radeon 8500 with via kt333, stability problems?

[simo]

Has anyone of you had this problem?

Here's my system:

Processor: AMD Athlon 1400MHz Thunderbird
Mobo: Gigabyte 7VRXP rev2.0 (kt333 chipset)
Graphics card: ATI Radeon 8500 64MB (built by ATI)

The problem:

Almost any game I play crashes if I use any driver above catalyst 2.3.
Such games are NFS: HP2, simcity4, mafia etc. For some reason a few
games like Wolfenstein do work with newer drivers. Catalyst 2.3
doesn't work too stable either, but it's the most working driver for
me.

I've heard that there are stability problems with kt333 and Radeon
8500 combination. Is this true or is my radeon trash?

Thanks for your help,

-- Simo

 

[Dave]

Has anyone of you had this problem?

Here's my system:

Processor: AMD Athlon 1400MHz Thunderbird
Mobo: Gigabyte 7VRXP rev2.0 (kt333 chipset)
Graphics card: ATI Radeon 8500 64MB (built by ATI)

The problem:

Almost any game I play crashes if I use any driver above catalyst 2.3.

I've got the same mainboard and it crashed all the time when using a
GeForce. Once I put in a Radeon 8500 (Hercules) the crashing stopped. Try
dropping the AGP rate to 2x and see if that helps. You could also try
slowing the memory timings.

 

[sasquatch]

I have the exact same card. I have 2 computers that both use via chipsets.
They both have Athlon Processors. I have the same problem. Wolfenstein
works because it doesn't use Hardware T&L. My computer freezes with games
that use Hardware T&L. I think the problem is the Via Chipset. My next
machine is going to have an Nforce2 Chipset and probably a P4 rather than
AMD. In the meantime, The 3.9 drivers have a VPU Recover feature. This
keeps my computer from locking. Turn off the error reporting feature though
because it will return to the desktop. If I turn the error reporting off
the game flickers for a second then I can go back to playing. It's not
perfect by any means but at least I can play my games again.

 

[FLY135]

Just a side note... I have a Radeon 8500 and it works flawlessly in my
Gigabyte KT400 MB w/ Athlon 2100+. I also have a Ti4200 that works
flawlessly in my Albatron KT400 w/ Athlon 2500+ Barton. I did get freezeups
with the LoMac demo (Radeon 8500), but that was corrected with a driver
update.

 

[Graeme Ellis]

Cooling issue? or Chipset drivers?

Check both

Just a side note... I have a Radeon 8500 and it works flawlessly in my
Gigabyte KT400 MB w/ Athlon 2100+. I also have a Ti4200 that works
flawlessly in my Albatron KT400 w/ Athlon 2500+ Barton. I did get freezeups
with the LoMac demo (Radeon 8500), but that was corrected with a driver
update.