Dead 9800XT?

[Brett Tyre]

I recently replaced a dead motherboard in my system. Prior to the
motherboard dying, my Radeon 9800XT had been working fine. After replacing
the motherboard, I noticed the Windows XP "Programs" menu would appear very
slowly and disappear slowly. I noticed subsequently that this occured in
any menu. I reset my BIOS settings to what they had been prior to replacing
the motherboard, and this made no difference.

After installing Rise of Nations, I kept getting VPU errors and messages
stating that the VPU was unable to fully recover from hardware deadlock and
the system was switching over to software rendering.

I tried updating to the latest drivers, and the screen would streak blue and
white on reboot. I was then given a blue screen with a "HARD STOP" message.
I switched back to last known good settings and uninstalled the card and
reinstalled it. This did not solve anything. I tried again and tried the
new drivers once again with the same result as before (streaked screen, hard
stop message).

I've gone back to last known good settings and know Windows will detect the
cards, but will not install the drivers.

Is this a hardware issue or a software issue?

(As a side note, I also switched heatsink/fan combos when replacing my
motherboard. Prior to the motherboard dying, the VPU would run at around
69C, last I checked before this problem started, it was at 73C -could this
cause such errors?)

Thanks,

 

[Ben Pope]

I recently replaced a dead motherboard in my system. Prior to the
motherboard dying, my Radeon 9800XT had been working fine. After
replacing the motherboard, I noticed the Windows XP "Programs" menu would
appear very slowly and disappear slowly. I noticed subsequently that
this occured in any menu. I reset my BIOS settings to what they had been
prior to replacing the motherboard, and this made no difference.

After installing Rise of Nations, I kept getting VPU errors and messages
stating that the VPU was unable to fully recover from hardware deadlock
and the system was switching over to software rendering.

I tried updating to the latest drivers, and the screen would streak blue
and white on reboot. I was then given a blue screen with a "HARD STOP"
message. I switched back to last known good settings and uninstalled the
card and reinstalled it. This did not solve anything. I tried again and
tried the new drivers once again with the same result as before (streaked
screen, hard stop message).

I've gone back to last known good settings and know Windows will detect
the cards, but will not install the drivers.

Is this a hardware issue or a software issue?

(As a side note, I also switched heatsink/fan combos when replacing my
motherboard. Prior to the motherboard dying, the VPU would run at around
69C, last I checked before this problem started, it was at 73C -could this
cause such errors?)

What are the two motherboards in question (more to the point, what are the
chipsets)?

Did you install windows from scratch or not?

Have you reinstalled your chipset drivers?

Have you tried CAT Uninstaller?

Ben

 

[Brett Tyre]

What are the two motherboards in question (more to the point, what are the
chipsets)?

The two boards are identical: DFI Lanparty NFII B Ultra for Athlon XP,
chipset is Nvidia NForce 2

Did you install windows from scratch or not?

When I first set the system up in January, Windows was a clean install. I
have not reformatted and reinstalled since then.

Have you reinstalled your chipset drivers?

I didn't think it would be necessary considering the boards are the same.

Have you tried CAT Uninstaller?

No. I will try it in the near future.

My card is atill under warranty, so I can easily get a replacement. I am
leaning towards hardware because when I put everything back together, and I
got a POST beep but the video didn't come on. I reseated the card and still
no video. I shut the machine off and powered it up again and the video had
magically returned.

 

[Brett Tyre]

An update:

I installed the latest NForce drivers.
I ran CAT Uninstall.
Restarted.
Windows picked the card up, installed drivers and told me to reboot.
Booted normally.
I installed the ATI Drivers from the original CD.
It now restarts before fully loading Windows.
Removed hardware in safe mode and the whole process repeats itself.

 

[GinTonix]

....
The two boards are identical: DFI Lanparty NFII B Ultra for Athlon XP,
chipset is Nvidia NForce 2
....
When I first set the system up in January, Windows was a clean install. I
have not reformatted and reinstalled since then.
....
I didn't think it would be necessary considering the boards are the same.
....
No. I will try it in the near future.

My card is atill under warranty, so I can easily get a replacement. I am
leaning towards hardware because when I put everything back together, and I
got a POST beep but the video didn't come on. I reseated the card and still
no video. I shut the machine off and powered it up again and the video had
magically returned.

Hmm.. how about colliding IRQ's? Is it possible to set a fixed IRQ to the
AGP slot? If so, fix it and make sure you have no cards in slots that would
use the same IRQ as the AGP slot (usually the 1st or the last PCI slot, RTFM
to be sure) and also make sure you don't fix a "pre-set" IRQ (e.g. the ones
for IDE, serial, parallel, mouse.. etc) to the vidcard. Check the mobo bios
and/or manual to find out if there are some taken IRQ's. I have a strong
feeling that it's always the best to have the network card and the video
card to have an IRQ of their very own, never mind what the manufacturers
(the card and OS) say.

If you have no idea what I'm blabbering about, goto bios and locate the PnP
section. Make the PC to re-arrange (force update) the IRQ's and the DMA's.
Reboot. Check if it works. If not, repeat. This procedure makes the bios to
arrange an IRQ lottery, in which the prizes are the IRQ's (and DMA's?). If
you are lucky, the vidcard will get an IRQ of its own, or it will be paired
with a function which does not harass it.

 

[Brett Tyre]

Normally, this is something I would consider...BUT...I've got no PCI cards
at all. And as mentioned, the card worked before swapping boards, and it
was a straight swap so I don't see how IRQ settings could be different.

 

[patrickp]

Normally, this is something I would consider...BUT...I've got no PCI cards
at all. And as mentioned, the card worked before swapping boards, and it
was a straight swap so I don't see how IRQ settings could be different.

Your onboard devices are still assigned IRQs. However, if you're
using W2K or XP, IRQs are not so important, anyway.

Sounds to to me as if there's no way round the fact that the death of
your mobo has also damaged the card. What did your mobo die of, by
the way, if that's not too indelicate a question?

patrickp

(e-mail address removed) - take five to email me

 

[Brett Tyre]

Your onboard devices are still assigned IRQs. However, if you're
using W2K or XP, IRQs are not so important, anyway.

Of course, and as stated before, the whole package ran fine before the
motherboard went down.

Sounds to to me as if there's no way round the fact that the death of
your mobo has also damaged the card. What did your mobo die of, by
the way, if that's not too indelicate a question?

Not entirely sure what caused it yet, but it wouldn't POST and there was no
video. The diag LEDs indicated that it failed initializing the FSB
frequency, which is fairly early in the boot sequence. I think you're
right: whatever killed the board tried to kill my card too. (Thankfully
warranty covers everything).

patrickp

(e-mail address removed) - take five to email me

Brett Tyre

 

[GinTonix]

Normally, this is something I would consider...BUT...I've got no PCI cards
at all. And as mentioned, the card worked before swapping boards, and it
was a straight swap so I don't see how IRQ settings could be different.

Right, that's why I suggested it. Namely, nothing has changed - EXCEPT the
mobo (considering everything else like the vidcard GPU & memchips are OK
after The Crash). And when ever you swap the mobo, the settings of the new
mobo are not (necessarily) the same as they used to be in your previous
sample. It would be enough for the two samples of the mobo having different
settings if they have different bios versions. And even if the bios versions
are the same the settings could be different. The settings include the IRQ
and stuff. So, check them out and have a lottery

For example, a disabled parallel port via bios would cause an IRQ being
freed. And if there is another mobo of the same type but the serial enabled,
it would not have the specific IRQ free.

But, as someone already suggested, the meaning of IRQ's is not so critical
any more with newer OS's. Worth checking, anyway, at least if nothing else
works.