9700 Pro grief.

[h2so4]

Hi,

I have a PIV Pentium 3.0c in an Abit IC7-G with 512Mb Corsair RAM, an ATI
Radeon 9700 all at default, i.e., nothing is overclocked. My problem is that
some games, some of the time result in graphical glitches and occasional
crashes. I'm fairly certain that this is not a heat problem as I have a well
ventilated Lian Li case with two front fans, a single rear fan plus an
Enermax 430W PSU. All my temps are reported as within normal range for this
set up.
Here's the problem. Sometimes when I start MOH or Vietcong or MAX Paine 2 I
begin to get flashing artifacts which develop into start burst lines and
system crashes. When I reboot I find minor glitches in the XP desktop. I
restart the system and the desktop returns to normal. If I restart the game
the cycle of glitches and a required restart happens again. I have "fixed"
this problem several times by doing a thorough uninstall of the Radeon
drivers, including all ATI technologies references in the registry and
re-installing the drivers. Then I am able to play Vietcong etc. perfectly
well for weeks on end. Just when I think everything is fine I install Max
Paine 2 and as soon as I run it the glitch/restart cycle starts again, so
again I uninstall the drivers and re-install them again. Max Pain runs like
a dream for two hours and then the glitches re-appear and the system
crashes.

I've now re-installed the 3.9 CATS (I've also used the 3.8 and the most
recent Omega drivers with similar results) and my system runs fine with no
glitches but if I run Max Paine all the above problems will re-appear.
I'm stumped! I've had this graphics card for about a year and previously had
no problems. I see some references to problems with ATI drivers since the
3.7 CATS. If these problems do exist this would fit in with the timescale of
my problems. The only other substantial change in my system is the move from
a CRT to a TFT monitor.

I'd welcome your comments,

Thanks for your attention.

 

[rms]

Lots of words here, which confuse the issue. Please specify the nature of
the artifacts. Are they triangles or flashing pixels.

triangles mean memory overclocks. flashing pixels mean gpu overclocks. If
underclocking with rage3dtweak or whatever helps, try raising Vgpu in bios
or redoing your heatsinks on the videocard (if you are handy). It is not
uncommon for crashes to occur after hours of gameplay in
overclock/overheating situations.

rms

 

[h2so4]

Lots of words here, which confuse the issue. Please specify the nature of
the artifacts. Are they triangles or flashing pixels.

triangles mean memory overclocks. flashing pixels mean gpu overclocks. If
underclocking with rage3dtweak or whatever helps, try raising Vgpu in bios
or redoing your heatsinks on the videocard (if you are handy). It is not
uncommon for crashes to occur after hours of gameplay in
overclock/overheating situations.

rms

Many thanks for you reply. Had your attention span been a little more robust
you would have read that my system is not overclocked, is well ventilated
and not over heating. My system does not always crash "after hours of game
play", it crashes after minutes, on starting a game or occasionally after
half an hour or so.
For what it's worth, I'm fairly certain that this is something to do with my
registry or a driver.

I've now discovered that these problems don't occur when I use the D sub
rather than the DVI connector between the GFX card and the monitor. I'm
stumped and irritated.

Thanks again.

 

[gandolf_one]

Many thanks for you reply. Had your attention span been a little more robust
you would have read that my system is not overclocked, is well ventilated
and not over heating. My system does not always crash "after hours of game
play", it crashes after minutes, on starting a game or occasionally after
half an hour or so.
For what it's worth, I'm fairly certain that this is something to do with my
registry or a driver.

I've now discovered that these problems don't occur when I use the D sub
rather than the DVI connector between the GFX card and the monitor. I'm
stumped and irritated.

Thanks again.

Have you tried changing the dvi options yet to see if that helps

 

[h2so4]

Have you tried changing the dvi options yet to see if that helps
Thanks for replying. I'm not sure quite which options you mean. At present
I'm still running under the D sub, having just done a repair re-install of
XP. This has been a nightmare. The manual for my BenQ FP791 monitor is very
basic.
My system had been running stably for several months prior to upgrading the
drivers. I think things were fine up to and including the CAT 3.6s. I tried
the Omega drivers that improved the graphics in FS2004 but then when I tried
to run Max Payne 2 the saga above began.

I'm still leaning toward the hunch that this has something to do with the
refresh rates. I'd like to try re-connect the DVI and I note that I can
select which connection I wish to use on the OSD, presumably I can connect
both at the same time?

 

[gandolf_one]

Thanks for replying. I'm not sure quite which options you mean. At present
I'm still running under the D sub, having just done a repair re-install of
XP. This has been a nightmare. The manual for my BenQ FP791 monitor is very
basic.
My system had been running stably for several months prior to upgrading the
drivers. I think things were fine up to and including the CAT 3.6s. I tried
the Omega drivers that improved the graphics in FS2004 but then when I tried
to run Max Payne 2 the saga above began.

I'm still leaning toward the hunch that this has something to do with the
refresh rates. I'd like to try re-connect the DVI and I note that I can
select which connection I wish to use on the OSD, presumably I can connect
both at the same time?

when you goto adavance display propities (where you can find your tabs to
change the settings for your ati card) one tab there is the options one and
there is two settings that you want to play with

1, Reduce DVI frequency on high resolution displays. This solves display
corruption at high resolution e.g-1280x1024@75hz (this is not enabled by
default)
2, Alternate DVI operational mode. this is also for display corruption (this
is enabled by default on mine)

anyway this gives you a few more things to try and I hope it works for you

 

[h2so4]

Thanks Gandolph, I'll have another go at these. I was a little troubled by
the warning on the dvi alternate mode that warned that this could damage
your monitor. Should I have been concerned?

 

[gandolf_one]

Thanks Gandolph, I'll have another go at these. I was a little troubled by
the warning on the dvi alternate mode that warned that this could damage
your monitor. Should I have been concerned?

any warning like that should be worth taking note of and proceeding with
caution. It might be worth getting in contact with the manufacture of your
monitor as the dvi interface could be at fault but it might be an idea to
try the dvi-vga dongle to rule out the graphic card first.

 

[h2so4]

I've fixed it! Others may be interested in the solution. In upgrading the
drivers I scrupulously removed all references to ATI in the registry and in
doing so I deleted some crucial registry files. I deleted these entries at
the folder, rather than the individual file level.. So when I installed
different ATI and Omega drivers I was stuck with the old problems listed at
the head of this thread.
I solved my problems by doing a repair install of XP and running the Windows
update. Now both the DVI and D sub connectors work fine, I have no glitches
and my system is stable again. Perhaps others may learn from my
incompetence, Including the Arctic Silver III addict, rms, who found my plea
for help too wordy.

Thanks again for your attention.