AIW X800XT lockup failure

psychoag98 · Jan 29, 2006, 07:08 PM

I am having a problem where my screen will suddenly go dead and my PC won't even reboot with the reset button. I have to hold the power button down for 5 seconds to kill it and then power it back up.

It doesn't seem to happen during any particular application, in fact it usually happens when I am away from the computer. At first, I thought the HD was spinning down after a period of non-se and not spinning back up, but it has even happened while I was surfing the web.

I have updated all of the drivers, including the nVidia nForce3 250 drivers on my Gigabyte K8 Triton motherboard. I have an Athlon 64 processor, but am running XP for now. I have 1 GB of ram and a 380W truepower power supply. I even update the BIOS.

I have used ATI Tool to monitor the temp, and it never seems to get above 50. I have seen it get as high as 75 while gaming, but the failure did not occur at that time.

I have tried using a driver cleaner and totally removing everything and reinstalling. I am currently using the newest drivers from ATI (Catalyst 6.1). This is an odd failure, and I am at my wit's end. I really like the card, but this is unacceptable and my help ticket with ATI has basically seen no action for a week and a half.

Any thoughts?

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jan 30, 2006, 04:21 PM

Just out of curiosity what are your voltage rails like on that PSU?

I had similar problems and I had a 350 watt PSU, which I figure would be OK since it was an Enermax and held all my old hardware fine. I wouldn't rule PSU out, these cards suck up alot of power.

Try underclocking the core on the card to 250 MHz and see if it goes away

psychoag98 · Jan 30, 2006, 07:18 PM

http://www.antec.com/specs/true380_spe.html

Looks like 24V on the +12V rail

I will try underclocking the card tonight.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jan 30, 2006, 07:20 PM

But what are the readings...like in Speedfan or any monitoring tool, does it show 12v for the +12, 5 for the +5 or is it like 11.5 for the +12 and 4.2 for the +5 etc..

psychoag98 · Jan 30, 2006, 07:26 PM

Ahh. Not sure. Is Speedfan a free tool? If so, I will give it a try tonight.

I noticed in another thread that another user had a similar problem back in June, but it didn't look like there was a resolution...

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jan 30, 2006, 07:31 PM

Speedfan is free yes

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jan 30, 2006, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psychoag98

http://www.antec.com/specs/true380_spe.html

Looks like 24V on the +12V rail

I will try underclocking the card tonight.

A good read for you
http://www.tomshardware.com/2002/10/...duct_labeling/
Never just trust the labeling though there something to go by...

Also "Max. Load" or "Max output" doesnt mean everyday running output
check your label too * +5V, +3.3V & +12V maximum output 360 Watts max.

psychoag98 · Jan 30, 2006, 11:57 PM

Vcore1: 1.57V
Vcore2: 2.58V
+3.3V: 3.20V
+5V: 4.09V (WTH?)
+12V: 11.71V
-12V: -7.26V (jumps around a lot sometimes to -4.86V)
-5V: -2.89V
+5V: 3.17V
Vbat: 2.85V

Do these look right? Is speedfan working properly?

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jan 30, 2006, 11:59 PM

Speed fan is probably working good, the + ones are all you need to pay attention to. Looks like a really low +5 and a low +12. That's likely the cause of instability

psychoag98 · Jan 31, 2006, 02:57 AM

Finally got an answer from ATI tech support.

Quote:

The problem that you are seeing could be caused by the graphics card. The only way to determine this would be to test it out in another computer. If you find that you have the same type of issue, the card would need to be replaced. If it is not the graphics card causing it, it may be your motherboard, power supply or RAM causing it.

Yeah, thanks a lot guys...

I clocked the core down to 250 MHz and will let it run for a while and see how it works.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jan 31, 2006, 10:10 PM

If the core being far lower helps its the PSU. My core being clocked down stopped my low wattage PSU from being overloaded.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Feb 1, 2006, 01:28 AM

Oh, another thing to try, try raising the AGP voltage from 1.55 to 1.6 if it already isn't there

psychoag98 · Feb 1, 2006, 02:03 AM

I disconnected one of my DVD drives (the reader, I left the RW connected) and moved some wire sockets that were close to the card. They were loose wires that fed to the audio connection on the front of the case designed to slide over pins. Some of them connect to the motherboard, but since there aren't all used, some dangle free. I doubt they were shorting anything, but since I don't use the front panel connections for audio, I removed them just in case.

So far, it has run for about 24 hours with no lockups. My guess is the DVD drive affected the power or something. I will let it run for a couple more days without error before reconnecting it and seeing what happens. If it is the problem, then I have no problem scrapping it because it is an old reader and I still have my RW connected.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Feb 1, 2006, 02:22 AM

The drive consumes some power so my guess is you're this close (about the length of this period ---> . ) to the limit of your PSU's wattage

psychoag98 · Feb 1, 2006, 02:27 AM

Maybe, but is a solid 380W supply, and I only have an Athlon 64, a 250GB HD, my AIW X800XT, and the two DVD drives. I do have an RF mouse and keyboard connected by USB, and the AIW remote receiver on USB too.

Still, maybe it is the power supply...

H3X4D3C1M4L · Feb 1, 2006, 03:19 AM

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

See what that tells you

psychoag98 · Feb 2, 2006, 04:20 AM

Still had lockups today, although I reconnected the front panel sound cable (making sure the loose wires were bound).

According to the link, it seems I have plenty of power.

I am really pulling my hair out over this. Arrgh.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Feb 2, 2006, 04:23 AM

This doesn't make sense then.

Thought of an RMA?

psychoag98 · Feb 2, 2006, 09:29 PM

Pardon, my noobidity, but what is an RMA?

psychoag98 · Feb 4, 2006, 02:39 AM

I've even tried branching off of a different power connector... no dice.

At what point should I ask for a replacement?

H3X4D3C1M4L · Feb 4, 2006, 03:59 AM

Ask for a replacement now.

psychoag98 · Feb 6, 2006, 06:12 PM

I finally gave up and asked for the RMA. I will ship it back today, and hopefully a new hunk of hardware will fix the problem.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Feb 6, 2006, 08:15 PM

Good man.

I wouldn't have put up with it that long

manwithastick · Mar 24, 2006, 03:52 AM

I have been having darn near the exact same problems. I got an x800 aiw from ebay 2 weeks ago. I had problems with it within an hour. I contacted the seller and he had no problems, so I pushed on. I have an abit vt7 with 3.2 Ghz p4, 1 gb ram, all stock frequencies, XPMCE fresh install 2 weeks ago with all updates.
I noticed my inexpensive 550 watt max PS had a low 3.3v, it was almost always 3.2v. All other voltages were pretty steady. I purchased an Aspire 520w PS from newegg and now all my voltages are great. I started doing a few 3DMark's and worked great. I thought all was settled. PC sat there idle for 10 minutes and got the black screen that was mentioned at the beginning of this post.
I took the video card out and put it in my work computer(very old running a 1700+ XP) with a 300w PS and it ran for a few hours great.
Swapped the card again into my machine and started using atitool to bench it for awhile, a few more 3dmarks, played half life 2 for an hour. PC worked great for near 8 hours at work today. Brought my pc back home and plugged it in tonight. Within the time it took to walk from my downstairs office to the upstairs living room it had crashed.
I have MCE 2005 and xbox 360 as an extender. 4 times in twenty minutes it crashed. 3 of those 4 times crashed hard enough I had to reset the bios to get it going again. I decided to run the atitool again and it has been running for over an hour now.
It makes no sense at all that the pc works while there is a load, but crashes a few minutes after sitting idle.
While I was testing there were a few times that my pc would not even get to the bios beep without it crashing. Lots of the crashes I would have to reset the BIOS. As the video card worked in the persons pc I bought it from and my work pc, it has to be something else hardware related. I have read a few people having the same video card and mobo as I and successfully running. I think what I will try tomorrow is swapping the ram. My ram is pc3200 512MBx2 Ultra name brand. The Ultra brand is sold by Tigerdirect. I am crossing my fingers that this is the problem.
Sorry to ramble on, but I hope my post can help others as this one has helped me. After two weeks of dealing with this day and night, I finally stumled acroos this post and the author of this thread is the first one that has had the exact same isssues as my own.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Mar 24, 2006, 02:58 PM

I think its something to do with MCE and what you're using for capture software

manwithastick · Mar 24, 2006, 08:03 PM

I tried the new ram. Still died sitting idle. I don't think it has anything to do with the OS. I can't even get the pc to start correctly at times. It will sit at the setup logo forever until I turn it off and reset the bios a few times.
I ordered a new mobo today. Another Abit, this time an IC7-G. Sucks to be spending money on old technology, but what can you do? I will definately post next week when I get the board in.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Mar 24, 2006, 09:08 PM

Hmm... was the old motherboard before a piece of crap? Not familiar with it but it looks like a VIA P4 chipset, and from what I hear VIA doesn't have good Intel chipsets

manwithastick · Mar 24, 2006, 09:32 PM

The VT7 is a VIA chipset mobo and has been just ok for me the last 2 years I owned. Only a couple issues here and there. I had an ATI 9000 in it pretty much the whole time. I once tested a BFG 6800 Ultra OC in it and it held up fine. This will be prolly the final VIA mobo I will own. I do have another VIA and between the two; I've had enough problems. Hind sight, I've always own ATI also, maybe that's my problem.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Mar 24, 2006, 09:43 PM

Perhaps. AiW's seem to get the shaft these days

manwithastick · Mar 27, 2006, 04:48 PM

I had the bright idea of using my friends system with an Abit IC7-G for a test bed this weekend. He has a water cooled system with a BFG 6800 Ultra OC. It has been a stable running machine. Until now. As soon as I installed the x800 AIW I could smell burning. It totally fried his motherboard. DAMN! I pulled the x800 and put it back into my VT7 and it still posted, but started doing its wonderful black screen that inspired this thread. I give up, I sent out for an RMA to ATI. Haven't heard the answer back yet. Does ATI require you to register the product in 30 days to authorize an RMA?

Jan 29, 2006, 07:08 PM	#1
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	AIW X800XT lockup failure I am having a problem where my screen will suddenly go dead and my PC won't even reboot with the reset button. I have to hold the power button down for 5 seconds to kill it and then power it back up. It doesn't seem to happen during any particular application, in fact it usually happens when I am away from the computer. At first, I thought the HD was spinning down after a period of non-se and not spinning back up, but it has even happened while I was surfing the web. I have updated all of the drivers, including the nVidia nForce3 250 drivers on my Gigabyte K8 Triton motherboard. I have an Athlon 64 processor, but am running XP for now. I have 1 GB of ram and a 380W truepower power supply. I even update the BIOS. I have used ATI Tool to monitor the temp, and it never seems to get above 50. I have seen it get as high as 75 while gaming, but the failure did not occur at that time. I have tried using a driver cleaner and totally removing everything and reinstalling. I am currently using the newest drivers from ATI (Catalyst 6.1). This is an odd failure, and I am at my wit's end. I really like the card, but this is unacceptable and my help ticket with ATI has basically seen no action for a week and a half. Any thoughts?

Jan 30, 2006, 07:18 PM	Thread Starter #3
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	Info http://www.antec.com/specs/true380_spe.html Looks like 24V on the +12V rail I will try underclocking the card tonight.

Jan 30, 2006, 04:21 PM	#2
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Just out of curiosity what are your voltage rails like on that PSU? I had similar problems and I had a 350 watt PSU, which I figure would be OK since it was an Enermax and held all my old hardware fine. I wouldn't rule PSU out, these cards suck up alot of power. Try underclocking the core on the card to 250 MHz and see if it goes away

Jan 30, 2006, 07:20 PM	#4
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	But what are the readings...like in Speedfan or any monitoring tool, does it show 12v for the +12, 5 for the +5 or is it like 11.5 for the +12 and 4.2 for the +5 etc..

Jan 30, 2006, 07:26 PM	Thread Starter #5
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	Ahh. Not sure. Is Speedfan a free tool? If so, I will give it a try tonight. I noticed in another thread that another user had a similar problem back in June, but it didn't look like there was a resolution...

Jan 30, 2006, 07:31 PM	#6
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Speedfan is free yes

Jan 30, 2006, 11:57 PM	Thread Starter #8
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	Vcore1: 1.57V Vcore2: 2.58V +3.3V: 3.20V +5V: 4.09V (WTH?) +12V: 11.71V -12V: -7.26V (jumps around a lot sometimes to -4.86V) -5V: -2.89V +5V: 3.17V Vbat: 2.85V Do these look right? Is speedfan working properly?

Jan 30, 2006, 11:59 PM	#9
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Speed fan is probably working good, the + ones are all you need to pay attention to. Looks like a really low +5 and a low +12. That's likely the cause of instability

Jan 31, 2006, 10:10 PM	#11
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	If the core being far lower helps its the PSU. My core being clocked down stopped my low wattage PSU from being overloaded.

Feb 1, 2006, 01:28 AM	#12
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Oh, another thing to try, try raising the AGP voltage from 1.55 to 1.6 if it already isn't there

Feb 1, 2006, 02:03 AM	Thread Starter #13
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	I disconnected one of my DVD drives (the reader, I left the RW connected) and moved some wire sockets that were close to the card. They were loose wires that fed to the audio connection on the front of the case designed to slide over pins. Some of them connect to the motherboard, but since there aren't all used, some dangle free. I doubt they were shorting anything, but since I don't use the front panel connections for audio, I removed them just in case. So far, it has run for about 24 hours with no lockups. My guess is the DVD drive affected the power or something. I will let it run for a couple more days without error before reconnecting it and seeing what happens. If it is the problem, then I have no problem scrapping it because it is an old reader and I still have my RW connected.

Feb 1, 2006, 02:22 AM	#14
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	The drive consumes some power so my guess is you're this close (about the length of this period ---> . ) to the limit of your PSU's wattage

Feb 1, 2006, 02:27 AM	Thread Starter #15
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	Maybe, but is a solid 380W supply, and I only have an Athlon 64, a 250GB HD, my AIW X800XT, and the two DVD drives. I do have an RF mouse and keyboard connected by USB, and the AIW remote receiver on USB too. Still, maybe it is the power supply...

Feb 1, 2006, 03:19 AM	#16
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp See what that tells you

Feb 2, 2006, 04:20 AM	Thread Starter #17
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	Still had lockups today, although I reconnected the front panel sound cable (making sure the loose wires were bound). According to the link, it seems I have plenty of power. I am really pulling my hair out over this. Arrgh.

Feb 2, 2006, 04:23 AM	#18
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	This doesn't make sense then. Thought of an RMA?

Feb 2, 2006, 09:29 PM	Thread Starter #19
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	Pardon, my noobidity, but what is an RMA?

Feb 4, 2006, 02:39 AM	Thread Starter #20
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	I've even tried branching off of a different power connector... no dice. At what point should I ask for a replacement?

Feb 4, 2006, 03:59 AM	#21
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Ask for a replacement now.

Feb 6, 2006, 06:12 PM	Thread Starter #22
psychoag98 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	I finally gave up and asked for the RMA. I will ship it back today, and hopefully a new hunk of hardware will fix the problem.

Feb 6, 2006, 08:15 PM	#23
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Good man. I wouldn't have put up with it that long

Mar 24, 2006, 03:52 AM	#24
manwithastick DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 6 Rep Power: 0	I have been having darn near the exact same problems. I got an x800 aiw from ebay 2 weeks ago. I had problems with it within an hour. I contacted the seller and he had no problems, so I pushed on. I have an abit vt7 with 3.2 Ghz p4, 1 gb ram, all stock frequencies, XPMCE fresh install 2 weeks ago with all updates. I noticed my inexpensive 550 watt max PS had a low 3.3v, it was almost always 3.2v. All other voltages were pretty steady. I purchased an Aspire 520w PS from newegg and now all my voltages are great. I started doing a few 3DMark's and worked great. I thought all was settled. PC sat there idle for 10 minutes and got the black screen that was mentioned at the beginning of this post. I took the video card out and put it in my work computer(very old running a 1700+ XP) with a 300w PS and it ran for a few hours great. Swapped the card again into my machine and started using atitool to bench it for awhile, a few more 3dmarks, played half life 2 for an hour. PC worked great for near 8 hours at work today. Brought my pc back home and plugged it in tonight. Within the time it took to walk from my downstairs office to the upstairs living room it had crashed. I have MCE 2005 and xbox 360 as an extender. 4 times in twenty minutes it crashed. 3 of those 4 times crashed hard enough I had to reset the bios to get it going again. I decided to run the atitool again and it has been running for over an hour now. It makes no sense at all that the pc works while there is a load, but crashes a few minutes after sitting idle. While I was testing there were a few times that my pc would not even get to the bios beep without it crashing. Lots of the crashes I would have to reset the BIOS. As the video card worked in the persons pc I bought it from and my work pc, it has to be something else hardware related. I have read a few people having the same video card and mobo as I and successfully running. I think what I will try tomorrow is swapping the ram. My ram is pc3200 512MBx2 Ultra name brand. The Ultra brand is sold by Tigerdirect. I am crossing my fingers that this is the problem. Sorry to ramble on, but I hope my post can help others as this one has helped me. After two weeks of dealing with this day and night, I finally stumled acroos this post and the author of this thread is the first one that has had the exact same isssues as my own.

Mar 24, 2006, 02:58 PM	#25
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	I think its something to do with MCE and what you're using for capture software

Mar 24, 2006, 08:03 PM	#26
manwithastick DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 6 Rep Power: 0	I tried the new ram. Still died sitting idle. I don't think it has anything to do with the OS. I can't even get the pc to start correctly at times. It will sit at the setup logo forever until I turn it off and reset the bios a few times. I ordered a new mobo today. Another Abit, this time an IC7-G. Sucks to be spending money on old technology, but what can you do? I will definately post next week when I get the board in.

Mar 24, 2006, 09:08 PM	#27
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Hmm... was the old motherboard before a piece of crap? Not familiar with it but it looks like a VIA P4 chipset, and from what I hear VIA doesn't have good Intel chipsets

Mar 24, 2006, 09:32 PM	#28
manwithastick DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 6 Rep Power: 0	The VT7 is a VIA chipset mobo and has been just ok for me the last 2 years I owned. Only a couple issues here and there. I had an ATI 9000 in it pretty much the whole time. I once tested a BFG 6800 Ultra OC in it and it held up fine. This will be prolly the final VIA mobo I will own. I do have another VIA and between the two; I've had enough problems. Hind sight, I've always own ATI also, maybe that's my problem.

Mar 24, 2006, 09:43 PM	#29
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	Perhaps. AiW's seem to get the shaft these days

Mar 27, 2006, 04:48 PM	#30
manwithastick DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 6 Rep Power: 0	I had the bright idea of using my friends system with an Abit IC7-G for a test bed this weekend. He has a water cooled system with a BFG 6800 Ultra OC. It has been a stable running machine. Until now. As soon as I installed the x800 AIW I could smell burning. It totally fried his motherboard. DAMN! I pulled the x800 and put it back into my VT7 and it still posted, but started doing its wonderful black screen that inspired this thread. I give up, I sent out for an RMA to ATI. Haven't heard the answer back yet. Does ATI require you to register the product in 30 days to authorize an RMA?