I've got an Asus 256Mb ATI 9800XT graphics card in an Asus KV8 Deluxe
758 mobo. The CPU is an AMD 64bit 3200. I've got 1Gb of DDR 400
memory. The operating system is Windows XP Pro. The monitor is an LG
19" TFT (1910B).
The computer is working fine except when I start playing games. It
seems like the monitor is losing it's signal after only a few seconds
into the games (all games). When I reboot the system XP tells me that
the problem is with the display adapter. This also happens when the
computer goes into hibernate and I try to wake it up.
I've tried the latest driver from Asus for the graphics card, but no
help there.
Has anyone experienced this and if so, what should I do?
It could be a power problem. A high end graphics card can draw
5V@10A and
[email protected] when there is a lot of 3D ops thrown at it.
(This is the reason for the drive power cable being used to
feed the video card.)
The monitoring chip on your board is constantly measuring the
voltages on the board. If you download and install one of either
Asus Probe or Motherboard Monitor (MBM5), these programs can
record the voltages in a text log file, for later examination.
In this case, the interval of 10 seconds in the program, may
not be fast enough for you to catch the exact instant the
game starts to play, so it may take you a few tries to get a
reading taken just before the crash.
The voltages are normally rated for +/- 5% , and if you see
anything significantly larger than that, it could mean your
PS is too small. (Power supplies have to be examined on
an output by output basis, for the +3.3V, +5V, +12V and so
on. Each one has a max current rating that is shown on the
label pasted to the side of the supply. Chances are you
are only exceeding the capabilities of one of the outputs
and not violating the max total power. Your computer might
be drawing only 180W from a 350W PS, but if all the 180W
comes from only one of the outputs, it might crush the
supply.)
The problem could also be with the AGP interface. For example,
the ATI9800 is known to not like the AGP interface being
overclocked. There is no AGP/PCI lock on your motherboard.
The 9800 can only handle from 66MHz up to about 75MHz,
before there will be problems. 200*(75/66)=227MHz is probably
the max that the FSB can handle on your board.
Can you play back a DVD in full screen mode without crashing ?
That might pump a bit of data through the AGP interface,
without warming up the video chip on the 9800. It you can do
stuff to the video card, that doesn't cause the video chip
to heat up, and the card still crashes the system, then either
the AGP interface or the card itself could be defective.
You might also examine the ATI SmartGART tab, to see how the
software is setting up the card. That is in the Display
control panel somewhere.
HTH,
Paul
