.5v to 1.6v but haven't tried that, does it sound plausible? Faulty mobo perhaps? I think it unlikely it's the CPU since adjusting AGP settings helped but am I on the wrong track there?

TIA
8bit (in despair...)

[8bit]

Still in despair but had another thought I wondered if anyone could comment on...

I have a fairly cheap 420w PSU in my box. Running off it are the Athlon64 Winchester 3500, 1Gb of RAM, Radeon9800 Pro, Creative Audigy, 2x 120Gb EIDE disks, 2x optical drives (although they tend to sit unused most of the time, certainly during gaming)... Asus Probe tells me the 12v line is about 11.6 but MBM5 tells me the 12v line is about 16v (WTF!?!1!) could it be that the PSU is too weak and/or unstable?

It's pretty noisy so I want to upgrade to a nice quiet akasa one or something anyway but if there's something else I need to get to stabilise the machine I'd do that first...

[shiato storm]

well, i guess the power supply could be your down-fall. its really worth getting a better more reliable one tbh. sounds like your current one is unstable. take a look at tagan or enermax psu's..

its also worth noting that the amd64's need a bit more juice than the regular athlons, and this with an unstable psu could cause you problems.

[Vimeous]

I built my parents machine some time ago with A64 3200, 512Mb RAM, A8V Deluxe, Rad 9800Pro, single 160Gb HD, DVD Burner and reader. It runs off Antec 420w Trueblue (whichever name it is!) and has never missed a beat. XP Home, SP1 and series 4 drivers.

Suggestions:

• Set the AGP aperture to default and the gfx drivers on auto and see how stable it stays. (Be as default in the BIOS as poss)
• Check the gfx fan is working and has not failed.
• Swap out the gfx card for something older and check stability.
• Daft question but is the card sitting in the board square? Make sure the case backplate isn't lifting the leading edge of the AGP connector out of the socket.
• The Via drivers for the AGP slot. Did you get them from ASUS or direct from VIA? There are multiple versions so be carefull. Start with the ASUS one before trying the OEM version.

While I agree the PSU is a potential problem maker (try unplugging the opticals and even a single HD and check stability) there are quite a few things that need investigation before you can be sure and shell out more cash.

Keep us posted on your progress and good luck!

[8bit]

thanks both, that's given me some rays of hope!

Vimeous, I downloaded the latest VIA Hyperion chipset drivers from www.viaarena.com. Should I see if Asus have a set available from their site and try those?

I'll check the GPU fan and AGP card alignment are OK and then try unplugging a bunch of things like secondary HDD, optical drives, the neon light and blue fans forgot to mention them, my case is silver and in the words of Custom PC magazine the "insides of the case have more chrome and neon than an android gay bar" lol I guess they'll draw power also. I guess if disconnect all that stuff and stick AGP back to 8x then that will mean it will crash pretty soon, if it's still going to.

As for the BIOS stuff, it was left on the factory settings apart from the aperture size which defaulted to 64Mb. I was under the impression that it should be set to the memory capacity of the video card, is that not right? I'll stick all that stuff back to the defaults and if i start getting the frequent crashes again I'll start unplugging non essential components to see if that helps. Hopefully have some news one way or the other tomorrow...

Thanks again for the responses folks!
8bit

[CeeJay]

sounds like a problem i had with a 9700 and a via chipset. it was bloody awful, i had to use some old omega drivers to get it to work well.
maybe try those first, its basically finding a version of the ati/omega drivers that work with that particular chipset agp driver. loads of messing but i found a set eventually.
this is ofcourse if its not the psu, and nothing else but just what ive found with my ati/via problems.

[8bit]

thanks for that ceejay, i'll bear that in mind if I call no joy on anything else (it *should* work with the standard drivers, if not then there is something wrong...).

Just to open another can of worms, I should point out that I didn't directly install DirectX 9.0c myself, it seems it was installed as part of SP2 i guess as that was the very first thing that went on after XP Pro... anyone else had problems with the SP2 bundled DX9.0c?

[8bit]

Right thanks to all those who've helped so far, I'm not out of the woods yet tho...

Vimeous, as per your advice I checked the GPU fan - working. I did notice however that the heatsink (it's the reference ATi design) was very hot, almost too hot to touch. Do you or anyone else know if this is normal?

Next thing was to reset all the BIOS AGP settings to default, thus:

• primary graphics adapter - AGP
• Search for MDA Resources - Yes
• VLink 8x Support - Enabled
• AGP Mode - 8x
• AGP Fast Write - Enabled
• Graphics Aperture Size - 64Mb
• AGP 3.0 calibration Cycle - Disabled
• DBI output for AGP Trans - Disabled

Started Lock On, same story as it was when i first installed it after the upgrade, maybe 5 mins play then crash.

Next I opened up the case again and unplugged the power from both optical drives, the second hard disk, the blue neon and a fan. Same story, crunch!

So I'm guessing by the fact that reducing the load on the PSU didn't help that it's not a power issue. I guess it could be overheating on the GPU although it's running at standard clock speeds with the ATi reference cooler just as it always has and I only started having a problem with it now....

Any further ideas?

Cheers,
8bit

[Vimeous]

Don't happen to have an old gfx card to test?

[8bit]

not at home, might be able to borrow one from work but I doubt we'd have anything that would even run a game let alone be able to test it's stability...

Also I couldn't find a specific VIA AGP port driver on the Asus website, just what appears to be an older version of the Hyperion driver set. Should I try that? It is more recent than the ones on the CD that came with the mobo but a little older than the Hyperion drivers on VIA's website, currently.

Also there's this thing I heard about runnign the AGP socket up at 1.6v instead of the default 1.5v, given the fact that the heatsink and fan on the card were almost too hot to touch I was a little nervous about trying this but if anyone thinks that might help...

If I haven't got it sorted by tomorrow I'll speak to Asus tech support, I'm beginning to think I may have a faulty motherboard.

[Vimeous]

I'd stick with the new Hyperions if that's the case.
I'd also leave the AGP voltage at standard. If it doesn't work at that then there's a fault somewhere that needs fixing.
With regard to gfx drivers I assume you fully uninstalled the old ones rather than installing the latest straight over the top? It's one of ATi's favourite suggestions.

When getting hold of Asus tech support make sure you clearly list the circumstances when the problems occurs. What measures you hve taken to rectify the problem and what effect they had. Include driver versions and also what order you installed/moved/uninstalled things (hard & soft).
Approach it from that point of view and they'll get a good idea of your technical competance (to reduce the chance of being fobbed-off like coffee-cup in CD-drive boy) and also what further steps to take.

Good luck!

[Zak33]

My turn

A: Right....take of fthe side of the case, get abig house fan, point it in, open the windows in your room, get a coat on, and play. I'm being serious. If it still crashes it aint heat.

B: In Cat control panel turn OFF VPN recovery. it might be trying to stop a crash on the Radeon that doesnt exist. Its in options.

Next, run MEM test. Download it, put it onto a floppy. Boot the PC with the floppy in it, andlet it run the tests. Its written in Linux, you dontneed to know how it works, but it looks like a DOS screen, and there's a menu with numbered options. It runs the test and checks the ram and if it goes all through, with no errors, its not the ram.

Next (evil glance)

TAKE OUT THE AUREAL CARD un install the drivers, and run the game either with no sound OR with the built in sound card activated (if its got one). I have a soundcard that REBOOTS my PC completely....back to bios.

good luck dude

[8bit]

hmm, vimeous yes i did a driverclean pro clearout as per the readme once i'd removed the catalyst drivers. I'll try Zak33's suggestions before contacting ASUS (their website doesnt want to let me as far as the phone numbers page just now lol)

thanks for the continuing assistance fellas. I have managed to borrow a GeForce4 Ti4200 from work which I'll sling in there after dinner, then try the soundcard removal. I did move it down another slot away from the raddy and took out the 2 PCI blanking plates at the back to see if it was lack of ventilation but to no avail although it did run a little longer than before. Think i have a fan somewhere will give that a shot and the soundcard theory also. stay tuned...

[Zak33]

CASE OFF....big fan...IN....windows...OPEN

coat on....I'm not kidding. It is cold and it runs we need to talk heatsinks or maybe voltage and DEFINATELY heatsink fitment

[JimmyBoy]

Right thanks to all those who've helped so far, I'm not out of the woods yet tho...

Vimeous, as per your advice I checked the GPU fan - working. I did notice however that the heatsink (it's the reference ATi design) was very hot, almost too hot to touch. Do you or anyone else know if this is normal?

Next thing was to reset all the BIOS AGP settings to default, thus:

• primary graphics adapter - AGP
• Search for MDA Resources - Yes
• VLink 8x Support - Enabled
• AGP Mode - 8x
• AGP Fast Write - Enabled
• Graphics Aperture Size - 64Mb
• AGP 3.0 calibration Cycle - Disabled
• DBI output for AGP Trans - Disabled

Started Lock On, same story as it was when i first installed it after the upgrade, maybe 5 mins play then crash.

Next I opened up the case again and unplugged the power from both optical drives, the second hard disk, the blue neon and a fan. Same story, crunch!

So I'm guessing by the fact that reducing the load on the PSU didn't help that it's not a power issue. I guess it could be overheating on the GPU although it's running at standard clock speeds with the ATi reference cooler just as it always has and I only started having a problem with it now....

Any further ideas?

Cheers,
8bit

• primary graphics adapter - AGP
• Search for MDA Resources - Yes
• VLink 8x Support - Enabled
• AGP Mode - 8x
• AGP Fast Write - Disabled *
• Graphics Aperture Size - 128Mb *
• AGP 3.0 calibration Cycle - Enabled *
• DBI output for AGP Trans - Disabled

try those settings,

had the same problems until i enabled agp calibration

good luck !

[8bit]

*wow* I'm totally impressed with how quickly people jumped to help me on here - thanks guys!

I did a slightly silly thing today - this afternoon i disabled VPU Recover in catalyst as per Zak33's suggestion but didn't have time to test it and put PC in hibernated mode. Got home this evening, opened the case and pulled out the Audigy then fired it up - forgetting it was hibernating - went into BIOS and enabled the onboard audio. Blue Screen faster than you can say "smacktard"

Anyway got it restarted, installed onboard audio drivers and started Lock On with the AGP on 8x, the setting it was crashing regularly on before. Hmm, stable in LO for about 2 hours now and better framerates too...

So i don't know if it was VPU recover set to off, removing the audigy card or if it's because theres better airflow for the Radeon to breathe since the audigy's gone that's helped but it's looking rosier for sure. I'll do some more tests (i.e. play Lock On lots ) over the weekend and try it with the audigy again down at the same slot and then bottom if that fails, should be able to work out what happened from there. Going for an Arctic Cooling VGA silencer for Rad9800 come payday anyway as I'm trying to silence the machine a bit now.

Thanks again guys, I'll let you know how I get on.

8bit