Computer freezes with 9600 Pro

[Larry Cook]

I just installed a new 9600 Pro in my Dell Dimension 4100. I am
running W98SE with 512 MB of memory. After adding the 9600 my son's
Warcraft III game now freezes during the opening menu. If I bring the
game up and just let it display the main menu animation it works fine
but when I begin moving the cursor around it will quickly freeze the
computer and I have to hit the reset switch to recover. Any ideas as
to what is going on and how I can fix it?

Larry Cook

 

[patrickp]

I just installed a new 9600 Pro in my Dell Dimension 4100. I am
running W98SE with 512 MB of memory. After adding the 9600 my son's
Warcraft III game now freezes during the opening menu. If I bring the
game up and just let it display the main menu animation it works fine
but when I begin moving the cursor around it will quickly freeze the
computer and I have to hit the reset switch to recover. Any ideas as
to what is going on and how I can fix it?

Larry Cook

You should have uninstalled you previous card's drivers/software, Larry, and
hopefully also given your system a good clean out. Many video card drivers
have very unsatisfactory uninstall routines, and old driver files can
interfere with your current ones.

I'm not sure about the 9600 Pro, but several of ATi's higher end cards have
greater power requirements than most other cards. Your PSU should
preferably be at least 350 watts and preferably a good name brand, rather
than a generic one.

 

[Larry Cook]

Try installing the latest drivers. I recently installed a 9600 Pro, and
experienced system lockups with Links and Flight Simulator using the drivers
on the CD that came with the card. I found new drivers (Catalyst 3.6) on
the ATI website (http://www.atitech.ca/support/driver.html), and have had no
problems since upgrading.

I have looked at the power requirements of the 9600 and the other
cards, etc. in my PC and I appear to be ok plus if it were power I
would expect problems in other games (my son plays Diablo II
frequently with no problems)or apps. I have also installed the latest
drivers and the PC still freezes during the Warcraft III opening menu.
What I have noticed, though, is that if I start the game and let the
opening menu run it will go for as long as I let it but if I move the
cursor it will freeze within a few seconds. So apprently there is a
problem with updating the cursor position while in this particualr
menu screen. Unfortunately I don't know what is going on behind the
scenes and therefore don't know what possibly is broken and therefore
needs fixing. I'm thinking that maybe it is DirectX (we have 9.0b
installed and it also failed with what came with the 9600) or a
conflict with another driver but don't know how to go about figuring
that out.

 

[patrickp]

"RainMan" <baxteratblargdotnet> wrote in message


I have looked at the power requirements of the 9600 and the other
cards, etc. in my PC and I appear to be ok plus if it were power I
would expect problems in other games (my son plays Diablo II
frequently with no problems)or apps. I have also installed the latest
drivers and the PC still freezes during the Warcraft III opening menu.
What I have noticed, though, is that if I start the game and let the
opening menu run it will go for as long as I let it but if I move the
cursor it will freeze within a few seconds. So apprently there is a
problem with updating the cursor position while in this particualr
menu screen. Unfortunately I don't know what is going on behind the
scenes and therefore don't know what possibly is broken and therefore
needs fixing. I'm thinking that maybe it is DirectX (we have 9.0b
installed and it also failed with what came with the 9600) or a
conflict with another driver but don't know how to go about figuring
that out.

The DX 9.0b problem is with PAL AIW tuners; I don't know of any other fault
specific to it, although there could be. Did you properly uninstall the
drivers/software for the previous card? And did you have any sort of system
clearout for the old drivers? As I said, some video card drivers and
software have very inadequate uninstall routines, and the fact that you've
uninstalled them doesn't mean there aren't still files and registry entries
left, which can interfere with the correct running of your current
drivers/software.

In addition, as someone pointed out to me recently, it's a good idea to look
in Device Manager in Safe Mode and check that there are no devices there
that shouldn't be, particularly when you've just removed some hardware.

patrickp