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display crash...

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by Vastatio, Jun 16, 2004.

  1. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    p4 2.6(800)
    512Mo RAM
    Ati 8500LE 128Mo (latest catalyst)
    Mobo Asus p4p800 deluxe
    Viewsonic E771 17"
    WinXP sp1

    ok...first time the whole thing went down is while i was playing Star wars KotoR, when entering start up menu. Everything froze while vertical lines appear on screen...sometimes very thin...sometimes 1/2 inch thick. So as theres only vertical lines onscreen, sound start skipping and after a couple seconds, monitor is shutting down(green light is going orange). Ctrl-alt-del is doing nothing...and pressing numlock doesnt affect the numlock light... ;) So im pressing reset, scandisk, and im back to the starting point. Windows sometimes tells me about a display error with ati*.dll after reboot. I reinstalled the game several times without results, except i was once able to play a couple hours before crashing...most of the crashes now happen in level transition. This exact crash happened today for the 1st time while surfing the net...by clicking on a link...So i guess the game is not in cause. Few weeks ago i augmented my monitor refresh rate to 85hrz without any problem, and lowered it back to 60 today for testing purpose without any positive results. After these crashes began, i formatted, so its now a new installation of windows.

    is my video card scrapped? or AGP slot? or monitor? has anyone ever heard of similar crashes?

    thank you
     
  2. The_OGS

    The_OGS Active member

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    85 Hz should be OK, I think you should check out your Radeon for good cooling fan / ventilation. Is it cooking? What about settings, are you running 1024x768 32bpp 4xAA 8xAniso, really workin' it hard?
    Check your AGP setup in BIOS, disable video ram shadowing, 128MB AGP window, USWC enabled.
    Reinstall DirectX 9.0b AFTER you install your game and reboot.
    I don't think it's your monitor - it's probably video heat or settings.
    Regards
     
  3. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    i cleaned a lot of dust from GPU, CPU, and PSU cooling systems. Updated my BIOS, updated chipset drivers, disabled Q-Fan setting in BIOS (that thing was slowing down the fan when temperature was cooling). I didnt see any AGP settings in BIOS except for video adapter priority (AGP/PCI). By the way, what is exactly the graphic aperture size setting in BIOS (default 64mb)? Well, i just tried KotoR again and it didnt crash...yet. Let's see if it will stay stable, but for now everything seems ok. Please tell me more about "video ram shadowing", "128mb AGP window", and "USWC". I never heard of these settings. And what can you set in BIOS regarding AGP? (besides adapter priority...)

    thk you so much
     
  4. The_OGS

    The_OGS Active member

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    Yes graphic aperture size not 'AGP window' (it was late! & you knew what I meant) I just thought that with 512MB/128MB that 128MB would be appropriate for you.
    Well these few things are about all you can set in BIOS regarding video; Aperture size, AGP mode, AGP drive strength, AGP performance control, AGP fast write, AGP sideband addressing, and Video Memory Cache Mode: UC (uncacheable) vs. USWC (uncacheable, speculative write combining) supported with newer vid cards, will improve display speed by caching display data.
    Wow! Reinstalled your Windows eh? You musta been pissed off...
     
  5. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    yea kinda ;) i wanted to start on solid software bases for troubleshoot...and im still stuck in the ol' "Win98/ME" mood, where i could pop a format outta my pocket every 2 weeks...hehe;)
     
  6. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    Not sure here but is the 8500LE enough to run KOTOR properly? :)
     
  7. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    well...i run it in 800x600@85Hz, High texture, AA off, Aniso off, V-sync on, Grass on and shadows off. It runs pretty smoothly to my opinion. I played about 40 hours of KotoR before the 1st crashed happened. Heat issue seems like a very plausible cause. It meets the required settings but it recommends a radeon 9200..(that is not "really" better than a 8500 in todays game.) Thats probably why they discontinued it after launching the 9000-9200, as it was as good and cheaper. They kept the 7200 on market for basic graphic processing.

    Its probably workin pretty hard though...but still doin the job at moderate settings. Im not even thinking about Far Cry though... ;) im waiting for halflife 2 to invest in graphics, so im still sticking with this good ol' 8500... ;)
     
  8. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    Im not so sure ... the thing about the older cards is that you can run them and run them and run them and they dont get too horribly hot (which is why some dont even have fans) ... still... something worth looking into
     
  9. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    As its not crashing anymore, and did crash every single time i ran the game in the past few days, the solution lies somewhere in these actions. Crashes began to happen after 40hours of KotoR, without any changes to anything on the system. One thing i forgot to mention is that the 1st time a major crash like this occured, the game stayed open for a couple hours without anyone touching it. (had some visitors and forgot about it...) When i came back, everything looked normal, but when i tried to close it, it crashed, and again and again... Another fact is that it happened one time outta the game, while browsing internet...which exclude the game as the only cause.
     
  10. The_OGS

    The_OGS Active member

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    I love a happy ending ;>
    Video-lockups are rare (and should stay that way...)
    Guys will laugh but, when I fired up the FarCry demo I thought it ran good, it looked awesome, very tropical colours; nice.
    Then after reboot I saw I was exploring islands @ 640x480x16 hehe:)
    It gets better! he shouted to no one in particular...
     
  11. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    COuld be the dust factor but i suspect it's the QFan thingy... designed for people who love quiet towers, it's the bane of heat removal ;-)
     
  12. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    ok bad news...crashed again today, after an hour or 2 of KotoR. Things are getting worse : while scandisk was running after reboot, display was still kinda corrupted(white dots thingy). I ran Asus PC Probe right after this and found out that one of the voltage values was "out of threshold". I have 4 different voltage, usually 12v(11.855), 5v(4.972), 3.3v(3.104), and Vcore(1.552v). The 3.3v was at 2.9, and was in red, as it gives me an alert when threshold exceeds 10%. After another reboot, it was back to normal at 3.104v.
    Can that cause the display crash?
    What is this 3.3V for? specificly for graphic adapter?
    My video card is compatible with AGP 2.0 compliant-AGP 2x (3.3v), AGP 4x (1.5v) or AGP 2x/4x universal slot. In the ATI control panel, into SmartGart, it is set to AGP4x. So is it running on 1.5v because of that?

    end of my PSU?

    thank you for your help
     
  13. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    crashing again every time i get into the game...
    i let pc probe run in back ground while running the game, recording history, and everything looked normal before the crash...
     
  14. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    Try a different PSU (or that PSU on a different comp?)
     
  15. Vastatio

    Vastatio Member

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    i installed 3dmark2001se right after the game crashed, and benchmark crashed at first test...(mobo temp: 50°C, CPU temp: 45°C, 3.3v at 2.9v(PcProbe alarm at 2.9)). i opened the case, cleaned some more dust everywhere, quickly verified every connections, and restarded the system. (Mobo temp: 28°C, cpu 35°C, 3.3v at 3.232v) everything went back to normal, 3Dmark ran for a couple hours in looping, mobo temp stabilized at 45°C, 3.3v stayed at 3.232...no more problem...things are pretty weird in here...

    could it be a bad connection to mobo that made it heat, and crash video card?

    seems like everytime mobo temp goes down, 3.3v goes back to normal and no more crashes...
     
  16. Impkeeper

    Impkeeper Member

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    Vastatio i have same problem and alsow have a Asus P4P800

    my name is Bjorn and i'm from denmark, got same prob

    my compleat set is

    -------------
    P4 2.0Ghz CPU (( old but still ))
    1024ddr Ram (( old but still ))
    Asus V9980 Ultra Fx 5950 Ultra 256mb DDR grafik ram
    MB Asus P4P800
    belinea 17" Screen
    WinXP Prof updated by Internet to SP1
    and a Tower with a cooler in the side for exter cooling.....
    -------------

    i have same problems with my computer its been at repair shop ever sinse i got it more or less i had it 2 weeks befor it crashed compleatly

    it did the same as yours did when i was serfing the internet or just playing a game... then suttenly the screen turned Black even befor it loaded Bios wayyy out at the startup..

    and from time to time it wrights OverClock Failor when it did turn on

    anyway after it went blank i send it down thay worked on it 2 weeks or so :)... i got it up and it appeared to work "for a time"...

    from Monday to Friday night 2am.. then i shut it off and waited til next day to turn it on.. then the screen was blank again.. i took it down monday first thing in the morning and the the DAM thing worked again befor my werry eye's..

    i told em to try and check it out for a day went down there again at closeing time... and it still worked... then i asked em to change the Motherbord sinse it was only thing thay havent tryed :(..

    thay are still working at....

    it may be a Deluxe Motherbord and may not be Reseat only says MB P4P800

    i think its a problem with P4P800 :(
     
  17. GrandpaBW

    GrandpaBW Active member

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    It may not be totally a video card issue.

    I don't know what brand of memory that you have in your computers. I have Corsair in mine, and I could not let the default settings in the BIOS control it. I know my Corsair is touchy, so I had to change some settings in my BIOS. One was the DDR reference voltage.

    Others included the changing the DRAM Timing to manual and then changing the values for CAS, RAS, RAS to CAS, Precharge and Burst Length.

    I do not overclock, but the settings that I changed, I changed to the recommended settings on the Corsair webite for my RAM. They differed greatly from the default settings in the BIOS, and my computer has been stable since I did it.

    I would check the website of the manufacturer of your RAM to see if they recommend anything different that what the default settings are.
    _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Bruce Wallace
    Vietnam Vet - 1970 - 1971

    3.06 Ghz Intel P4 CPU
    Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard
    1Gig Corsair 3200 LLPro DDR Ram
    Plextor PX 708A DVD Burner
    Sony CRX320E DVD 16x + CD-RW 52x24x52 Combo
    ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Video Card
    Audigy2 Platinum[/small]
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2004
  18. Impkeeper

    Impkeeper Member

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    forgot to say
    and like you, i tryed to format too but without any luck :(.. it still crash's,
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2004
  19. Impkeeper

    Impkeeper Member

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    tryed putting my mothers brand new Ram in and it still crashed :((... soo i returned her ram to her... but i dont see how it could be a ram problem anyhow ? :(.. it dont even get to check the ram nor the Bios, noone in the word would be abel to get into a bios where the screan is Black, and it dont give the standart Start Sounds from the PC Speaker :(
     

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