why don't you read up a few reply's.. .my fix works.. turn of the smartgart's utility agp read/write.. either or and try that.. and don't use fast write... if it doesn't crash after trying between those 2 well thats great.. if it does crash still you don't have enough power... see if you are able to adjust the agp port power up a notch or too.. if you can't you need about a 450-550 watt powersupply with at least 19-24 watts per connector... drivers don't help.. and ram has no effect on the problem.. the forum is there read up and you wouldn't have had to post that... i think 30 people said what you already said before. - James

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If people could only learn to read... then maybe; just maybe, they wouldn't need to write...

I did read your topic and found it very informative. I was the first one to reply to it. The problem is, it didn't really help.

Hey there James,

I have done some thinking, but I don't think it is the power supply that is causing the VPU Recovers and crashes, by a short of power. A computer doesn't takes that much energy at all and I think it would be a HUGE mistake of ATI if it would appear that a lot of people must buy a new power supply because the power to the card is not enough that it needs... Please send me some information about your theory or someone else who has, so I can see for myself that you guys are right, so please give me some evidence to your theory I for example can see myself...

Greetz, Sparkle Yax

Note: It is NOT my intention to crack your theory or say to everyone that it is stupid and false...also nothing personnally offcourse...

For all who have Radeon 9800 XT crash problems... try to disable, one by one, all the integrated peripherals... first of all the integrated sound.
Doing so i've solved all my probs.

they thoery.. i did prove it.. I ran a completely serparate power supply to just my video card.. turn it on first.. then turned my computer on and it never crashed.. at least with fastwrite and agp read and write turned off.

Hey James,

Did you also tried the power supply trick with AGP Read/Write on with your new powersupply?? And did you tried your old power supply on your Videocard with AGP Read/Write off??

Thank You, Sparkle Yax

Actually yeah if you read any of my posts you'd see i posted that as a fix when you get enough power.. And no my new power supply wasn't compatible with my motherboard. So i had to send it back and get robbed on it.

Did you get an answer of the ati costumer support, yet?
it seems, that your solution works for me, too, but the performance decrease is inacceptable oO

OK honostly this is a massive thread, so dont flame me because i DID NOT read the whole thread and i dont know if my problem has been adressed.

IM running a ASUS 9800XT like explained by the thread originator. But my problem isnt the same.

For Example

Painkiller: (ill admit i downloading it off newsgroups, but im still going to buy the game): Using Daemon Tools CDROM, i load the game (all cracks installed) ill run the game, no HUD or weapons pop up, i can look around but no movement. so hit ESC, game freezes. oh well, hit alt+tab, my monitor enables power save for about 10 seconds (vid card goes off i imagine) and it comes back, with brown lines scaling vertacally on my screen, it eventually gets worse and worse as i drag windows across and i must reboot. i uninstalled the game and that was that.

Farcry(once again, downloaded): Using Daemon tools DVD, Same thing only i get to play the agme for about 6 minutes, freezes,. i alt tab, power saving enabled for 10 seconds, come back nothing but blue and white garbage, i can see some movement when i move around mouse, but it was impossible to make out anyuthing, so i shut down the computer by hitting the power button. (took a good 10 minutes).

BF1942 (high video settings, graphics intense/high cpu dependence) Retail, NO-CD Crack: 0 Problems at all, occasional freeze after hours of gameplay, not concerned, happens to every1 once and awhile. Not a video card problem.

now, i had HyperDrive CPU mode enabled ASUS's overclocking tool. i tried something new with some drivers so ill update you on that progress.

Im also gonna pick up farcry and painkiller retail once im done paying off latest upgrade. and see if they work.


Im also goign to add this post to a new thread.

The problem may be the downloaded version. Try looking for some game patches.

i was wrong
even without fastwrite and agp read/write my pc keeps rebooting when there's too much usage of 3d-acceleration
i dunno how to fix it and even don't know where the problem lies >_<

Hi, I've managed to find a solution for my 9600, for similar problems, and it worked for a friend with a 9800(nonpro/nonxt) too. So I post here again what i posted on the "9600 hangs freeze" thread. I hope it works. Please let me know.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLEASE TRY THIS, IT SOLVED MY PROBLEMS :

I had the same problem as everyone here : hanging of games, infinte loop, games freezing when moving mouse etc. Till now i used to set AGP WRITE = OFF with the smartgart, to play. But some games used to crash the same, after few minutes. But i've found my personal REAL solution.

I formatted, installed xp, installed the standard 3.5 catalysts i got with the card, then i installed directx 9.0 (xp installs them via automatic update it seems, or you can get them from some game cd).

It's important : directx 9.0 , NOT 9a NOR 9b.

Fastwrites are set OFF on the bios. They are almost useless and can cause problems with this stupid radeon.

Everything works fine now. Some games say they need dx9a/b, but they work with 9.0 too (like FarCry : i just miss some dump mapping on the sea, and few other minor things ... but at least i can play it).

I discovered my problem was with directx 9a and 9b. I did every test about it. I tried everything on this thread. It seems my card doesnt like the dx9a/b. I have spent months with this s**tty problem, in games like Neverwinter Nights, Republic, Far Cary, Painkiller, and even older ones like Serious Sam 2 (in d3d mode) and others. Now they all work like a dream. I never had troubles with opengl games.

I wont update my directx till i get a serious card, not this s**t of Ati. They refused to give me help about it, and so did Sapphire. I just got stupid mails saying "try to install newer drivers".

I will get an Nvidia again, as soon as I can afford one. And all the people i know changed to nvidia too. ATI's are just full of hot air.

My system:
msi k7n2g-l
1gb dual channel ddr
sapphire atlantis 9600 pro 128mb
winxp home + sp1
directx 9.0
catalysts 3.5


I do hope it fixes your troubles too. Let me know, i want to see if i have found the big deal.
..............................................................

I think that in-game Radeon crashes is not a problem of ATI drivers but of the Games Company that do not coding correctly their game. ATI patch the catalyst drivers trying to solve this game-bugs.
Sometimes crashes can be caused by some hardware drivers that do not support correctly the new directX features.
Rather can be a heat problem.
Anyway i do not think that crashes can be caused by insufficient PSU. May be by some very old PSU or malfunctioning PSU or by some very old mo-bo... but is a very very rather cases.
So... i can say that all the Radeon's problems are from Games (try some future patch) and/or hardware or hardware drivers problems (try to disable/replace the hardware or to update drivers).
So... i can finally exclude any ATI card hardware problems.

I can say this because i've seen many Radeon problems in my area and all this probs are caused not by ATI drivers... sometimes was a Radeon card problems solved with a new Radeon card (substituted)... sometimes was an old-hardware problem, solved with a new hd component (usually a new generation mo-bo card or a new sound card).

Think about this before replace your Radeon.

*I've Changed my message as it's not too productive*

Disappointed customer, yes. Your fault Neutral? no.

** Changed because anymore needed **

My fault? ...not for sure

i figured, that all my problems sound like a heat problem with my radeon card. so i ordered a card-cooler, hopefully it'll solve my problems

allright first off about 3 messages up .. you can f**k off.. its not the game companies and there poor coding since 99 percent of all the 9800 cards don't work work.. And don't think you know what your talking about cuz you don't. Its incompatibily with new hardware and old, mainly its the agp voltage and ati's drivers. My mobo manufacture TYAN told me there waiting for results back from ati as to what is cuasing there issues with the restarting of the card. I had asked tyan if i could manually adjust the power of my agp slot and they didn't recomment it yet and too just wait. And by manual i mean sodder a wire or 2 with a resistor on it. So i don't wanna hear any more crap about game companies being at fault because i can be sitting in windows and the muther f**ker restarts. So yeah shut the f**k up.

and yes psu fixes some peoples problems
yes fans can fix some peoples problems
yes adjusting graphics settings can fix peoples problebs
yes upping the power on the agp fixes some peoples problems
and yes hardware shifting changes around stuff too

the biggest thing is the power be it the agp slot or the psu and the way the motherboard handles it.. Some motherboards can suck power directly from the psu others are pretty much leveled out so some people it works for some it don't. As i don't have overclocking options so i cannot run a different' voltage and have voteda against the psu for the time being. Although i did have success running a compeletely second psu to just the video card and it ran stable. But i still had to turn down my graphics so it was a pointless effort. It is the power, and it is ati's drivers. I have talked to my mobo company so many times, offered advice, they've offered advice, i've call ati, they wen't holly s**t after i told them what i did, and didn't get anywhere. You all should just wait a little while longer. There is a fix, as painfull as it is to have this problem just wait a little while longer. But if they don't fix this s**t in like a month i personally am posting the card back on eBay and am buying a 9800 pro 256 or my old 9700 pro 128. Never had a crash problem.

So... is not a PSU problem but a mo-bo problem that are not so compatible with some new hardware like some Radeon card and not capable to provide a stable AGP voltage.
But... this mean... is not an ATI problems or drivers problems.

Have you seen my PC configuration posted some post ago? All run perfectly with a 300W PSU. But some continue to say that is not a sufficient power! LOL!!!!
So... again... may be some PSU do not run correctly... but how many people have a bad PSU? ...0,1% of cases!

Heat problems? May be... i do not know all Radeon models... but, i'm sure that video cards fun and diss is not randomly dimensioned. May be some fun problems. If so... check out your fun because many Radeons in the past have had fun probs and i'm one of this people... my shop have replaced my Radeon 9700 Pro with a best 9800XT at no cost.

Adjusting graphics setting? May work, but is not the definitive solution... can be only a workaround to some other probs. (game probs, other hw probs or a bad ATI card).

Upping the power on the your agp? At your own risk . Anyway... this is only another workaroud for some time and, again, not a definitive solution!

Drivers? ...may be some conflicts with other drivers so... why the probs cannot be originated by other hw drivers instead of Catalyst one? I was one of the people that initially have shoot on the new Catalyst drivers. In fact all work correctly after reinstalled my old Catalyst found in the original Radeon CD of my Sapphire 9800XT 256MB.... all work correctly for some time... then... the problem has raised again.
So... shifting back to some old driver version can only be another workaround but not a definitive solution!

All this word to say that many and many problems with new Radeon cards is only originated out of the Radeon card. May be in some driver conflicts or some software problems... may be in some incompatible or old hw... or caused by some (rather) bad hw.

So... first of all... test your video card with some other PC configuration using the same game/application and only if this test go bad you can return your video card to your shop.
But... unfortunatly for all who say that new Radeon cards/Catalyst Drivers are sh**, i can only say that ~87% of Radeon's probs are originated only on the PC of the customer or on all PC with the "same config".

Anyway... for me the discussion is closed here because i do not have other to say.
Who want to think about all of this... good. Who want not... go buy NVidia (asd -_-).

My issues arent nearly as bad as everyone elses.

I have fastwrite and read on, and i just some minor problems, does turning them off effect performance at all?

I'm not too picky on that, its a 9800xt.

I downloaded the Enhanced Drivers from ASUS, turned on hyperdrive 3d mode (tweaks GPU/RAM when playing 3d games)

oh yeah the mobo is brand new, and i got a 550W PSU, i dont know who makes it, but i got lots of led fans, cathode, 2 HDD's, yeah.

No problems so far, i tried:
C&C:Genrals: long play, no problems.
BF1942: No poblems
CS: No problems
and NFSU im installing after im done posting this reply
same with Call of Duty.
im still looking for farcry cd 3 and 4