Ati 9600 Windows XP Crashing/instant reboot Problems

[softlion]

Got an Asus A7v333 rev1/bios 1018 and an Athlon 2500+ barton with 2x256@333
DRAM.
Baught a Powercolor 256Mb ATi 9600 Pro (which is not a 9600 pro, just a
9600),
All was warking quite well in WinXP (4.1 drivers) until windows started to
crash out randomly,
not so randomly in fact: when mediaplayer plays after 2~5mn, or when
Warcraft III runs after 2~20mn.
To stop the crashings i had to put the video acceleration slider to the
third position but this deactivate DirectX.

When it crashes out, sometimes the monitor jumps into power management mode
and i have to reboot.
I get VPU recover errors in some games, windows locks sometimes too and i
have to reboot to get back in.

There is not AGP voltage setting in the bios (i've seen the trick of
increasing AGP voltage in a news).
Oh, got a 400W power supply.

Anybody got any idea whats going on here?
Do i have to retun my board ?
Thks !

 

[dino]

disable VPU recover for starters...and reinstall your 4 in 1's...try that to
start with and go from there..have you checked Powercolor's website for
info? And how come it seems to be their cards that are all the horror
stories here..................How long have you had it?...because if it is
showing as a Non-Pro and you supposedly bought a Pro...TAKE it back!

 

[softlion]

disable VPU recover for starters...and reinstall your 4 in 1's...try that to
start with and go from there..have you checked Powercolor's website for
info? And how come it seems to be their cards that are all the horror
stories here..................

I suppose it is. I've removed all the other boards and reinstalled a fresh
XP with all updates including 4in1.
It can also be the athlon XP 2500+ barton which goes too hot. I'm currently
checking that: I've decreased the bus speed from 166 to 133MHz (so it is no
more a 2500+ now, just a 1700+ ...).

How long have you had it?...because if it is
showing as a Non-Pro and you supposedly bought a Pro...TAKE it back!

Got it for a month. The Powercolor box says "Pro" and at that time I checked
their website: it says what they called "Pro" is just a 9600 (it was the
only one with a 256Mb RAM in it). They also had another box called "Pro
something" which has a 9600Pro in it but was only 128Mb.
The shop where i bought it is well known to do no refund nor exchange. They
only offer a repair trip for the board.

Hope it is just the processor heat !!

B.

 

[Matt Costello]

Got exactly the same problem.... 9600xt on am nForce2 mobo. Used to run
nVidia T4200 fine now my PC (XP) simply reboots at will!!!!

I think it has got worse since the last windows major security patch... but
this just might be coincidence as I installed this & the graphics card with
in few days of each other.

Slowing system down seems to have no effect. It does seem to be less
reliable whilst using winamp/media player though.

 

[dino]

I have an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe..Barton2500 running 200x11..with an ATI 9600XT
and am perfectly sound...try disabling fast writes on the 9600...and make
sure VPU recover is off...leave fast writes on the XT and also make sure VPU
recover is off. Another sign of constant rebooting is a weak PSU. I had that
on my kids system with a Ti4200 and replaced the PSU with an Enermax 465 and
all is good there now. Also maybe try Omega drivers..that is what I am
running as opposed to the officail ATI drivers.

http://www.omegacorner.com/

 

[Debug]

Got exactly the same problem.... 9600xt on am nForce2 mobo. Used to run
nVidia T4200 fine now my PC (XP) simply reboots at will!!!!

I think it has got worse since the last windows major security patch... but
this just might be coincidence as I installed this & the graphics card with
in few days of each other.

Slowing system down seems to have no effect. It does seem to be less
reliable whilst using winamp/media player though.

Maybe power supply problem.

 

[Softlion]

Ok, got it !!
After a full day at a 100MHz bus speed (instead of 166) the temperature
decreased from 67° to 52° full load, and the systems stays rock stable,
with fast write and VPU recover enabled.

It was not the video card, my apologies to ATI !

My next step is to buy a watercooling kit like this one:
http://www.innovatek.de/contentServ/3.0/www.innovatek.de/index.php?StoryID=25

Thank you all for your support !
B.