9800 Pro problem with VIA chipset

[BigSky]

I have a Shuttle motherboard with a Via KM400 chipset, Sempron 3000+, and
WinXP. It does not like my 9800 Pro. When I try to play games like BF 2 or
BF Vietnam, as soon as the game play begins the screen will freeze.
Sometimes I can hear the sound of the game continuing in the background or I
get the dreaded squealing sound looping. This happens even if I remove the
sound card and use the integrated sound. I've read quite a few posts where
people claim that the 9800 series and other Radeon cards using the latest
6.9 cat drivers are running into this problem. Solutions vary from turning
off AGP 3.0 in the BIOS, loading older cat driver versions, Omega drivers,
using 4x vice 8x, and upping the AGP voltage. The crappy bios on my Shuttle
MK40N does not allow me to mess with AGP 3.0 settings or AGP voltage even
with the most current BIOS upgrade. Using 4x doesn't fix the problem. I do
notice that the copper heatsinks I put on the memory chips get very hot,
very rapidly now with these new drivers even before running a game. I have
an Arctic Cooler, fancy termal paste along with copper heatsinks to keep the
card cool. I have a good quality 450W PS. I disconnected all non-essential
devices to ensure the 9800 Pro was getting plenty of juice but this didn't
help. I've subsequently installed an extra 9600XT and don't seem to have
many problems but I miss the extra kick I got with the 9800 Pro.

Previously, I had this card in a NForce3 250 based motherboard using older
drivers. I don't remember having problems like this except with some
misbehaving old games.

Is there a documented problem with the VIA chipsets driving Radeon 98XX
series cards? The latest VIA drivers didn't fix the problem either. Are
there any work arounds especially since I have a BIOS that won't let me
tweak things much at all?

Big Sky

 

[First of One]

1. Make sure BF2 is patched to the latest version.
2. Is Fast Writes enabled in SmartGART? Try toggling it opposite to the
default setting.

 

[Kent_Diego]

I have a Shuttle motherboard with a Via KM400 chipset, Sempron 3000+, and

WinXP. It does not like my 9800 Pro. When I try to play games like BF 2
or BF Vietnam, as soon as the game play begins the screen will freeze.
Sometimes I can hear the sound of the game continuing in the background or
I get the dreaded squealing sound looping. This happens even if I remove
the sound card and use the integrated sound. > misbehaving old games.

Try installing the latest VIA 4 in one chipset drivers. Often installing the
latest AGP chipset driver fixes.
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1070

I have also seen cases where I had a known good system and when given a new
install of WinXP it would have bad problems like that. Some sort of IRQ
allocation gone bad. I fixed with a "Repair Install"
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

The best source of info to fix this is found in the forums at
http://rage3d.com
Post back your results.

 

[BigSky]

Oh ya, forgot about that other tweak. Yes. I turned off fast writes as
well because some said it lead to instability. And yes I did patch BF2 to
the latest version.

 

[BigSky]

I did install the latest VIA drivers. Some say to use the older 4in1
drivers but the via website said the latest drivers work with my chipset.

I did experience this with a new build of XP Pro. After a lot of research I
found out that the SB Live card won't do hardware accleration with BF 2.
Causes lock ups. So I turned that off which stopped that particular problem
when mucking with the audio settings...but alas no EAX now.

 

[DEWorley]

I had the same problem, the only way I got mine to work was to set the AGP
to 4x not 8x.

 

[johns]

Yes. I've seen it. The 9800 Pro does not like the VIA
chipset, and there is no fix. I RMA'd a bunch of new
mobos back because of this problem. And I've stuck
with the nVidia chipset which has given no problems
with the ATI cards.

johns