Dies Irae,
Well I guess you will still have your problems I have gave you and all of this group the many possibilities why they are having so much trouble with nVIDIA and all lead into resolutions. Everything I have posted on this thread is well documented on the web. I wish you all the luck in the world and I hope you find your resolution. But as I stated this problem is a software/nVIDIA refresh rate problem I am not sticking up for VIA but if the software drivers were written correctly from Microsoft VIA would not have this problems. If nVIDIA would recognize there problems then all would be fine. Fact: when Microsoft writes an OS the Video Card used for beta testing and writing OS is ATI with Intel Processors and an Intel Chip Set. Except for XP Microsoft changed two things still used the ATI card but they used an AMP XP processor and the AMD Chip Set. Therefore if you buy and AMD XP with and AMD Chip Set On Your MOBO with an ATI Graphic Card Running Windows XP your system is perfect. Now try running Windows 2000, ME, 95, 98 now your system is not perfect. Have you beta tested DirectX 9.0? Fact: Is the beta version was written for ATI only? The New release is backward compatible with all so they say I disagree. If they were backward compatible then why after updating from 8.1 to 9.0 do a get nvdisp.drv is not digitally signed and it was in 8.1. So everything you have done with all these PC all lead back to................... Software/nVIDIA Refresh Rate. A+ Certified and a programmer for Seagate used to do a little contract work for Microsoft so I know for the most part how things were done with Windows 98 and 2000 and ME. Good Luck Dies Irae and All.

Well stated Kev.

Kevin, there is only so much you can do to try and help people, don't over extend yourself if some people won't take your advice.

Regarding my "Sync out of range" error, I was told by some sources that due to the fact that my MOBO is an AGP x4 (max), and my Nvidia GF4 Card is an AGP x8, that it would cause the sync error, is there any truth behind that theory?

Anyhow, I'm going to have my Gigabyte AMD Ahtlon MB exchanged for an MSI MB (same brand as my video card) and matching the AGP maximum to see if that helps. If not, I'm going to try replacing my monitor with something newer and see if that works.

If none of those options work, I'm going to see how many pieces my computer breaks into when I throw it from my Balcony.

Cheers.

Well Scott,
Here are the specs for your card and I do not see how this card would not work in your 4x AGP MOBO. It states that 2x,4x,8x is support therefore who ever told you that the 4x AGP is causing this is wrong and but maybe there is something wrong with your MOBO in general. Tell me what happens when you switch MOBO. I don't think nothing but I could be wrong. I really don't think it is your monitor. I think either the MOBO AGP Slot is bad or the Video Card is bad. This is a new card right? If so try to exchange it. Let me know.. Good Luck...............

Support Memory

128MB DDR SDRAM

Video Output Function

Video Output Function
TV-out (S-Video connector)
DVI Connector
Video_in (Supported by MSI Mini-extended connector)

Chipset Features

256-bit 3D and 2D graphics accelerator

Integrated second-generation Transform and Lighting engines

Supports AGP 2x/4x/8x interface

34million triangles per second setup engine with Z-cull and Z-clear

1.1billion texels per second and 540million pixel per second
fill rate

NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer with 24 of 26 DX8 pixel shading
functions and full set of OpenGL 1.3 pixel combiner operations

32-bit color with 32-bit z/stencil

Cube environment mapping

DirectX® and S3TC® texture compression

Digital Vibrance Control

Enhanced TwinView dual-display architecture supporting any
combination of notebook LCD, desktop VGA monitor, DVI display
or TV set

Dual CRTC/Simultaneous Dual Display(same or different surfaces)

Integrated dual LVDS Transmitter supporting LCD panels up to
2048x1536

Integrated 350 MHz Palette-DAC for analog VGA monitors up to
2048x1536

Integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder supporting resolutions up to
1024x768

Integrated TMDS transmitter for Digital Visual Interface support
with scaling and filtering for flat panels up to 1600x1200
DVD- and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080i ATSC
format

MPEG-2 hardware decode, including Inverse Discrete Cosine
Transform and Motion Compensation
Compatibility
Supports VIP1.1 interface

Supports Microsoft® DirectX® 8.0, 7.0, 6.0, and 5.0 (IDCT)

Fully compliant support for OpenGL 1.2 for all Windows operating
systems

Up to 8.8GB/second memory bandwidth

Up to 2.1GB/second AGP bus bandwidth

Supports 128-bit DDR, 64-bit DDR, and 32-bit DDR SDRAM

Supports super high resolution graphics modes

640x480 8/16/32 bit colors with 150Hz
800x600 8/16/32 bit colors with 150Hz
1024x768 8/16/32 bit colors with 120Hz
1152x864 8/16/32 bit colors with 120Hz
1280x1024 8/16/32 bit colors with 100Hz
1600x1200 8/16/32 bit colors with 85Hz
1920x1200 8/16/32 bit colors with 75Hz
2048x1536 8/16/32 bit colors with 60Hz

I'll let ya know. Thanks.

I got to disagree with u saying that it is microsoft, even thought microshaft gives me most of my problems aside from tryin many dif hardware configs i have also threw ti42008x in my linux box i didnt even have to run a game a few mins into me porting unreal tournoment the comp shut off same as it has been doin. the comp it turnbed of in is a soyo dragon kt400 1.7 amdi also put this card in my intel d485 board that only supports 4x agp and i can play games with out them crashing but they run real crappy

U guys make it sound like it happens to everyone who gets a new GeForce 4 card. well it doesnt. i have 2 successful machines (both VIA chipsets) one a pentium 3 and tho other a Athlon 2000+. so DONT make it sound like it happend to EVERYONE cuz' it doesnt

Hey why are u posting if u dont have problem. im tryint to find out what is goin on with all these cards, like everyone else. How man people's cards in here ae made by msi , and have they givin u any help at all becouse my card is made by theme and they are a bunch of worthless idiots

Ok the GeForce 4 problem doesn't happen on every system. I now have a Gigabyte board Athlon XP 2000+ VIA chipset and GeForce 4 card. The problem I had that started this forum hasn't been an issue with this board. I have read much on the subject and although I am not 100% on what the issue is I understand it to be this.

When GeForce4 video card interacts with different chipset there can be a voltage issue which doesn't allow the card to function properly. OS, firmware, drivers, and processor can all be contributers... the part that make it hard to troubleshoot is each system is unique and there for the actual cause may be different for each person.

Best suggestions:
-upgrade firmeware for both motherboard and video if available.
-you may have to experiment with video/chipset drivers
-try updating OS
-if you are lucky enough to have a motherboard or video card that offer tech support call them and ask them what fixes are available.

You may also look back through this forum and see previous posts by me. I tried to be very detailed in what I found... it might help.

Anyway Good Luck!

I have two systems...one Intel...one AMD.

Both are XP Athlon has SP1) both have VIA chipsets. Athlon has Directx 9...Intel has Directx 8.1. Athlon has an MSI GF3ti500...Intel has a plain Jane Visiontek GF3.

I crash to my desktop frequently when running 3D games. OpenGL apps work flawlessly. I have done a clean install of the OS on the Athlon (my main gaming rig) as well as installed latest VIA chipset drivers and latest nVidia Dets.I have moved down to lower nVidia drivers and also applied the test drivers from VIA.

Hello, I have am ASUSa7v133 mobo, and a geforce mx440 w/64mb DDR.
I was having similar problems that everyone was talking about here. My screen was freezing whenever I tried to play MOHAA, or any other game, and also when I tried playing an MPEG with windows media. I know it wasnt the motherboard because my voodoo, and ati rage cards worked flawlessly in this board. I was getting p**sed. These are the following steps I took. Disabled power management in BIOS.nothing. Disabled video rom bios shadow, nothing. Tried setting the adapter refresh setting to default,nothing. Changed arpeture size from 64 to 128, nothing. Then, finally, it was a miracle. I Changed apg from 4x to 1x in the bios, and voila! I was playing MOH without a hitch, no lockups. Thanks for everyone who posted hints in helping out, and I hope this helps others as well. Game on.

Similar GeForce 4 MX 440 Problem With Windows XP.

Athlon 1200mhz
Geforce 4 MX 440
DirectX 8.1 / 9.0
SiS Chipset

Installation of windows XP goes fine, And XP Works Fine Until I Install Either Graphics Card Driver. (Be That 3d Blaster geforce 4 mx 440, geforce 4 mx 440 detonator, or geforce 4 mx 440 driver from nvidia.com)

I tried :

- Installing SP1
- Using A Variety Of Different geforce 4 drivers
- Installing DirectX 9.0

Upon installation of A geforce driver, the system would hang completly requiring a reboot in just under 15 seconds. No 3d games wud work.
Using XP's VGA Mode, i can use the operating system, but only at 640x480. Any attempt to change resolution hangs the system.

After The System Had Hung Twice, A Majority Of Windows XP Files Became Corrupt, And I Was Lucky To Uninstall it?

Whats causing this problem? My card works just great under ME and 9.x, So why should XP Causes these badass problems?

Any ideas on how to fix the problem in my case?

Well I suggest you do is visit this site. http://www.guru3d.com. It contains loads of utils and drivers for your Nvidia cards and some nice utils to wipe clean previous installs so you can start from scratch. Just follow the instructions that come with the downloads. It has solved some of my issues. It's worth a look anyway.

Has anyone had any problems with the game Splinter Cell. I am getting the "Black Screen Looping Sound" crash with it. I recently solved this issue with my other games by purchasing an approved AMD PSU which solved the prob but doesn't with Splinter Cell :o(. If anyone knows anything about this I would be grateful of some advice. I have patched the game as well just in case you ask.

I've came into this thread yesterday and find the level of discourse at times disturbing. People have been shot down, insulted or just had the s**t beat out of them verbally for simply expressing an opinion contrary to others.

What's even worse is the advice provided to many people to solve their problem. If you go through the thread you'll notice that some people who upgraded to a GF 4 Ti have KT133 chipsets. Many mobos based on this chipset do not support the voltage of a GF4 Ti (or have trouble doing so) so obviously the minute you go into 3d the bloody thing is going to crash. The advice they are given is to screw with this or that driver or re-install this or that. This just wastes the poor guys time.

Others simply don't provide enough info to troubleshoot the problem but yet they are provided with advice on how to solve the problem. By way of example, I had one guy phone me after upgrading to a GF 4Ti from an old 16 meg ATI. The thing crashed endlessly. After going through step by step on what he did (after getting a detailed description of his computer) it was clear he did everything right with the install and there should not be any conflicts. So we went through the hardware step by step. It turns out that after a closer look inside to see if his heatsink was properly seated on the CPU he noticed his heatsink was clogged with dust. Obvoiusly his upgrade was producing more heat as now his CPU was working harder as he was now doing 3d acceleration (plus a GF4 produces more heat) in hardware instead of in software with the old ATI. He cleaned his heatsink and PSU and the problem was solved.

Another guy called me and it turns out he forgot to take the wax paper off the bottom of his heatsink.
Another one didn't realise that his Athlon board (old MSI with AMD chipset) had 2 power connectors (that one is rare) and had crash after crash after upgrading to a GF4. It ran on a GF2MX (but not very stable) without the second power connector but not a GF4 which sucks back more power. He plugged in the second power connector and everything is fine. Oversights and forgertfulness happens! Going through things step by step with another person can be very helpful.

My point is that without more info (meaning asking questions before providing advice) it is very difficult to isolate the problems that many people are experiencing.
It could be a PSU problem (defective, cheapo or underpowered)
it could be a heat problem (dust, defective fan, not enough air circulation etc)
it could be an upgrade at the same time to an SB live which has problems with the southbridge of the VIA chipset (can't remember the name but it was usually coupled with an AMD 761 northbridge)
it could be a bad stick of RAM or 2 sticks that don't work well together or the mobo doesn't support the size (many older mobos don't accept or run stable with 512mb sticks of RAM)
poor driver uninstalls or wrong drivers

The list goes on and on.

Providing advice in these forums should be about being helpful and not "lording it" over others or slamming people. Nor about providing advice in a vacuum. The bulk if not all of the problems posed in this thread could have been solved if people worked together and the right questions had been asked of the individual users.

What we saw instead is a lot of pontificating and damn Nvidia this, damn Nvidia that or damn chipset or damn Directx 8 or damn XP or re-install this (even to the point of advising to re-install Xp after changing videocards!) or that. What a load of nonsense.

That's my rant for the day.

Hi all I too have been having problems with AOM and my graphics card...

Followed the trouble shoot instructions that come with AOM...

In there it tells you how to find out what version of DirectX suits your Graphics Card...

This means that sometimes having the latest DirectX is not going to solve the problem...

What I did was downloaded software colled DirectX Eradicator at
http://www.freewebs.com/firecat/

uninstalled directx...

Then reinstalled the DirectX that came with my Graphics card...
Reinstalled my Graphics card Drivers and updated them to the most current version...

Ant to my luck it worked...AOM runs sweet...


Hope it helps you guys...You don't need to reformat hard drives or rinstall OS...just reinstall some drivers...


anyway...goodluck....

Hi all I too have been having problems with AOM and my graphics card...

Followed the trouble shoot instructions that come with AOM...

In there it tells you how to find out what version of DirectX suits your Graphics Card...

This means that sometimes having the latest DirectX is not going to solve the problem...

What I did was downloaded software colled DirectX Eradicator at
http://www.freewebs.com/firecat/

uninstalled directx...

Then reinstalled the DirectX that came with my Graphics card...
Reinstalled my Graphics card Drivers and updated them to the most current version...

Ant to my luck it worked...AOM runs sweet...


Hope it helps you guys...You don't need to reformat hard drives or rinstall OS...just reinstall some drivers...


anyway...goodluck....

I REPEAT: U guys make it sound like it happens to everyone who gets a new GeForce 4 card. well it doesnt. i have 2 successful machines (both VIA chipsets) one a Pentium 3 and tho other a Athlon 2000+. so DONT make it sound like it happend to EVERYONE cuz' it doesnt. if you are having trouble with a GF card, and have a VIA chipseted mothermoard, download these drivers http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/VIAHyperion4in1445v.exe

Let me tell u somthing!!!!!!!!!!

Have to agree with Brandon G. I've got both VIA and an Nvidia2 chipsets and the GF4s work fine. I've never encountered problems in upgrading or building for others except for a few people with KT133 mobos that don't seem to support the voltage of the GF4. ABIT kt133 boards seem to be the worst as I've come across them 3 times and they wouldn't run stabily with a GF4. The videocards are fine as they are presently running in other machines.

Hats off to Mr. Meaner for providing a solution that may help a number of people in this thread. Conceivably the problem some people are having is that their Directx drivers became corrupted. There is a handy diagnostic in Directx which will tell you if things are running properly, as well.
I would point out however, that when it comes to Directx drivers it isn't an issue of having the "right" version for your card. Sure a GF2 is a directx 7part (as is the GF4 MX) but I wouldn't install directx 7 and then play UT 2003 which is a Directx 8 game (you can still play it with a GF2 but you don't get the benefit of Directx 8 graphics). To make sure you have the right Directx just simply go with what your games want/need. Usually the most recent (except beta) is the preferred approach to Directx installation. If you have XP, it comes with Directx 8 so I wouldn't mess with it unless it becomes corrupted.

okay thought i'd add my two cents before this post goes away
my roommate bought a new pc, i guess about a fortnight ago
some key specs are:

MSI K7N2-L (nForce2 chipset)
WD 80GB (8MB cache)
1GB DDR 333 (non-ECC)
Chaintech GForce4TI 4200

as far as i can remember the OS install went smoothly and it would run fine as long as we didn't play 3D-games
but after EQ went on that was another story
it would do all kinds of bad stuff ( everything mentioned above)
after a lot a searching and failed attemps here's the solution that's working
at the moment

bios set to high performace for the AGP clock and DDR ram
S.M.A.R.T Disabled
AGP8x enabled
AGP Fastwrite enabled

now under start -> run -> dxdiag
confirm all's obkb

there was also advanced display setting that i changed from ?(i think it was best graphics) to blending

i found this videocard to be very temperature sensitive so i picked up and put in a used case fan *BLOWING OUT*
(i was doing some work near the back of the pc and my arm crossed the path of the exausting air and i thought 'wow that's warm' i put the palm of my hand to feel the air coming out...and EQ crashed)

BTW what also worked was having a standard room fan blowing in at the GPU
tomorrow i will swing by atic a pick up an intake
man seriously not looking forward to summer

Gook Luck