Thats strange. I have no problem with Jedi Knight 2. And I doubt that you have a power problem. Thats pretty ridiculous. Why would they make a card that drains so much power. I am no expert, but it sounds to me like 350W is enough.

That is cool that UBI Soft gave the straight answers by the way.

hey guys, I have the same problem as most of you, with the C&C generals lockups after 2 seconds of play, and I heard about the quick fix. But I have a question, were all the lock-up's associated with windows XP? Because, I put on win98 first...couldn't find my XP cd, and anyways, general worked rather well, then I put on XP, and the rest of course is what we have all been experiencing...so once again we have windows XP compatibility issues? or perhaps something else...

I'm running XP Pro.

Hey Guys,
I have an ATI 9600 Pro. I have experienced the same lockups and have taken pretty much the same steps in an attempt to correct the problem (to no avail). I have not purchased C&C: Generals yet, but I have tried Age of Mythology and NeverWinter Nights. AOM will lockup at random. Sometimes however, I can play the game and make through without a lockup (I know,...strange). However, on occasion it does lockup with a heavy amount of mouse movement. (The sound will be caught in a loop, same sound just keeps repeating). NeverWinter Nights, identical problem, but not so arbitrary. NWN locks up about 40 seconds into the game and it doesn't matter where I am (whether trying to create a character or working with the game options).
I too, will be watching this thread.....

Hey Pplz

What other hardware are you guys running. I had the same problem with my ATI Radeon 9500 Pro. The card itself works fine in other machine it's only seems to act up in my machine which is a GA-7VAXP Ultra also running XP. Hundreds of ppl seem to be having the same problem on the same board or similar VIA chipset boards.
Some ppl I've talked to have managed to get ATI to replace the cards with a new one which seems work to fine in thier machine. (might just be a REALLY BIG bad batch)
I think there's a combination of problems with these hardware config's this might explain why some ppl find a solution by changing power supplys and some by updating drivers. Other's like me are still looking and on the verge of giving up.

I take it that everyone is running XP Pro on thier systems (I did see that some tried 98) has anyone tried downgrading thier XP installation to 2000 to see whether the card work properly under that. (With an XP pro license you can downgrade your OS so you wouldn't have to purchase a new one, "if anyone was worried about that");P

I have a 9600 Pro made by Sapphire that I just bought. I have a ECS K75SA MB with the 8-9-02 bios. I flashed my bios before I installed the video card.

Games that Work: PlanetSide works great never crashes even after hours of playing.

Games that Crash: Warcraft III (Ugh! My Favorite Game) It does what everyone has been saying. After moving my mouse a few minutes after loading I get a looping sound problem. Never had this problem before installing the video card. It played fine even after flashing the bios prior to installing the video card.

Hope 3.7 comes out soon and fixes this mess.

Has anyone had a problem with WarIII? I tried reducing the acceleration from full down one notch but that hasn't made any difference so far.

As far as I know, Warcraft 3 works fine on mine. Although I just opened into the game and opened a custom game, but did not play it.

I just bought a Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro yesterday...and had the same problems as everybody here... C&C and Neverwinter Nights crashing my computer after just a couple of seconds...

BUT THAT CAN BE FIX !!!
at least, on my computer...
AMD AthlonXP 1600+
MSI KT266 Pro2-A (VIA 4in1 chipset)
512Mo SDRAM
Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro, Catalyst 3.6 drivers (downloaded on ati.com)
Wacom Tablet USB
MS Keyboard
Windows XP (no SP)

So if your configuration look the same, there is still HOPE !!!
No BIOS update, no mouse killing...

First I looked for Catalyst drivers...3.6 (release date : 14/07/2003)...and downloaded the latest version and the ATI control panel, on ATI website. ATI implemented the SMARTGART technology : in the ATI control panel, you can define AGP Speed and AGP Fast Write. Let's go for 4x and FW enabled...
Good but crashed my favourite games...
Then I looked for an update for the VIA CPU to AGP driver (part of VIA Hyperion 4in1) and found the new version 4.49 on VIA website.
Finally I changed some of my motherboard BIOS settings :
- AGP Speed 4x (not Auto)
- AGP Fast Write Enabled (was disabled)
- All ohter AGP settings Disabled
So it correponded to the SMARTGART settings...
Good and heavenly DO NOT CRASH ANYMORE !!!

After a full night time of play on C&C and Neverwinter Nights, no crashes and blasting graphics...For the other games on the list, I don't know...

I'm sorry, this post is far too long but I believe it can help at least some people here...

Thanks for posting your solution. I however will probably only look at this thread occasionally, since I've just upgraded to another machine, and haven't had the problem anymore. I upgraded to a P4P800/800FSB/2x256MB/PIV2.4GHz. Haven't had lockups.

I hope the rest of you will find a solution. I was in mailing back and forth with Sapphire, but haven't had any response after I replied that the BIOS they sent didn't solve the problem.

I tried your solution with following results:

My games DON't hang up anymore.

BUT: AGP FastWrite has to be activated. This option leads on many VIA-Boards to terrible graphic errors. Thus I have distorted 3D pictures and a flickering windows cursor. Then I prefer a flickering mouse cursor in my games but windows must work fine. Sorry, but this solution don't help me. My games are still unplayable (worse than before, because you can't identify what the game is showing) and additionally windows show graphic errors in conection with FastWrite.
The "FastWrite"-Problem is known and nothing new. I can't understand why games don't hang up with this option because it should only increase acceleration speed.

Still waiting for a fix created by ATI ...

Well, it seems it depends on VIA-boards.
No flickering mouse for mine and no 3D distorsion...

I tried again to disable FastWrite on both ATI panel and BIOS settings.
And then, the nightmare came back...
Re-changed my settings on FastWrite enabled : it works perfectly again.

It seems clearly that makes a difference, but why ?
Nonetheless, I'm waiting for ATI to find a real solution with 3., too.

Now that is weird, because the current logic is that Fastwrites DESTABLIZE the system, and it is usually recommended to turn them off.

Thanks for the heads up on the 4,49 Hyperion drivers though!!
I'll try them as well!!
(Crosses fingers)

It's not just VIA chipsets. I have a P4SDX with a SIS 655 chipset...and I'm having the same complete system lock-ups and freezes with my 9600 pro.

I DID just find an updated AGP driver from the 655 chipset, so I'm going to try that tonight to see if I can run the card at 8X AGP. Right now, it's only staying stable on 4X AGP (with Fastwrite enabled).

Dave.

I'mm running Generals fine right now. Looks like VIA was more to blame than ATI. Although SIS might also have a similar issue as stated above.

I'm sticking with the 3.4 Cats because that's what Ubisoft recommends for IL-2, and I'm running well now.

YESSSSS!!!!

Nicolas Bigorgne is DA man!!!!

Thanx dude! You just accomplised what the stupid ATI s**theads couldnt. Much better solution that the one you had to drop down one acceleration level!!!! I ENABLED fastwrite on BIOS and C&C Generals doesnt crash anymore. Strange though... from the 20 computers still 2 have the problem, and the funny thing is that ALL of them have the same specs.
Im using the LATEST ATI s**t-drivers/cpanel/etc. and VIA 4-in-1 latest drvs. After FASTWRITE on AGP is ON no freezes on C&C. Age of Mythology still makes the computer to hang up. Oh, I also updated to Generals 1.6 from 1.5.

All computers have the same stuff:

Using Windows XP pro
Intel P4 2.0
DFI PE11-TC and 4-5 have PE11-EC
256 MB Ram

Ok Im still having problems I have a K7S5A ver. 3.X MB and Sapphire 9600 Pro 128mb. I updated to the lastest SIS 735 AGP drivers. I still don't have a FastWrite option on the BIOS or Can't locate it. If anyone knows where it is please let me know. I also can't turn on the FastWrite option in the ATI control panel. Everytime I change it it goes back to off, assuming that my MB can't do fastwriting. If anyone knows differently please let me know. WarcraftIII still does not work but Planetside works great. Not sure why the disaparity. Anyway, any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Selden.

News flash...IL-2 just locked up......Damn!!
I'll try the 3.6's.

Selden here is the typical Phoenix-Award BIOS menu:

After you press DEL and you enter the BIOS select

1) Advanced Chipset Features and press ENTER

2) AGP & P2P Bridge Control and press ENTER

3) Select AGP Fastwrite (Enabled/Disabled)


Yannis

I've just had the same problem as you. My computer crashed everytime, black screens, reboots,freeze...etc, with almost every game or program. But i think i've solved it, modifing the BIOS, whith "fast write" disabled, and "Aperture size" (I think thats the name...) in 128 Mb. My old graphic card was 64 bits, so i had "Aperture size" at the BIOS configurated to 64 Mb.


S!

Oops on last message send. Thanks for the suggestion on the Bios FastWrite Issue. But the AMI Bios for the ECS K7S5A MB does not have such a function. I read other posts with people having the same problem with the board. Now it seems that most people are disabling it anyway so not sure if it matters that I have FastWrite in the Bios. However, I am still having no luck with Warcraft III. Weird because other people seem to be able to at least make that one play. I think ATI does have a driver that uninstalls the SmartGart feature. I will have to try that tonight and see if it helps. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Selden.