Radeon 9700 not working? Strange problems

[thealee]

Hi there, my computer keeps freezing and restarting and such. Its some kind of problem about my gfx card. Here is my computer specs-

Athlon 64 3000+
768mb ram (bought all crucial ram to make sure this wasnt the problem)
Old 30GB HDD (possibly the problem?)
Radeon 9700 (pro? Everything says its a pro, but i bought it from ebay as a non pro)
Win XP
Abit av8 3rd eye
400w power supply that came with my icute case.

Latest ATI drivers (have tried it with older drivers but no difference exept some textures on games didnt work)

I was testing this with the game F.E.A.R, whenever i ask my graphics card to do something that requires more from it the computer restarts. I eventually got fear working okish but the resolution was 640x480 and i had to underclock my gfx card by setting the clock speed to the "defaults" on radeonator.

It could be the power, because when i get my gfx card to do something harder (surely it will use more power at these times) it just re-starts.

I formatted my HDD because of this but its just worse now, everything i download is corrupted?! Maybe my HDD is corrupt and causing all these problems?

I am ordering a new IDE HDD as the SATA i bought from novatech didn't work!

Any help appriciated!

-Alex

 

[thealee]

I have also tried turning off write combining and fast write (or whatever it is in the BIOS) i have these both off atm.

 

[Vybuni]

Try testing the stability of your PSU. If you have a multimeter you can do it quite easily.

Here is a guide.
http://www.ochardware.com/articles/psuvolt/psuvolt.html

 

[thealee]

Ok thanks im trying it now...

 

[jeremy]

i think one of these are the causes:
1) psu , you dont have to measure it with a multimeter but multimeter is more accurate although not by much usally , you can use a software to test it too like sandra http://www.download.com/3000-2086-10018691.html get into "mainboard information" scroll down to the middle and youll see "voltage sensors" take a screenshot and ill let you know if their good or bad , and if your gonna use the multimeter report back with voltages oh and heres another guide http://www.driverheaven.net/guides/testingPSU/

2) you havnt connected the power cable to your card (it have alot of impact on its stability)

3) overclocking, is your cpu overclocked?

4) ram (too tight timings,plain bad,or have compatbility issues with your mobo) check it with memtest86+
http://www.memtest.org/download/1.65/memtest86+-1.65.iso.zip
(it runs non stop until you restart,let it make at least 11 passes)

 

[thealee]

CPU not overclocked, i thought the GPU may have been :S not sure...

Ram should be fine, its crucial.com and the same type.

i tried that sandra thingy
http://img15.imgspot.com/?u=/u/06/70/14/img11142193408.png

i CANNOT see the PSU part! I must be a complete n00b or something is wrong...

i have connected that power cable, there have been times that i have forgotten to do it. Would that kill the card at all?

I changed the AGP voltage to 1.60 from 1.55... It seemed to improve stability when playing FEAR... Still crashes though

 

[jeremy]

when troubleshooting pc problems you should keep an open mind and check all possible reasons , forget the "should" be fine make sure it is. test it with memtest86+ , bad ram can cause bsods/random restarts/file curruptions

as for sandra , it seems it doesnt support your mobo sensor use everest instead http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html get into computer-->sensor and take a screenshot , and no not connecting the power cable to the card cant kill it

 

[Vybuni]

How old is this computer? How long have these problems been around?

 

[thealee]

Bah i tried downloading that program 3 times and they were corrupt?!

Something strange going on around here... I will attempt memtest.

 

[thealee]

Problems have been around for not long... 2 - 3 weeks perhaps?

Infact it may have been after i put in my new crucial ram. But i'm not sure. I just remeber coming back to the computer and it was all frozen, then it wouldn't boot up - i had to go into safe mode and un-install the GFX card drivers to get it to boot up, then eventually it wouldn't load XP so i formatted - but i only did a quick format, not a full one. That may have been a bad idea.


EDIT - i am going to try it without my 512 dual ram stick... my 256 has been with me since the beggining so that one is probably ok, then i will try memtest when i get hold of a CD burner in a hour or so...