9700 Pro Crashing - Full System Lock

kelston · Aug 3, 2004, 09:22 PM

Hey fins, could you post up your whole system and whatnot. Maybe we have something in common other than the Radeon 9700.

AMD Barton 3200+ - Running stock speed - SLK-948U with 92mm Vantec Tornado running full speed
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Rev 1.04, UBER BIOS 1004 Enhanced SATA - Modded nF2 driver pack, 3.45 I think
1GB Corsair 3200 Pro LL (the one with those LEDs) - 2x 512
PC Power and Cooling Turbocool 510W Deluxe
1x 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB
1x 160GB Western Digital SE 8MB
Built by ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 256 - BIOS Modded to 9800XT (Hercules BIOS) - VGA Silencer 3 - Omega 4.7
M-Audio Revolution 7.1 - Driver 1.0.28 - Modded with AD8620 opamps and Panasonic and ELNA caps - Using SPDIF Coaxial out
Sony DRU-510A - 4x DVD +/- RW - 1.0F firmware
Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 - 17" LCD
Logitech Elite Keyboard
Logitech MX700 Mouse
Windows XP Pro - SP1a - All updates, even recommended (I have nothing I can get from Windows Update, at all)
Autopatcher April 04 Full Build

finsmaniac02 · Aug 3, 2004, 09:51 PM

windows xp home edition
amd athlon 64 3200+
Asus K8V SE
1 gb pc2700 ram (although i cant tell you what brands the 2 diff chips are)
IBM hitachi 160 gb serial ata (deskstar 160)
antec 430 watt power supply
soundblaster audigy 2 zs platinum
marvell ethernet device (gigabit, onboard)
radeon 9700 pro
newest omega drivers (fastwrite ON (he actually recommends that for amd 64 users, although I have tried both)
logitech elite keyboard
microsoft intellimouse explorer
sony 17 inch LCD monitor (was on a crt)

p.s.- computer had some really weird problems yesterday, I changed one thing in my mobo bios (turned it on "turbo" instead of "auto") and the computer was no longer bootable, no safe mode, no nutin, said it was missing a hal.dll. Used recovery console to construct a new boot partition and got back in windows, backed everything that i wanted up and then did a low level format and clean install of windows xp home edition. Now I am on a clean install, just now loaded all drivers and whatnot and I am gonna give this another go (needless to say, I will never put my mobo on "turbo" again, it was crazy) Now that i notice you have my same keyboard, I actually am going to NOT install the keyboard drivers quite yet (hey, its worth a shot lol)

finsmaniac02 · Aug 4, 2004, 12:51 AM

so... got to play doom 3 for about 15 minutes.... seems INCREDIBLE. but, once again... the game crashes, i have also noticed some black specles on textures (artifacting?), i think im gonna turn fastwrites off, then try downclocking vidcard a lil bit, then try 4x agp instead of 8x agp.... in that order

finsmaniac02 · Aug 4, 2004, 02:56 AM

still have to try to put agp down to 4x, but i REALLY am stumped.

kelston · Aug 4, 2004, 03:00 AM

I get no artifacting or any black specks like you're reporting. I can run ATITool for 30min and get 0 errors.

I'm about ready to pick up a new motherboard to see if that fixes anything. Argh.

finsmaniac02 · Aug 4, 2004, 03:43 AM

maybe some progress.....
turned to agp 4x, turned OFF vpu recovery, and turned off fast writes
i heard some advice that turning off vpu recovery might help because with it on, the graphics card might choose to restart prematurely (which makes sense also) and i knew that turning down to agp 4x might help also.
i went ahead and downclocked and that got rid of the artifacts in doom 3 (kinda weird because i NEVER tried to overclock my videocard)
seems to be working ok right now but once again, i just plain need to go to bed so i cant see how long it takes to freeze (if ever... i still have hope).
I would wait before you get a new mobo because i have had this exact problem with 2 different brands and chipsets....
my system before this was an athlon 2400+ with an Abit nf7s mobo (nforce 2 chipset), and now i am on my athlon 64 with asus kt800 chipset with the same problem.
I checked some other forums and a lot of people have our problem with radeon cards ranging from 9600-9800 and a few reported that turning off vpu recovery and down to agp 4x solved everything.... i am hoping this could be the case with us too

finsmaniac02 · Aug 4, 2004, 03:30 PM

well, i got to play doom 3 for about an huor and 15 minutes, i just quit because i have other responsibilities right now. lowering to agp 4x might have done the trick.... i may re-enable fast writing and clock my card back up to stock and see if i can still play. BTW i play doom 3 on high settings 1024x768 with 2x AA and its just fine, i noticed a little bit of slow down when i just fought this beast with steam spraying on him (cool effect) so i MAY turn off AA, but i lthink it helps the jaggies a lot

phongtruong12 · Aug 6, 2004, 06:05 AM

i have my settings on 1024x768 on high w/no aa and 4x af (may try it with 8x) and it runs great at 40-50 fps. i think you should leave fastwrites OFF. ive seen various benchmarks with it on and it gives you maybe a .5-1 increase in fps but it's not worth the trouble.

finsmaniac02 · Aug 6, 2004, 06:19 AM

taking it down to 4x agp seemed to solve everything, for now

Kemal · Aug 7, 2004, 10:05 PM

I'm about to try going down to AGP 4x.

I've been having the exact same problem as listed here, and just got done putting in an RMA request for my card.
System specs are in the siggy.

I noticed that a poster here with an A7N8X rev 1.04 had this problem, mine is a Rev 2.0, still got the problem.

I'm also going to try and increase the voltage from 1.5 to 1.6.

Will post back with results. Really sucks to get *just* to the end of a level in Doom3 and then crash.

I don't think it is VPU Recover related, as I haven't had that feature on for the four months this problem has been occouring. I did just turn it on last night in attempt to save Doom3, but still crashed, and couldn't resume playing.

kelston · Aug 7, 2004, 10:15 PM

Good news. At least for me.

It appears a combination of theories has stopped the crashing.

I upped the voltage to AGP to 1.6V, lowered AGP to 4X, and this last thing I did I think was the kicker (Since I already tried the other two individually and with each other without success).

My PC Power and Cooling PSU has two potentiometers so I can increase or decrease the 12V and 3.3V rails. I upped these slightly to force more voltage and viola. I haven't crashed in two days.

Kemal · Aug 10, 2004, 02:46 AM

Setting the AGP speed to 4x seems to be the key here, not one lockup since I changed the speed setting.

However, I am a little irked. Even if there is no 'noticeable' preformance boost between 4x and 8x, my card is advertised to run at 8x and my motherboard advertised to support it, and there's really no acceptable reason it shouldn't. I'm hoping to get the OK to RMA my card. I just want it to do everything I paid for.

kelston · Aug 10, 2004, 03:21 AM

I popped back in my Radeon 9700 just to see.

Unfortunately for me it seems, the AGP at 4X alone does not solve the problem still, as I noted before I started the thread. Nor does upping voltage with AGP at 4X.

It still looks like only if I up the pots to put more juice into the 3.3V rail does it stop crashing. I don't know why this is as all my rails are less than .03V off of their normal with the 3.3V rail actually being 3.32V

kelston · Aug 11, 2004, 09:01 PM

Seems like i'm just getting bad news on top of bad news when it comes to my tech toys. Not only is my DSL down to the point where they have to send a technician to the premises... but it seems that 4X AGP, voltage upping, and PSU tweaking did not fix my crashes.

I was playing the past few days and over the weekend without issue. Even played Doom 3 for a few hours and i'm guessing Doom 3 would bring out any heat issues or power issues. Played Doom and Battlefield 1942 without problems until last night.

Nothing on my system changed from Monday night (when I last played BF1942) till last night (the next time I played). And unfortunately, last night it crashed again.

I almost want to assume it might be a heat issue since it was significantly hotter and more humid last night than for the past 3 days prior to it. However, I don't know how I could find out what is overheating since my CPU tops out at 45C load on a hot day and my video card according to Overdrive tops out at 60C on a hot day. My mobo temp never seems to go about 30C so i'm out of ideas, since it wouldn't seem to be a heat issue since everything has a heatsink on it.

I actually bought the mosfet kits and stuff to put heatsinks on everything on my mobo on the off chance it could be that and temp readings on my CPU, vid card are well within acceptable ranges.

So i'm back to where I was a week ago. With no idea what the problem is. I've formatted, replaced my video card and PSU and those were really last resorts.

What now?

smorpheus · Aug 13, 2004, 04:48 AM

Here's something to try. I know this helps Soyo people with troublesome 9800 Pro's. Disable your secondary device in the Device Manager. You should see entries for your 9700 (if it's like the 9800). Disable the one marked secondary. This has no effect on anything but seems to drastically increase stability.

If you've already done the 1.6V increase, the 4X AGP decrease, then this is about the last thing I've heard of doing.

kelston · Aug 13, 2004, 06:18 AM

Sounds good. It's something I actually haven't tried or have seen suggested. Thanks. Will post results.

kelston · Aug 20, 2004, 12:27 AM

Been about a week since I disabled Secondary.

Since then i've had only one lock up. Looks like it's the best solution thus far.

Konge Odin · Sep 25, 2004, 01:21 AM

I had some problems with my system, but found out that the real reason behind the hangs where bad ram.

Only problem was that memtest didnt find it. I tried all options in memtest, but it simply didnt find the problem with the ram, even after tests that took 24 hous or something. Then I tried simmtester, an it found an error after 10 minutes with one of my ram bricks. I bought a new Ram brick... and BAM the system worked as hell......and fried my Radeon 9700pro to toast after a few weeks of pure joy.

So I turned in my radeon and got a 9700proAIW that now have worked flawlessly in the system for 2 years without any hardware problems.

DocMemory are available as a freeware – which can be download from the CST website

[color=#0000ff]

http://www.simmtester.com or http://www.docmemory.com.

[/color]

kelston · Sep 25, 2004, 01:41 AM

Well since i've done everything else including replacing the video card, don't see how this could hurt.

I'm hoping it's not the RAM considering this is new and it would be 2 out of 2 for having Corsair RAM fail on me.

Konge Odin · Sep 25, 2004, 10:06 AM

One point to mention is that my system ran without a cabinet fan too, the ones that built my setup forgot the fan, and I didnt get aware of that before now. I really think cabinet fans will be needed for some systems, so they wont boil...
No wonder why my card was fried, maybe this will too if I dont hurry to put in a fan.

Konge Odin · Sep 25, 2004, 10:26 AM

One other thing I did to get my system more stable, was to connect my monitor (the old one was a crt) directly to the power outlet in the wall, and not to the pc power outlet.
This is probably less demanding for the pc and it probably generates less heat.
After getting an lcd monitor my power bill has also decreased somewhat, so I guess I am consuming less power now.

Konge Odin · Sep 25, 2004, 11:03 AM

Sorry about me mentioning fans in the cabinet as it seems you have allready figured that out by yourself.
I didnt see your post about all the fancy stuff youve used in the machine. Real strange that its not working quite right, as you have thought about almost everything.
As you see my rig has been fully working even without a cabinet fan for two years.

I have some problems with understanding that it is your graphic cards that are the problem. Hopefully your motherboard producer will make some new bios for your motherboard that makes it work better with the components. For me it took a year or something before Soltek released a fully working bios for my motherboard, to get it to work in 8xagp, and stop hanging. At the same time they removed the board from the production line.
Remember to try all the options in simmtester, it might be easier to use than memtest but a little bit different.
You should also try some other diagnostics tools to check your mainboard or the cpu, such as Aida 32 or similar, it might be a bunch of better programs aout there.
As a last resort you could be changing the mainboard, my guess is that it might work then. Maybe you will end up with two machines not working right in the end

Hope it works out for you.

Konge Odin · Sep 25, 2004, 11:24 AM

Of course it could be your hard disk has some bad sectors, and that it is in the area used for swap file. Check your hardisk, just remember that a standard search with Scandisk probably wont find the problem, I think you could turn on some advanced options here too, I think they are good enough. If not try Norton or something similar (just dont install the Norton package, it could slow down the machine massively if you dont know what youre doing).

Aug 6, 2004, 06:05 AM	#38
phongtruong12 DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Georgia Posts: 264 Rep Power: 0	i have my settings on 1024x768 on high w/no aa and 4x af (may try it with 8x) and it runs great at 40-50 fps. i think you should leave fastwrites OFF. ive seen various benchmarks with it on and it gives you maybe a .5-1 increase in fps but it's not worth the trouble. __________________ Sony VAIO RX860 2.4 @2.6 Ghz, 533 @580 Mhz PQI 1 GB PC2700 80 GB Hard Drive 5400 RPM Thermaltake 480W PSU X800XL 256 MB VIVO Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Logitech X530 Speakers

Aug 7, 2004, 10:05 PM	#40
Kemal DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 166 Rep Power: 0	I'm about to try going down to AGP 4x. I've been having the exact same problem as listed here, and just got done putting in an RMA request for my card. System specs are in the siggy. I noticed that a poster here with an A7N8X rev 1.04 had this problem, mine is a Rev 2.0, still got the problem. I'm also going to try and increase the voltage from 1.5 to 1.6. Will post back with results. Really sucks to get just to the end of a level in Doom3 and then crash. I don't think it is VPU Recover related, as I haven't had that feature on for the four months this problem has been occouring. I did just turn it on last night in attempt to save Doom3, but still crashed, and couldn't resume playing. __________________ ASUS A7N8X Rev 2.0 AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 1gb PC3200 DDR (512mb PC3200x2) + 256mb Radeon X800 Pro Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Windows XP SP 2

Aug 10, 2004, 02:46 AM	#42
Kemal DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 166 Rep Power: 0	Setting the AGP speed to 4x seems to be the key here, not one lockup since I changed the speed setting. However, I am a little irked. Even if there is no 'noticeable' preformance boost between 4x and 8x, my card is advertised to run at 8x and my motherboard advertised to support it, and there's really no acceptable reason it shouldn't. I'm hoping to get the OK to RMA my card. I just want it to do everything I paid for. __________________ ASUS A7N8X Rev 2.0 AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 1gb PC3200 DDR (512mb PC3200x2) + 256mb Radeon X800 Pro Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Windows XP SP 2

Sep 25, 2004, 01:21 AM	#48
Konge Odin DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Moss, Norway Posts: 54 Rep Power: 0	I had some problems with my system, but found out that the real reason behind the hangs where bad ram. Only problem was that memtest didnt find it. I tried all options in memtest, but it simply didnt find the problem with the ram, even after tests that took 24 hous or something. Then I tried simmtester, an it found an error after 10 minutes with one of my ram bricks. I bought a new Ram brick... and BAM the system worked as hell......and fried my Radeon 9700pro to toast after a few weeks of pure joy. So I turned in my radeon and got a 9700proAIW that now have worked flawlessly in the system for 2 years without any hardware problems. DocMemory are available as a freeware – which can be download from the CST website [color=#0000ff] http://www.simmtester.com or http://www.docmemory.com. [/color] __________________ Athlon 2000XP Audigy PlatinumEX 768 MB 333MHz DDR (Nanya) Soltek75 FRV (KT400) xfx Geforce 6600GT(2.0ns ) Logitech Cordless Desktop MX Koss Porta Pro (Headset with good sound) westerndigital 80 Gb Maxtor diamondmax 10 ide 133 200Gb (games are here) 2 x NEC 1760nx 17" 16ms TCO03 Flatscreen Last edited by Konge Odin; Sep 25, 2004 at 05:20 PM.

Sep 25, 2004, 10:06 AM	#50
Konge Odin DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Moss, Norway Posts: 54 Rep Power: 0	One point to mention is that my system ran without a cabinet fan too, the ones that built my setup forgot the fan, and I didnt get aware of that before now. I really think cabinet fans will be needed for some systems, so they wont boil... No wonder why my card was fried, maybe this will too if I dont hurry to put in a fan. __________________ Athlon 2000XP Audigy PlatinumEX 768 MB 333MHz DDR (Nanya) Soltek75 FRV (KT400) xfx Geforce 6600GT(2.0ns ) Logitech Cordless Desktop MX Koss Porta Pro (Headset with good sound) westerndigital 80 Gb Maxtor diamondmax 10 ide 133 200Gb (games are here) 2 x NEC 1760nx 17" 16ms TCO03 Flatscreen

Aug 3, 2004, 09:22 PM	Thread Starter #31
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	Hey fins, could you post up your whole system and whatnot. Maybe we have something in common other than the Radeon 9700. AMD Barton 3200+ - Running stock speed - SLK-948U with 92mm Vantec Tornado running full speed ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Rev 1.04, UBER BIOS 1004 Enhanced SATA - Modded nF2 driver pack, 3.45 I think 1GB Corsair 3200 Pro LL (the one with those LEDs) - 2x 512 PC Power and Cooling Turbocool 510W Deluxe 1x 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB 1x 160GB Western Digital SE 8MB Built by ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 256 - BIOS Modded to 9800XT (Hercules BIOS) - VGA Silencer 3 - Omega 4.7 M-Audio Revolution 7.1 - Driver 1.0.28 - Modded with AD8620 opamps and Panasonic and ELNA caps - Using SPDIF Coaxial out Sony DRU-510A - 4x DVD +/- RW - 1.0F firmware Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 - 17" LCD Logitech Elite Keyboard Logitech MX700 Mouse Windows XP Pro - SP1a - All updates, even recommended (I have nothing I can get from Windows Update, at all) Autopatcher April 04 Full Build

Aug 3, 2004, 09:51 PM	#32
finsmaniac02 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	windows xp home edition amd athlon 64 3200+ Asus K8V SE 1 gb pc2700 ram (although i cant tell you what brands the 2 diff chips are) IBM hitachi 160 gb serial ata (deskstar 160) antec 430 watt power supply soundblaster audigy 2 zs platinum marvell ethernet device (gigabit, onboard) radeon 9700 pro newest omega drivers (fastwrite ON (he actually recommends that for amd 64 users, although I have tried both) logitech elite keyboard microsoft intellimouse explorer sony 17 inch LCD monitor (was on a crt) p.s.- computer had some really weird problems yesterday, I changed one thing in my mobo bios (turned it on "turbo" instead of "auto") and the computer was no longer bootable, no safe mode, no nutin, said it was missing a hal.dll. Used recovery console to construct a new boot partition and got back in windows, backed everything that i wanted up and then did a low level format and clean install of windows xp home edition. Now I am on a clean install, just now loaded all drivers and whatnot and I am gonna give this another go (needless to say, I will never put my mobo on "turbo" again, it was crazy) Now that i notice you have my same keyboard, I actually am going to NOT install the keyboard drivers quite yet (hey, its worth a shot lol)

Aug 4, 2004, 12:51 AM	#33
finsmaniac02 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	so... got to play doom 3 for about 15 minutes.... seems INCREDIBLE. but, once again... the game crashes, i have also noticed some black specles on textures (artifacting?), i think im gonna turn fastwrites off, then try downclocking vidcard a lil bit, then try 4x agp instead of 8x agp.... in that order

Aug 4, 2004, 02:56 AM	#34
finsmaniac02 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	still have to try to put agp down to 4x, but i REALLY am stumped.

Aug 4, 2004, 03:00 AM	Thread Starter #35
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	I get no artifacting or any black specks like you're reporting. I can run ATITool for 30min and get 0 errors. I'm about ready to pick up a new motherboard to see if that fixes anything. Argh.

Aug 4, 2004, 03:43 AM	#36
finsmaniac02 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	maybe some progress..... turned to agp 4x, turned OFF vpu recovery, and turned off fast writes i heard some advice that turning off vpu recovery might help because with it on, the graphics card might choose to restart prematurely (which makes sense also) and i knew that turning down to agp 4x might help also. i went ahead and downclocked and that got rid of the artifacts in doom 3 (kinda weird because i NEVER tried to overclock my videocard) seems to be working ok right now but once again, i just plain need to go to bed so i cant see how long it takes to freeze (if ever... i still have hope). I would wait before you get a new mobo because i have had this exact problem with 2 different brands and chipsets.... my system before this was an athlon 2400+ with an Abit nf7s mobo (nforce 2 chipset), and now i am on my athlon 64 with asus kt800 chipset with the same problem. I checked some other forums and a lot of people have our problem with radeon cards ranging from 9600-9800 and a few reported that turning off vpu recovery and down to agp 4x solved everything.... i am hoping this could be the case with us too

Aug 4, 2004, 03:30 PM	#37
finsmaniac02 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	well, i got to play doom 3 for about an huor and 15 minutes, i just quit because i have other responsibilities right now. lowering to agp 4x might have done the trick.... i may re-enable fast writing and clock my card back up to stock and see if i can still play. BTW i play doom 3 on high settings 1024x768 with 2x AA and its just fine, i noticed a little bit of slow down when i just fought this beast with steam spraying on him (cool effect) so i MAY turn off AA, but i lthink it helps the jaggies a lot

Aug 6, 2004, 06:19 AM	#39
finsmaniac02 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 29 Rep Power: 0	taking it down to 4x agp seemed to solve everything, for now

Aug 7, 2004, 10:15 PM	Thread Starter #41
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	Good news. At least for me. It appears a combination of theories has stopped the crashing. I upped the voltage to AGP to 1.6V, lowered AGP to 4X, and this last thing I did I think was the kicker (Since I already tried the other two individually and with each other without success). My PC Power and Cooling PSU has two potentiometers so I can increase or decrease the 12V and 3.3V rails. I upped these slightly to force more voltage and viola. I haven't crashed in two days.

Aug 10, 2004, 03:21 AM	Thread Starter #43
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	I popped back in my Radeon 9700 just to see. Unfortunately for me it seems, the AGP at 4X alone does not solve the problem still, as I noted before I started the thread. Nor does upping voltage with AGP at 4X. It still looks like only if I up the pots to put more juice into the 3.3V rail does it stop crashing. I don't know why this is as all my rails are less than .03V off of their normal with the 3.3V rail actually being 3.32V

Aug 11, 2004, 09:01 PM	Thread Starter #44
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	Seems like i'm just getting bad news on top of bad news when it comes to my tech toys. Not only is my DSL down to the point where they have to send a technician to the premises... but it seems that 4X AGP, voltage upping, and PSU tweaking did not fix my crashes. I was playing the past few days and over the weekend without issue. Even played Doom 3 for a few hours and i'm guessing Doom 3 would bring out any heat issues or power issues. Played Doom and Battlefield 1942 without problems until last night. Nothing on my system changed from Monday night (when I last played BF1942) till last night (the next time I played). And unfortunately, last night it crashed again. I almost want to assume it might be a heat issue since it was significantly hotter and more humid last night than for the past 3 days prior to it. However, I don't know how I could find out what is overheating since my CPU tops out at 45C load on a hot day and my video card according to Overdrive tops out at 60C on a hot day. My mobo temp never seems to go about 30C so i'm out of ideas, since it wouldn't seem to be a heat issue since everything has a heatsink on it. I actually bought the mosfet kits and stuff to put heatsinks on everything on my mobo on the off chance it could be that and temp readings on my CPU, vid card are well within acceptable ranges. So i'm back to where I was a week ago. With no idea what the problem is. I've formatted, replaced my video card and PSU and those were really last resorts. What now?

Aug 13, 2004, 04:48 AM	#45
smorpheus DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	Here's something to try. I know this helps Soyo people with troublesome 9800 Pro's. Disable your secondary device in the Device Manager. You should see entries for your 9700 (if it's like the 9800). Disable the one marked secondary. This has no effect on anything but seems to drastically increase stability. If you've already done the 1.6V increase, the 4X AGP decrease, then this is about the last thing I've heard of doing.

Aug 13, 2004, 06:18 AM	Thread Starter #46
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	Sounds good. It's something I actually haven't tried or have seen suggested. Thanks. Will post results.

Aug 20, 2004, 12:27 AM	Thread Starter #47
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	Been about a week since I disabled Secondary. Since then i've had only one lock up. Looks like it's the best solution thus far.

Sep 25, 2004, 01:41 AM	Thread Starter #49
kelston HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bayside, NY USA Posts: 360 Rep Power: 0	Well since i've done everything else including replacing the video card, don't see how this could hurt. I'm hoping it's not the RAM considering this is new and it would be 2 out of 2 for having Corsair RAM fail on me.

Sep 25, 2004, 10:26 AM	#51
Konge Odin DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Moss, Norway Posts: 54 Rep Power: 0	One other thing I did to get my system more stable, was to connect my monitor (the old one was a crt) directly to the power outlet in the wall, and not to the pc power outlet. This is probably less demanding for the pc and it probably generates less heat. After getting an lcd monitor my power bill has also decreased somewhat, so I guess I am consuming less power now. __________________ Athlon 2000XP Audigy PlatinumEX 768 MB 333MHz DDR (Nanya) Soltek75 FRV (KT400) xfx Geforce 6600GT(2.0ns ) Logitech Cordless Desktop MX Koss Porta Pro (Headset with good sound) westerndigital 80 Gb Maxtor diamondmax 10 ide 133 200Gb (games are here) 2 x NEC 1760nx 17" 16ms TCO03 Flatscreen

Sep 25, 2004, 11:03 AM	#52
Konge Odin DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Moss, Norway Posts: 54 Rep Power: 0	Sorry about me mentioning fans in the cabinet as it seems you have allready figured that out by yourself. I didnt see your post about all the fancy stuff youve used in the machine. Real strange that its not working quite right, as you have thought about almost everything. As you see my rig has been fully working even without a cabinet fan for two years. I have some problems with understanding that it is your graphic cards that are the problem. Hopefully your motherboard producer will make some new bios for your motherboard that makes it work better with the components. For me it took a year or something before Soltek released a fully working bios for my motherboard, to get it to work in 8xagp, and stop hanging. At the same time they removed the board from the production line. Remember to try all the options in simmtester, it might be easier to use than memtest but a little bit different. You should also try some other diagnostics tools to check your mainboard or the cpu, such as Aida 32 or similar, it might be a bunch of better programs aout there. As a last resort you could be changing the mainboard, my guess is that it might work then. Maybe you will end up with two machines not working right in the end Hope it works out for you. __________________ Athlon 2000XP Audigy PlatinumEX 768 MB 333MHz DDR (Nanya) Soltek75 FRV (KT400) xfx Geforce 6600GT(2.0ns ) Logitech Cordless Desktop MX Koss Porta Pro (Headset with good sound) westerndigital 80 Gb Maxtor diamondmax 10 ide 133 200Gb (games are here) 2 x NEC 1760nx 17" 16ms TCO03 Flatscreen

Sep 25, 2004, 11:24 AM	#53
Konge Odin DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Moss, Norway Posts: 54 Rep Power: 0	Of course it could be your hard disk has some bad sectors, and that it is in the area used for swap file. Check your hardisk, just remember that a standard search with Scandisk probably wont find the problem, I think you could turn on some advanced options here too, I think they are good enough. If not try Norton or something similar (just dont install the Norton package, it could slow down the machine massively if you dont know what youre doing). __________________ Athlon 2000XP Audigy PlatinumEX 768 MB 333MHz DDR (Nanya) Soltek75 FRV (KT400) xfx Geforce 6600GT(2.0ns ) Logitech Cordless Desktop MX Koss Porta Pro (Headset with good sound) westerndigital 80 Gb Maxtor diamondmax 10 ide 133 200Gb (games are here) 2 x NEC 1760nx 17" 16ms TCO03 Flatscreen Last edited by Konge Odin; Sep 25, 2004 at 11:29 AM.