Thanks for the answer !
Now my other question. I tried everything in this forum to solve que freezing problem in games like Mafia and Beyond Good and Evil. Nothing works. AGP Voltage, Fast Write, 4x, 2x, catalyst 3.2 to 4.1. Nothing works.
The only thing that works for me is to change the bios of the VGA. I got an Saphire Non-Pro Radeon 9600 with Elixir 5.0 memory. This is the only BIOS that actualy makes the PC turn on. I think it's because it's 5.0 memory, like mine samsung. But... this bios version is for a non-pro card, so the Clock speed is 325/400 and not 400/400 like mine. But with this I have no problems with the freezes.
I got an Bios editor and tried to hack up this saphire bios. I boosted up the clock speed from 325 to 400. And changed the SDR (CAS 3) of saphire to DDR (CAS 2) like my board. It all went fine, my computer was working. But the games were freezing again. Now my question. Is it possible that the clock speed is my problem ? How come just reducing it makes the games stable ? Is it the temperature ? I have a very good cooling system for the PC and my CPU stays at 45 degrees celsius and the Mobo at 27 degrees celsius. Any ideas ?

My system:
AMD Atlhon XP 2800+
2x 256mb Samsung DDR 400 Dual-Channel
Powercolor Radeon 9600 Pro 256mb EZ
80gb Maxtor 7200rpm PC133
Windows XP - Sp1 - Directx 9.0b

hey bf - your psu is probably ok. have you tried running memtest86? just to make sure it isn't memory related. linkage below.

http://www.memtest.org/

good christ ppl...its not a powersupply problem, nor is it a RAM/timing issue.

ANYBODY with a 300 watt (certified) can handle the card with 5 fans, 2 optical drives and overclocked Athlon 1.4C.

RAM timing problems? gimme a break...you wouldn't even be able to boot/post/load OS if ur CAS, tRAS or any other latency was set too low.

Dual channel?? WTFF?? come on... i and several hundred others here have VIA chipsets - NO DUAL CHANNEL THERE....

Multiple DIMMs inserted?? once again, if there was a problem you wouldn't even be able to boot, much less play any 3D game.

Cooling problems?? my brother's 8500 128meg runs WAYYY hotter than this card otherwise DONT TOUCH THE VOLTAGE!!! more volts = more heat so why risk it? why should AGP 8X consume any more volts than the other settings? the original AGP 1.0 ports were more than 3 volts (to my recollection) if anything 8X may use LESS power.

sorry for sounding like an angry dick, but i really feel that we've been sidetracking some issues here.

Still no word from ATI or Sapphire (the largest third party maker) on what the hell is going on...

yeah its probably none of those problems. im still sure its probably a driver or a compadability problem for 95% of you. and the rest its probably just a faulty card.

BF,

300w should be sufficient--I just wanted to make sure you didn't have like 4 hdd's, 6 tornadoe fans, etc...

What are the 12v and 5v rails on your 300w psu? Go into your BIOS and check it out. Make sure they are stable, and close to 12 and 5. I would also try the ATI Driver Removal Tool to wipe out any stray traces of leftover catalyst drivers, then re-install the newest 4.1's. You can find the removal tool on ATI's website. Sorry i don't have the exact link.


To everybody else,

Sure, for most people it is probably a driver issue, but not everyone's solution is the same. So it could be a faulty psu, or a bad stick of RAM, or lack of AGP voltage, etc........How about not responding unless you have something helpful to add. The reason we are getting sidetracked is b/c peole like to use this thread to complain instead of troubleshoot.

Its driver related for most and there is a few faulty cards. I have terrible trouble installing ATI drivers- my answer is a clean format of the C:. That is the only 100% surefire way of ridding your PC of old driver stuff and other junk. Before you say use an uninstaller- yup they may work- but reformat is the absolute way to do it. By the way Cat 3.10 does work with dx8.1- not sure about dx9, but then i'm taking things very slowly here.
Regards Twilight

BF,

300w should be sufficient--I just wanted to make sure you didn't have like 4 hdd's, 6 tornadoe fans, etc...

What are the 12v and 5v rails on your 300w psu? Go into your BIOS and check it out. Make sure they are stable, and close to 12 and 5. I would also try the ATI Driver Removal Tool to wipe out any stray traces of leftover catalyst drivers, then re-install the newest 4.1's. You can find the removal tool on ATI's website. Sorry i don't have the exact link.


Ok I will check out the above - thanks Ryan. It actually seems to be a bit better since I removed it and tried my other radeon then replaced it, also reinstalling the drivers. But it has lulled me into a false sense of security before!

Thanks.

I am with Erik...The real issue lies at the chip (and probably it's specs delivered to the board manufacturer). I just sent mine back to PowerColor after conveying all of our issues to ATI, PowerColor and GoogleGear. ATI refused to make any comment on the suggestion that the manufacturers were all having problems. PowerColor dished the issue to the supplier, who doesn't even touch the card, other than to move it. There are too many problems with the different versions of the 9600 Pro assembly for it to be a fluke. But then, I am preaching to the choir.
I think that everyone here with a vested interest in making the card work with the available drivers, and no tweaks, should write ATI tech support and sales, as well as the manufacturer of your choice. They were not aware of this forum and the other 25 out there, until I sent them a list. They need to wake up, 'cause NVIDIA will dominate this market. At least their drivers work and o'clocking works.
Mark

Erik Dong - I can't say I disagree with you, but I've seen numerous "300W" PSUs that were way under-rated in terms of current. 15A for the +12 seems OK, I even indicated so. But - I still think it would be worth running memtest86. It's free. It's easy. Don't you think another datapoint would help make things more concrete?

BF - Since it's soooo easy, and free, could you please run memtest86 and tell me what it says?

a quality 300watt psu is plenty enough for a basic system. Thats what im using right now and i dont even know if its a quality name and its plenty enough...

Hi all. Yes Erick. I think the compadability problem is more of an issue. I have came across some of the problems mentioned on this site But through good research I think most will fix there prob's on their own. That's what I hope for. If it wasn't for this site I wouldn't have got my Gexcube 9600 pro fireing on all 4 pipes? or is there 8? Can any one tell us the diff between 9600 pro 4 pipes and the 9800 8 pipe lines, I read it but what does it mean????

help?


Marc

For the radeon series...........

4 rendering pipelines = 128-bit = 9600's
8 rendering pipelines = 256-bit = 9800's

Hi
Rendering pipelines- in simple terms, the more a card has, the more pixels it can render per a cycle. The 9700 Pro had 8, and a core clock speed of 275Mhz which gives a fill rate of 2200 Mega Pixels per a sec. Now the 9600 Pro only has 4 pipelines, but ATI upped the core speed to 400Mhz, which may sound great compared to the 275 of the 9700 Pro, but the maths gives a fill rate of 1600 Mega Pixels per second. So the answer o your question is. More pipelines plus a high core speed equal- more eye candy- of course other things come into play, memory of card, CPU in system, AGP slot, bandwidth- dah dee dah dee dah....
So on paper, your 9600 Pro is good, but not as good as a 9700 Pro- but then, the 9600 Pro is cheaper andd available- the 9700 Pro is a deleted item.
Hope that answers your question. Oh the other 9600 versions like XT seem to be tweaked versions, meaning that core speed is upped- in other words ATI overclock the chips, to give 4 x 500 Mhz = 2000 Mega Pixels!!!

Regards Twilight

OKAY FOLKS! Please Listen... or, read... what ever

Can we please cut the bulls**t and get down to Business!
im getting SICK of this problem... and what i what to know is....

could some of u "smart" heads plz tell me what to do... or a suggestion what to do...
and please email it to me at: euc_martin@hotmail.com

WHAT can i do? Reinstall? Better cooling? Something? Drag the s**t out back and put it on fire?
Please help me...

P.S. YES I AM W H I N I N G! YES I AM C R Y I N G OUT FOR HELP!

WANTED
E DANCE!<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Do U have ANY! chat program? Msn? mIRC? ICQ?
CANT EMAIL TO U
I DONT KNOW WHY NOT
BUT HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL U!

i *think* i may have fixed the problem!

very easy, no tweaking at all. yesterday, before the fix, NFSU crashes, so does Unreal II. basically, i uninstalled ALL my drivers.

all i did really was uninstall my drivers, and install 4.1 drivers **WITHOUT** THE CONTROL PANEL - JUST THE DRIVER ITSELF.

it would be great if everyone could try it and see if it helps. it really is worth a shot.

i'm on a Powercolor 9600 Pro.

System:
Abit NF7-S NForce2 DualDDR 400 8x AGP
Gigabyte Radeon 9600PRO 128mb
INFINEON 512mb PC3200
--------
i too, have been a loyal nvidia fan for years, and have even chose to go with their chipset.. and i am quite impressed, whereas the reviews have been all for ATI lately, saying they've FINALLY gained the gaming/performance market. So i decide to drop a hefty amount of money on a 9600pro when i upgrade my system rather than an nvidia card. i'm quite impressed with its performance, yet, its stability is the issue. as i've read on about 6 different forums, people are having all kinds of issues and there seems to be no fix. the solution, wait until ATI hires some programmers that know wtf their doing, because obviously after about 18releases they still haven't nabbed a major issue. If ATI wishes to hold the market, they should smarten the f-ck up.. i am running catalyst 4.1, i get vpu recovery errors all the time, yet i've noticed the vpu recovery works alot more with 4.1 then it did w/ 3.8 or 3.9 ... so they are making progress, i shouldn't see the words VPU recovery more than twice a month!@#$ ... until they fix this driver, as far as i'm concerned, ati is a hunk of crap. bastards, make me waste my money on a good card, and then supply me with s**t software.

I have an AMD XP 3200+ with an Nvidia Ti 4200 128mb video card, 1gig SDRAM and I am running Win XP Prof. I have been having reall low performance issues such as: laggin with 2 or more armies after about 10 minutes of play. i did some research at Microsoft's Support site, and tried a "clean boot". This solved a lot of the problem, it still lagged a bit, but i was able to play a full game with two of my friends against 4 hard random armies and I had my graphics set at 1200 x 900 resolution on high graphic setting. The site to learn how to do this is:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310353...duct=winxp

Try this out, let me know if you have any further inquiry into slow or low performance with htis game. this is the only game that i seem to have a problem with. Good luck.

Geoffrey, old chap, slight problem there with your solution- - you are an NVidia user- this is an ATI 9600 Pro problem thread!!! That said I think our problems are not going to be solved by re booting our PCs!!! Still thanks for the help all the same.
Twilight

so has anyone been bothered to try out my solution? (read top of the page)