New vid card constantly crashes
Xylune:
Okay, I spent almost 300 dollars on a graphic card upgrade, which would have replaced my ATI Radeon x300 sapphire with an ATI Radeon x1650 pro. I made sure that all system specs met or exceeded requirements, removed all old Radeon drivers/files, installed the latest driver for the new card, updated my sound driver, chipset and directx, and reseated my RAM.
Regardless of all these steps, I cannot run ANY games with this new card. I thought the card was faulty after doing everything possible on my end, so I sent it back and they replaced it with another of the same kind. I'm still unable to run game applications with the new card. The computer shuts down with no error message, or else it blue-screens with the "driver stuck in an infinite loop" message. I've tried running TS2 (all ep's and stuff packs included), World of Warcraft and Horizons.
I'm at the end of my rope, here. The only thing left that I can think of is that the card runs too hot and my case isn't airy enough or big enough to keep it cool, or I have bad RAM.
The problem with the RAM theory is that when I put my old card back in, everything runs fine except for my sims2 problem with crashes and red flashing lots/white boxes sometimes in neighborhood view (which did not start until I installed Seasons and was why I bought the new card in the first place). It shouldn't be the power supply, because it's brand new and 450w, which is what is recommended (but advertised as not required) to run the card.
Does anyone have any suggestions? I have done everything I can think of except update my BIOS, because I'm terrified of doing that and destroying my computer, and the tech support for my system manufacturer said I shouldn't do it unless the bios is not recognizing hardware.
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!
kim:
I suggest you take it in and have a professional install it
kinneer:
Have you tried the dxdiag ? Go to the start menu. Select run and type dxdiag. This displays some diagnostic info and also runs some basic test. You could try that. Does this happens for all your games ?
Secondly, did the X300 use shared memory ? You could go into the bios and check the settings. Your PSU is more than sufficient.
Did you connect a power lead from the PSU to the graphics card ? Midrange and up graphics cards requiring external power supply will behave oddly if the external power is not connected. By external power supply I mean the molex connecter for the card. This should be connected to the PSU like a hard drive. The necessary cables should be supplied. Low end cards like the X300 draws their power from the PCIe slot. The X1650Pro may have an additional power connector.
Why did you have to reseat the RAM ?
Xylune:
I've done dxdiag. It happens with any game application I try to run, though some run for longer than others before the computer shuts off or bluescreens. I also tried disabling anti-aliasing in the Catalyst control center, because I've heard that sometimes it can cause problems. That didn't work, either.
I'm not sure about the shared memory. What would that be under in bios settings and what changes would I need to make if that is the case?
I didn't connect a power lead from the psu to the graphics card, I just inserted it into the slot as per the instructions. Molex connector? I'm really unfamiliar with that. The instructions just say to insert the card in the PCI express slot. It says nothing about connecting to an external power source, and I don't see a connection space on the card for such a thing. Here's what came with the card:
15 pin VGA connector for CRT monitor,
Dual-link DVI connector for Digital Flat Panel,
S-Video or Composite connector for TV/VCR
System specs:
NEC Computers International
Powermate series
Intel
Pentium 4 CPU 3.00 GHz
1 gig RAM
450w power supply
I reseated the RAM because I thought that might help...it was just one of the many things I tried just on the off-chance that it would solve the problem.
Thank you for responding. I'd really like to get this card working for me and I can't see why my system wouldn't support it. :(
kinneer:
A molex, I believe that is what they called, is a power connector. It is for connecting to the PSU for additional power. Similar to connecting an internal HD to the computer PSU. If you do not have one, then the card does not need one.
The shared memory setting can be found under the BIOS setting. For internal and low end graphics cards, some of the main memory is reserved for the graphic chips since they do not have any dedicated ram. You can change the almount to reserve, freeing more ram. You could have a look to see if there is setting there related to the PCIe.
If the games do run fine for a while, then it could be heat related, although that would seem unlikely. You migh try to look for something that would report the temperature on the card. The nVidia driver can do that so maybe ATI might have something similar.
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