U change them in ur bios. Heres the settings i changed....

Auto (SPD) to Manual....

CAS Latency - 2.5 .... changed it to 2
RAS To CAS Delay - 3 .... changed it to 4
RAS Precharge - 2 .... changed it to 3
Cycle Time - 6 .... changed it to 7

dont use my figures tho.. everyones ram will usually react differently (because of its quality) so just try what i said and go back to single channel for the time being

and btw, if u do mess around with the settings and u cant boot up, u will have to reset the bios. i know its a pain in the butt, but thats just how it works

EDIT: yes i didnt have to keep trying different settings. the best way to get them is to go up a number on settings 2 ,3, and 4 ... that way ur 'laxing' the performance. If all is good, then try lowering setting 1

to all having problems, get latest drivers for the motherboard and graphics card, turn off VPU Recover, Disable WIndows Automatic Restart, Disable Error Reporting.

Hi Guys and gals,

Having only just purchased an XT and FarCry I too got all the problems mentioned in these listings. I'm pretty sure I have cured the crash problem in my case. I have three sticks of memory in my machine 2 X Samsung 256 DDR 400(3200) and a 512 unknown manufacturer (I think it's Elixir but can no longer tell because I fitted coolers). Upon removing the 512 I achieved two things i) It has slowed the computer an awful lot because I think the page file size is incorrect - a quick fix ii) I can know play games without crashing...yippee!!! I have just ordered a replacement stick that is approved by my mobo manufacturer. I have tried playing Deus Ex 2, Star Wars KOTOR (that didn't crash that much anyhow) and Farcry so far and everything is rosey.

XP2800 Bart
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
512M DDR 400 (2X256 Samsung) very soon to be 1G mixed between TwinMOS (1X 512 stick) and Samsung
SATA HD
Sapphire 256 9800XT

IRQ for the 9800 is shared with the PCI management only. Before reading this it was shared with about 7 other devices! I think when all is done and dusted I will need to do a reinstall but that's a small price.

I had a GF4 4600 before and that created problem for me too (I bought that within 6 months of it's release). ATi vs nVidia? Having used nVidia for a few years now and just trying ATi for the first (second if you count the 9800Pro) time I would say that on the visual quality side alone ATi is better. nVidia didn't like it when I pumped up the volume to max on the effects on a XP2600 but this Ati is eating Farcry on almost full spec! Once I have got rid of the stalling (due to the page file I hope) my system should be sorted.

Paul Evans, why not just do a complete Format to your main drive, then do a fresh install of Win XP. It may solve many problems. Just a suggestion. I also agree with ATI having better image quality.

'IRQ for the 9800 is shared with the PCI management only. Before reading this it was shared with about 7 other devices! I think when all is done and dusted I will need to do a reinstall but that's a small price.'

Yes SuperXP, I'll be doing a reinstall when the new memory arrives.

Cool, just trying to help.


Later Guys.

I HAVE GREAT NEWS (at least for me and maybe for some of you). I have had almost ever single problem that is listed on this thread. I tried ever single fix known to man and after endless attempts I finally got everything working perfectly. I now can play any game (including Far Cry) on maxed settings with agp 8x, aperature 256mb, fast write enabled etc. The key for me was installing the oldest set of via 4in1 drivers I could find on their website that work with XP. I think they're 4.43 and they worked like a charm! How exciting. I've tested several games like FC and SC: Pandora Tomorrow as well as 3DMark03. Everything is perfect. I have a Soyo Dragon running a Via KT600 chipset, so if you have the same or similar chipsets, then your problems may be solved. GL and post if it helps.

Cool, then I should install the Asus version of vid card drivers for my crappy GF4 Ti4200 8x.

Just letting everyone know that I have been struggling with the same problems everyone else has been having for months. All my 3D applications would crash to my desktop within 2-30 minutes without fail. I've gone through every reply in this forum and nothing worked saved for one post (can't remember who it was but you saved my sanity). As of yesterday I had hours of crash-free gaming sessions.
And let me tell you all that it had nothing to do with my motherboard, memory, voltage, BIOS or anything else hardware related. It had everything to do with how I installed Windows. Cause when I installed XP with all my components plugged into my machine, the problems started right at the source.

So basically what worked for me is, Format and reinstall Windows, without any piece of hardware except for your graphics card. Take everything else out, including your sound card, network card, etc. After a clean install, install any windows updates and then install the latest drivers for your graphics card and latest AGP driver for your motherboard (I'd recommend using the system restore feature if you're using XP, great way to systematically roll back if you encounter any errors along the way). Test out a game at this point. Sucks without sound but it shouldn't crash out.

Then put your sound card and anything else back in, one at a time (for good measure I used a different PCI slot for the sound card).

Happy Days! Hope this helps

Hello. I also own an Asus 9800 xt graphics card and already had my big share of problems related to that card. (still have some though).
I've been reading this thread and i can say that i had some of the problems here posted (games crashing, voltage errors, etc).
When i first tried the card, i tried it with the bundled drivers, clock and memory settings on default and all the default settings on smartdoctor. I tried some games and it was working fine. The problems started when i tried to upgrade the drivers to the newest (at that time). When i restarted after installing the drivers , my windows desktop was in 800x600 and 16 bit color ( the way it looks when there are no drivers instaled yet). I tried to re-instal the same drivers and even rollback to the older ones and it didn't worked. I managed to get that solved by manually installing the drivers. <<Problem Solved = New Problem>>

I tried some games again like Pro evolution soccer, Nfsu, Max Payne 2, Neverwinter Nights, and the games crashed after 1~5 minutes off play time. I turned off in smartdoctor the voltage warning and the fan speed warning. (for some time i thought it was a psu problem, because mine only has 300w power) Then i tried playing again , but it was the same thing: crash after 1~5 minutes, only this time the problem wasn't related to smartdoctor. I tried opening the side of the tower to let some air in and tried playing again. This solved the problem. At that moment i was sure that the problem was related with high temperature. I could play anytime i wanted with the computer open.

Now for the second (Big) problem

In most of the games i played there were these really tiny dots flashing on the edges of the polygons (artifacts). I thought my card was fried, but then i tried to lower down the gpu from the default (412) to 390~385, and it worked fine.
Finally i could enjoy some moments of pleasure with my newly achieved card. These problems are never exactlly the same for everyone, but i'm very sure that many of these issues are temperature related. Believe me. My opinion is that the boys at ATI could think that are some people that after spending 579€ on a graphics card, can't spend anymore money on proper cooling.. sorry.. on REALLY GOOD AND EXPENSIVE cooling, because proper cooling almost everyone has it.
Btw, My asus radeon 9800 xt is the one that the cooler is composed by two small fans. Could that be the reason why my card heats so much?
Well, somehow, i'm trying to raise some more money (it's hard when you live in a S*** country like Portugal) , but if i make it, i will buy a new tower with better cooling, and see if that solves my "overheating" problem. With the one i currently have i don't play anything with the gpu clock above 385 mhz and also turned to agp4x and turned fast write off. it seems to cool a little bit, but not enough.
A really good help is that if someone knows the temperature limits of this card. when i'm on the desktop the temperature is about 49~51 cº and when i play something a bit heavier it rises up to 59 degrees. (Creepy, huh?)
It would be great if anyone could tell me if my artifacting problem is really related to temperature or not, if not i know that i will have to trade my card for a new one. (i heard of some friends that in some cases artifacts apear due to high temperatures and these apear only in few places of the screen and with colours, but in most of the cases is due to malfunctioning pipelines -> these artifacts apear on the entire screen and not only in a few places)
Resuming :p

I cant rise the gpu speed more than 385 because of artifacting and high temperatures, i would like to know at least if anyone has had the same problem.

Thank you in advance for all the info you can provide.

[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]

ok some people are saying it's power supply problem so i'm going to buy a new one.
i'm getting the 500w one. i post what my result after i get the power supply.

I HAD PROBLEMS, NOW ITS FIXED.
The problem was with chipset 865PE , its incompatible with radeon 9800 xt.
I have changed to a board with 875P , and problem solved, runs easy and great image, played for hours, all good with me now.
And i have got 50.456 points in Aquamark3.

Peopel.. I have a solution that seem solid and works belive it or not I tried everything else on this board but there be something you don't know. This is what i did and what i did to fix it. I updated drivers, no help, up dated the agp, no help, i flashed my bios, no help, reinstalled windows, no help, directx, no help.

On to the bios, tried apeture settings 64-256... no help... tried agp fast write.. no help.. so i left it ON.... k then i decided this is ridiculous.. I pulled all the cards fans and drives off the power in my computer.. only my VIDEO CARD and HDD"S were left. NO HELP... so at this point im going it CANNOT be the power right. WRONG... i hooked a volt meter up to it and it said 12.22 volts.. im going why is not working then.

THE SOLUTION:.... im my other computer i ran the card and in full graphics it crashed.. in medium graphics it crashed... BUT THEN i go lets turn off AGP WRITE. in the SMARTGART (type that into RUN) program and restart the computer.. WHOLA no restart... Games ran fine. So im going thats s**t.. this computer works and mine don't but then i got to thinking.. What if the power on my computer is enough VOLTS but not enough WATTS.....

So i brought the other cmputer into my room and unhooked everything from its powersupply accept the motherboard which i needed as the swtich... i hooked its power supply straight to my video card... YES i did use 2 PSU's.. for this test... so i hit both power buttons and to my amazment.. it actually worked.. i booted into windows and cranked the grpahics... NO CRASH.... put the graphics on normal... NO CRASH......

SO..... needless to say i'll be purchasing a new powersupply.. mine was 460watts... bulls**t... so i would suggest to anyone get a 450-550Watt powersupply WITH a 12 VOLT(20 WATT) or higher rating per molex connector.

THis seemed to fix it.. i can adjust the settings i can do this and that. It was an underlying power issue that you wouldn't normally think of.


And th SMARTGART UTILITY in the system allows you to set AGP READ/WRITE... TURN THEM BOTH OFF...


That should be it.. thanks for you time and i hope this helps everyone. Please contact me for better understanding of the problem or more details..

_____________________________________

Tyan s2462 Dual Athlon MOBO
-(2) Athlon 2400 MP Processor(s)
-2 Gigabytes of 2100 DDR Kingston Ram
-Maxtor 160 GB (9) ATA133 Harddrive....
-Ibm 120GB ATA100 Harddrive
___ Cards ___
-Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum Pro 2
-Radeon 9800xt 256mb
-RocketRAID ATA133 Non-Raid (2) Port Card
-Buslink (4) Port USB (3) Port IEEE
___ Drives ___
-Liteon 52x CDR Burner
-Liteon 8x DVD Burner
-Liton 16x DVD Reader
___ Other ____
-(2) 120mm Vantec Stealth Fans
-(2) 80mm Vantec Stealth Fans
-(2) 80mm CPU Fans By Speeze
-Nexus Blue Knob 4 Fan Controller
-Digital Doc 5 With Light Modded to Blue From Orange

I forgot to mention I left my Fastwrite on in the bios.. Leave it off in the software under smartgart.. And once agian turn agp write/read off in the smartgart utility by using run and typing SMARTGART... simple as that.. further testing today showed enabled smartgarts read/write caused the restart.. agp fast write caused the restart... having neither on worked fine.. and the apeture settings... you can set that to anything from 64-256 if you want.. nothing nigher or lower or it will lockup on boot. At least for me that is as far as testing i can go.. I resolved it down to being not enough wattage in the power..

Im curious if anyone has tried running the fan that is mounted on the card on an external wire so that it doesn't use the cards power? That is the one thing i haven't tried but don't really want to mess with anymore because i think total over that last 2 weeks i've restarted my puter at least a good 100 times.... really its getting old.. i'd like to get compensation from ati for the effort.. i desrve it damnit.... peace

Contact me at thejester_82@hotmail.com

Personal quote: Today; I saved the world. Tomorrow; someone had better kiss my ass. LOL

Hello,

The only problem I've had with my system is the crash during gaming and 3D graphics applications and sound looping and then having to reboot. This would generally happen within the first 30 minutes of gaming. (very annoying as many of you know).

I followed James Miller's advice (see post above) and turned off my AGP read/write settings in SMARTGART.

My system has been stable since I did this, with no crashes at all.

The only down side is that I have seen a significant decrease in performance since doing this, especially in Hitman 2 (oddly enough, since it's not one of the most visually demanding games I use), which is quite jumpy and not at all smooth since I turned AGP read/write off.

I don't know what AGP read/write actually does, or what specific part of my system would be put under extra strain with it turned on ... would it be just my video card or would it be the chipset as well? Would having AGP read/write enabled require more power? ..would it create more heat? (just hypothesising here).

Anyway ... my system is stable for now - so thankyou to James Miller and everyone who offered advice, and to who ever started this thread.

Cheers.

By the way if anyone is interested my system is:

Athlon 64 3400+
ASUS K8V Deluxe SE
ASUS Radeon 9800xt 256
1GB Corsair XMS 3200 LL
Audigy 2 zx platinum pro
Liteon 8x dvd rw

(Fastwrite enabled in BIOS, 8x, appature 64, Smartdoctor not installed.)

U know though i found that out after stablizing the card that the agp read/write and the fast rigth actually dramatically effected my 3dmark03 scores... in fact i ran 5834 use agp write and fastwrite.... without i think i ran 5600... kinda p**ses me off cuz generals is more jumpy now.. i don't get it though why i should have to turn the graphics down to run my games. But like i said i'll try that new powersupply next week when i get it and maybe they they are also related to the power problem i am having. And i'll be contacting ati's customer support again to get more in depth on actually what smartgart is becuase if its causing problems they should find a way to fix it..

I've had the same problem... my pc freeze randomly with blue screen while in game (UT2004) and also while in windows using any program.
NO IRQ conflicts... fresh format with WinXP PRO...

My HW is...
ASUS P4S8X mother board
Sapphire 9800 XT 256MB
Rocket RAID card
512MB DDR
Two HD Maxtor 60GB (RAID 0)
CD/DVD
SONY DRU-530A
300W PSU

Well... after many and many checks to my system... i've found that the problem was my integrated sound card. So, i've disabled it via BIOS and all work perfectly.
Now i've a new SB Audigy sound card and ALL work without problems also with new Catalyst drivers!

So... before to change any hardware components... try disabling your integrated sound card or any other integrated device.

BYE ALL.

I have come across a similar problem with my ATI Radeon 9800xt 256MB, crashing in middle of games or simple day to day activities (for me its photoshop work), or even rebooting sporadically when idling. I tried all the same stuff many of you have tried to troubleshoot this and the only (seemingly) viable solution I came across, was to disable the AGP Fast Write feature.

I've read several reviews that Fast Write doesn't really make any lasting impact on functionality or speed. If this is true, then why if when it is enabled does the machine start crashing and/or rebooting the system? If the reviews I read were wrong please clarify the functionality behind Fast Write and the possible Performance impacts on the Radeon 9800XT.

System Specs:
ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe; Phoenix BIOS Rev. 1007 Final
AMD Athlon XP (Barton Core, I think) 2100+ @1733Mhz
1024MB Dual Channel DDR; 512x2 Kingston ValueRam PC2100 @266Mhz
ATI Radeon 9800XT 256MB; running Catalyst 4.4 (NEW)
70GB Maxtor DiamondMax 7200RPM
60GB Western Digital 7200RPM
Sony DVD/CD-RW 48x40x40

My friend's 9800SE will force reboots in the strangest places --- Adobe photoshop, PainshopPro, and not surprisingly AA (it's based on UnrealWarfare, a very glitchy game engine). We've tried new BIOS, new drivers, better cooling, new RAM, NOTHING helps. His board uses NF2. Our solution? We're done with mixing nVidia and ATI. When people want ATI we give them VIA. When people want nVidia we give them NF2.