Hey guys, been following this thread since my purchase of a new MB and Proc, and I think I may have a somewhat unique situation

System specs:
480w Power supply
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton 333Mhz)
Asus A7V8X-X (BIG mistake apparently)
Kreton 512MB DDR400
Sapphire 9600 PRO
SB Live VALUE

ok, when I first installed everything together, I could not get the machine to stay running longer than about 10-15 seconds...and I don't mean running windows, I couldn't even get Windows to install without some sort of critical failure!! I was getting all kinds of crap, even freezeups while messing with the BIOS. Heres what I have tried:

Adjusted a few bios settings (haven't messed with AGP voltage or turning fastwrites on) and it is NOT overclocked
updated BIOS on MB to latest
swapped out MB for a new one - same issue
swapped out memory for a new one - same issue
swapped out vid card for an FX5200 - DING I can install Windows, but playing 3D games locks up (blue screen mostly) after a few minutes (I've tried Mechwarrior 4 and Horizons)
tried to swap the 9600 PRO back in after Windows is installed - wont boot without a critical error.

THe FX5200 issue I could probably figure out with some driver tweaking, but its my other computers card and I dont want to use it...I want my 9600 PRO to work properly! Has anyone seen this sort of issue before, locking up before it can even try to load drivers?

What driver version are you using?
I can not use any thing other that Cat 3.8 or windoze locks, reboots, crashes, so try that one.
When you load a new driver make sure you uninstall every trace of the old driver. Use ATIs uninstaller, clean out recycle bin, registry and every thing else you can think of.
There's a good driver cleaner here http://www.driverheaven.net/cleaner/ which will even clean out your driver.cab and sp1.cab.
Don't ask me why windoze crashes i'm still trying to figure that out.

In response to Sam Malone,

You should try tweaking your BIOS settings before swapping out hardware like memory and mobo and video card. Dont' start yanking hardware unless you know for sure it is faulty. Test your memory with memtest (http://www.memtest86.com) before pulling it. Use a bootable cd or run it from windows if you can get that far. Personally, I would go with brand name memory instead of off-brand Kreton, but that doesn't necessarily mean your memory is faulty. Generally speaking though, Asus mobos like quality memory so i would say your "big mistake" was the kreton memory not the asus mobo. Plus if your mobo worked fine before adding a new video card, then you it shouldn't be the mobo. Also why haven't you tried the AGP voltage? Your problem sounds like a lack of voltage--the same thing happened to me when i first tried to put my system together. You should bump it up to 1.6v from the default of 1.5v. The extra voltage adds stability. You are going to need to have the fx5200 in there while you boot up and enter the BIOS. Then increase voltage to 1.6v, save settings in BIOS, turn-off and swap out the fx5200 for the 9600pro. Enter the BIOS again to make sure the voltage has been upped. See if that helps. If not go back into BIOS and try other settings like the AGP fastwrite. Everyone's solution is slightly different so you have to keep tweaking. Good luck.

-ryan

abit ai7
p4 2.8c @ 3.2
1gb geil golden dragon pc3500 ddr433 @ ddr466 (2.5,3,3,7)
ati radeon 9600pro (486/324)

im definitely going to try the AGP voltage thing, but I'm not sure I can even change it in my BIOS.

As far as not swapping stuff out, this is an entirely new system except the video card. The MB, Processor, and memory is all new and the card was in my old Athlon 1Ghz system (running fine BTW). I did run memtest overnight, it was fine so I don't think the memory is the issue (and the rather unhelpful Asus tech confirmed that theres no mem list for this MB so it shouldn't matter). I DO know I can NOT change the AGP 8X setting at all in the BIOS so I can't turn it down to 4X.

After doing a lot of research it looks like just about everyone that has purchased this MB has had serious problems with this card. A few have noted they were never able to get it to work properly and had to RMA the MB and get a different brand. Gonna play with it some more tonight, if that doesn't work I'm just gonna say p**s on it and give it back.

Hi I have a problem with my 9600 XT, have been trying to fix it for 3 weeks now, this is a replacement for a ti4200 that went wrong twice.... I am amazed at the inability of hardware companies to deliver a working product, my time is valuable and I begrudge the 30 or so hours I have put into trying to make it work...
Anyway now I got that out of my system, my problem... my computer crashes to desktop or restarts when playing most games (Medieval Total War most noticeably can play for 15 secs or so) with the error in application events:

The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /auxsource=flag to retrieve this description.

I have tried swapping my memory and making my board none dual memory, changing form 4x to 8x in display details and bios, changed all services around using black viper configurations, increasing and decreasing AGP aperture, increasing and decreasing voltage to AGP, modifying fastwrites, decreasing and increasing detail setting in catalyst drivers, changing memory setting in bios for main memory and a few other things relationg to audio, motherboard and graphics.

Prizes for anyone that can come up with a working solution!!!

specs:

Athlon XP2.2
GeCube 9600XTG
Chaintech 7njl1 Nforce 2
2 sticks of 3200 DDR 256
XP Pro with SP
Directx9 (have tried directx9.0b)

Go to display propereties, find VPU recovery - turn it off - try game that crashes in the 15 sec of gaming or so....

If NO driver works for you then i would try raising the AGP Voltage A LITTLE. Cuz im guessing its just like the CPU vcore voltage... if you raise it, youll add a lot of extra heat but it will make it more stable. Not sure if videocards work the same as CPU's.

f**k this.

After fixing the software, my card has hardware problems.

Returning within the next week.

ATI never again.

Good luck with this peice of s**t. Andrew.

Hey Guys,

Just to let you know that thanks to the posts of loads of people on these forums, I've now fixed my 9600xt Freeze problems. Thanks for the help!

All my info is recorded in this thread,

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/20686/

Daniel.

Go to display propereties, find VPU recovery - turn it off - try game that crashes in the 15 sec of gaming or so....

it worked, so far so good !! the prize could be going to you if it holds up for the next 24 hours thanks for the suggestion bud, I thought I had tried that but must of overlooked it - thanks - this forum rocks!!!

Damn. thanks for the suggestion but its back and worse than ever, still crashing to desktop with the error:

The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /auxsource=flag to retrieve this description.

I have tried disabling VPU recover and raising AGP voltage to 1.7...and all other fixes I mentioned in my prevous post.

Anyone else got any suggestions??

Hey BF,

Did you try altering your CAS setting's in BIOS? My PC has been much better since I changed the setting from automatic (probobly 2) to 2.5.

Daniel.

Hello,
I have the same problem as everybody on this topic. But first i want to know something. I bought a Powercolor Radeon 9600 Pro 256mb. At least this is what is saying in the box. But the memory of the board are Samsung 5.0 (200mhz). Is it possible that this board of mine is a Non-Pro board ? Can somebody help identify if it is a Non-Pro or a Pro Radeon 9600 ?
Thanks !

In response to Big Bang,

Yeah, the Powercooler version is labeled as a 9600pro, but it only has 400mhz effective (200ddr) RAM while most other 9600pro's have 600mhz effective (300ddr). You want one with at least 3.3ns RAM. By the way, the samsung 3.3ns overclocks better than the infineon 3.3ns. There are even some 9600pros out there with 2.83ns RAM, but i have only seen it on an FIC card. I would RMA if at all possible.

hey bf - have you tried a different psu? what's the volts/amps on the one you've got?

Hey BF,

Did you try altering your CAS setting's in BIOS? My PC has been much better since I changed the setting from automatic (probobly 2) to 2.5.

Daniel.

Thanks Dan but I have my CAS at 2.5 already and have even tried it at 3.

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hey bf - have you tried a different psu? what's the volts/amps on the one you've got?

MY PSU is 300, it has worked fine with this card on other graphics intensive applications so dont think it is this.


I am fortunate enough to have another GeCube 9600XT but a slightly lower model, I will test this for the next couple of hours and see if it works ok, if it does I guess that means it is the card. ITs strange with my present card if I reinstall drivers it will work then when I play the game again it will start crashing again. Its quite a strange error message in events too but I have a feeling that error message is nothing to do with the actual problem, maybe just the result of my hardaware or even crap software. I am determind to get to the bottom of this...

Any suggestions appreciated, and thanks you guys.

Hey BF,

What are the 12 and 5 volt rails at on your 300w psu? Give us exact system specs like number of harddrives, number of fans, optical drives, etc.. I saw this from your last post... but we need more info.

Athlon XP2.2
GeCube 9600XTG
Chaintech 7njl1 Nforce 2
2 sticks of 3200 DDR 256
XP Pro with SP
Directx9 (have tried directx9.0b)

A good psu is one of the most over-looked pieces of hardware. I think you are probably pushing that 300w to the max, especially if you are overclocking at all. Might want to upgrade to at least a 400w. The funny thing is that not all psu's perform the same even if they are rated the same. Check out this article on psu ratings.....

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/index.html

Anyway, give us more system details and i can tell you for sure whether or not your psu is hurting from the stress of too many components.

i asked for volts/amps not wattage. fwiw - 300W sucks

Ok, in addition I got 1 HD 40 gig, 1 CDrom, 1CDRW, 1 case fan, 1 MB fan, 56k modem, 512 mb of ram, onboard audio, 1 floppy DD

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/power_supplies-05.h...0060gre_pf

this is a link to the same detail of my PSU except yellow is 15A

I went to a site not long ago and checked my psu against consumption and I figured out that I was ok what do you guys think, maybe I should try disconnecting an optical drive ??

I have just disconnected my case fan, my floppy and my CDRW but the error still occurred, have checked and nothing is overheating.

Have not got a clue, it seems to work for a short while if I uninstall then re-install drivers... not sure why/