9700 Pro Crashing - Full System Lock

kelston

I have a Built by ATI Radeon 9700 Pro that so far has fully locked up my system in every game I have tried to play except for Counter-Strike (but only in D3D rendering). I would say it's an error only in OpenGL games except that I just installed Far Cry and it crashed twice in 15min.

I have tried a lot of solutions except for reformatting. It's near finals week so I don't want to have to deal with reformatting in time to finish my final papers so I am hoping... praying... that there is a solution. Oddly it didn't crash until the last month or so but I can't pinpoint what I did to start the problems. I was playing Spellforce without issue for a while. Last time I played SpellForce was April 1st... kinda makes me wonder if someone's playing a drawn out April Fool's prank (which would actually cause someone to truly be killed if it was).

Symptom of the crashes are:

- Display completely locks up
- Whatever sound was playing repeats (like the last 1 sec) in an infinite loop
- Occasionally causes monitor to go to standby
- If VPU Recover is on, sometimes will activate VPU Recover
- Will not respond to Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Alt-Del unless VPU Recover is active and activated

Looking at the 4-1-04 date, I did no system file/driver change/install

What i've tried so far:

- Reinstalled drivers - Omegas and ATIs from 3.10 to 4.4 (I've used CAB cleaner and DriverCleaner every time) - no diff
- Scandisc/Defrag
- Virus Scan/Adware Spyware scan
- Modified memory timings - Default timings are 2-3-2-5 (according to BIOS) or 2-3-2-6 according to Corsair - changed to 2-3-3-6 and 2-3-3-11 no diff
- Modified memory voltage - Tried everything from default to 2.7V - no diff
- Modified AGP voltage from 1.5 to 1.7 and back - no diff
- Modified CPU voltage from 1.65 to 1.85 and back - no diff
- Turned off FW and turned em on - no diff
- Turned off 8X AGP - no diff
- Turned on/off VPU recover - no diff except if it's on, sometimes it will activate and restore use to the computer
- Reinstalled the games

System specs:

AMD Barton 3200 (400 fsb)
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Rev1.04 - BIOS 1004 (1007 doesn't like my Barton)
Enermax 550W PSU
1GB Corsair XMS 3200 ProLL (Matched 512s)
ATi Radeon 9700 Pro - currently on Omega 4.4s
M-Audio Revolution 7.1 - Driver 1.0.28
1x 120GB WD Spec Edition - 2 partitions - OS and Programs
1x 160GB WD Spec Edition - 1 partition - Storage
Sony DRU510A Dual Format DVDRW 4x

Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 1a - All Critical Updates

CPU runs from 38-42C under normal loads depending on room temp
Radeon and Sound card has 3 side intake fans blowing on them

PolygonParadox

Try running Memtest. If you get errors, lower you CAS to 2.5.

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BBA 9800

kelston

Oops, I always forget to mention something.

Regardless, I ran it again this morning before I went to class after reading your post. No errors were found.

The_Neon_Cowboy

what psu? your voltage readings? What are your temps? chipset drivers? test your ram...etc

Heat, bad power is useally the first place i look....

also check for a bios update from your board...



try a diffrent molex (power connector, plugged in your vidio card)

kelston

PSU: Enermax 550W PSU (FMA)

Voltage:

+3.3V - 3.39V
+5V - 4.87V
+12V - 11.61V
-12V - -12.07V
-5V - -5.06V

Case temp - 25C
CPU current temp - 36C

Chipset driver - nVidia nForce2 3.13

I cannot update BIOS as this current one, BIOS 1004 is the best for my system, the 1007 one will not work, but this is normal.

Gardinen

I'm not sure about when voltage are too low, but it looks like yours are quite low. Although it seems a bit strange considering that you have a 550W PSU.
MY current voltage is:

CPU Core 1.62 V
+3.3 V 3.36 V
+5 V 5.00 V
+12 V 12.04 V
-12 V -12.45 V
-5 V -5.30 V
DIMM 2.61 V

and I've got a 460W PSU. Do you have a alot of devices in your computer, CD-roms, harddrives?

kelston

I don't think I have too many things save for fans.

I have 1 DVDRW and 2 hard drives.

But all told, I have 8 fans running (2 front intake, 3 side, 2 exhaust, 1 heatsink) not counting the 2 on the PSU.

However, i've run this sort of configuration since I built this computer (well, I started with 1 hard drive and 2 cd drives which is now 2 HDD and 1 cd drive) and never had an issue.

kelston

Hmm... totally stumped.

I changed the power cable connecting to the Radeon and unplugged the needless cathode and LED lights.

Voltage readings did not change or the change was .01V, negligible at best.

So the issue that's bugging me is that... not all games seem to exhibit the problem. And it doesn't seem to be specific to OpenGL or Direct3D. Nor does it seem to be specific to DX7, 8, or 9.

I've recently downloaded and started playing America's Army and I can play that for hours on end (I hit about 7 hours straight yesterday) and have absolutely no problems. I'll even go so far as to Alt-Tab back and forth from desktop to the game.

At the same time however, I just tried to play Far Cry again and not 10 minutes into the loaded game, my system locked up and the display on the monitor was basically about 7 or 8 vertical black columns with a bunch of horizontal white lines on each column (not single white lines across the whole screen, lines on each individual column). I'm not sure what artifacts are supposed to look like when you have a damaged or overheating card but none of these symptoms appear while in a game until the game locks up.

Usually however, the game just locks up to just an shot of where I am in the game when it locked up and goes to a black screen or I get a bunch of nice scrambled image of rainbow colors.

I probably will end up reformatting in 2 weeks after finals are over but i'd like to be able to at least pinpoint the issue, just so I can more easily diagnose and report the issue rather than having these posts trying to vaguely describe what's happening.

For reference, I reinstalled DX9.0b on top of itself a few days ago to see if that was the issue. It didn't give me some message saying I have the most recent version of DX9 (Despite having 9.0b already installed) and reinstalled video and sound drivers.

Aretè

Your suffering the same exact problems i am. Iv been stumped myself as well. Your problem is mine to a T man. The last thing i am going to do before more testing of possible conflicts/etc is imma borrow my friends 9800 pro put it into mine and put my 9700 into his and see what happens. If i get errors with the 9800 and he gets no errors with the 9700 i know then its something on my end which honestly i would prefer because then i can fix that. I really dun wanna havta rma another card. Iv unplugged all my fans cept for one under fan and an top exhaust, im runnin minimal stuff right up, upped my agp voltage downed my agp speed done ish with fast write on and off. Etc etc iv basically done all the steps one first takes to going through this ish. If you figure the problem out lemme know. Dying to solve it myself

At the moment now i still get crashes but now, my textuers are all black spotted and pixelated and they jump around all squiggly and jiggly. Makes everything look dirty and muddy. No clue what that is , never seen it before.

here and here
are examples of what it looks like

Foosanator

How hot is your north bridge getting? I was having the same problems on a newer revision of the same board. Your board slightly underpowers the Northbridge. The first thing I did when I got my board is take off that Northbridge heatsink and remove the crappy pad lathed it and put on some AS5. I was having some issues with random restarts but that was because the Geil dual memory kit that I had was giving me memory errors. I would highly doubt that its your card. Could be a bad board?

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BiGBrOwNPimpsta

i have the same problem, but you have already tried my solution to it and it failed which is using omega drivers.

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kelston

Hokay, update to the problem.

First, I have yet to actually narrow down what is causing the issue. However, i've reached a point in hard drive capacity where I won't be reformatting till I can afford enough DVDRs to back up my stuff. I would be more willing to do so, but I am leaning towards a hardware as opposed to software issue. I have a few theories, which I hope someone will take the time to entertain after I update the problem.

Since the issue, I have stopped playing almost all OpenGL games (though i'm not sure whether America's Army is DX or OGL), and all DX9 games (Far Cry is the only one I have installed). Since my upgrade to Omega 4.5s, I was able to play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, usually for a few hours, something which I could not do previously. I also was always able to play America's Army without issue, except on one specific map (training - Special Forces Escape and Evade). Since then, i've also picked up Final Fantasy XI Online and was able to play without issue.

However, I installed Omega's 4.6s yesterday. I was able to play America's Army for about 2 hours without problems (I had to go to sleep, it didn't crash). But, unfortunately, FFXI Online, did crash. Several times. Even in the PlayOnline launcher/viewer application. I did not change any settings within the game, the only thing I changed was drivers, to 4.6, using the same options of the optimized driver (selected the 9800SE to Pro).

A second issue arose as well when I switched to the 4.5s. For some reason, despite using Driver Cleaner 3.1 and Cab Cleaner, after rebooting from uninstalling the 4.4s, Windows still somehow installed some version of 9700 drivers. I am unsure as to what version it installed, though I suppose I should check. This required me to again run DC and reboot, where it would come back and instead of switching to a 640x480 resolution, it kept my 1280x1024 setting, it didn't do that before. I am not sure if this caused the issue I am seeing. With the 4.5s and now the 4.6s, for some reason, in the Display settings, it detects me as using the 9700 Pro Secondary, though I only have 1 monitor hooked up. It caused no noticeable problems in 4.5 so i'm just stating it in case anyone has a theory.

I will probably revert back to the 4.5s and see if FFXI Online is playable again.

But on to my theory.

I removed the stock heatsink from my 9700, cleaned off that thermal pad, and reapplied the stock heatsink using ShinEtsu G-751 paste. However, I may have slightly damaged the pushpins holding the heatsink in place, though the heatsink seems solidly secured. I am curious if perhaps this is causing a heat related issue. And I am curious as to whether or not a GPU overheat would cause the symptoms I am noticing. The only problem I see with this theory is... why does the problem only happen in DX9 and OpenGL games?

At this time, I do not have another 9700 Pro or video card to test on my system. Is there a way in which I could determine whether or not it is a videocard issue?

I do have a copy of the CRASH file generated by VPU Recover and would be willing to send it to anyone who believes they can decipher it.

finsmaniac02

Welll, I am joining in like a month late here, but i have the same problem and so does my cousin (both of us have 9700 pros). I am saddened to see no one has replied to this in like a month and I REALLY wanna figure this out because I don't personally think that it is a good time to buy a video card right now with the wars between the x800's and the 6800's.. If anyone can help, please reply.

kelston

Alright, i'll update the problem further.

Since my last post I have done the following:

Reinstalled motherboard drivers. Result: Crash
Updated motherboard drivers to newest official drivers. Result: Crash
Updated motherboard drivers to a third party remix. Result: Crash
Disabled sound to see if it was a conflict there. Result: Crash
Switched to Omega 4.7s from Cat 4.7 Result: Crash
Bought a new video card (9800 Pro 256) and installed Cat 4.7 Result: Crash
Switched to Omega 4.7s Result: Crash
Modified the 9800 Pro 256 with a VGA Silencer 3 and modded it to a 9800XT for the Temp Probe Result: Crash

Played a game for a while and alt-tabbed out to check OverDrive's reported temp, max out at 65C on a very hot day. Idles around 57-58C.

Overall results:

Ruled out faulty video card.
Ruled out sound conflict.
Ruled out overheating.

I just got back on to my system after doing a Zero-Fill format. I will install a game shortly and report on the results. I will be *very* annoyed if it is still crashing as Formatting was basically the last option anyone suggested.

phongtruong12

you could check for the card's condition by plugging your monitor into an extra pci card or an integrated graphics card. my 9700 pro that i ordered comes in on monday. hopefully i wont have the same problems you guys are experiencing

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kelston

Well this totally is uncool.

I just did a full reformat. And guess what? It still crashes...

finsmaniac02

so you actually tried a new videocard also? The only other thing i can think of (and it makes NO sense, trust me) is maybe a bad monitor? I am gonna try another one and see if it helps me, would be weird if it did, but if we infact have the same problem, I think you've tried everything else

HawK

Try (if you can) the 9700 in another system, I had 3 different ASUS A7N8X,
before I finally gave up on Asus (long time user) all of the A7N8X boards had weird problems, and many others do.

kelston

Well i'm pretty sure it's not the 9700 because right now i'm using a new video card (9800 Pro 256 modded to 9800XT).

I'm thinking I should go an reformat again and buy a new mobo. Maybe one of those nForce 2 250s or whatever the number is for the Socket A.

finsmaniac02

I have tried 2 different mobo's, at first i had an abit nf7-s, which was an nforce 2 chipset, now i have an asus deluxe somethin or other which is a kt800 chipset i believe. Also had 2 different cpu's, athlon 2400+ with my abit, and an athlon 64 3200+ with my new asus. Same problem on both machines although now the problem seems to be worse. We may not have the EXACT same problem because mine seems to point to a heat issue on my card and u have already tried a new card.... but if i understand right, it sounds the same... play a 3d game (far cry and unreal tourney 2004 are what i play right now) and within a few minutes, screen freezes, then goes to black. VPU recovery will work once, but if u keep going, next time it freezes, your computer crashes. I am going to try and hook up a sony 17 inch lcd monitor to it today and see if that helps for some freak reason

kelston

That could be an interesting theory actually. I'm curious if anyone else has feedback on this. However, i'm running an LCD right now and i'm having the issues, and you're running a CRT. Though do let me know, maybe if I switch to a CRT mine would work but I don't have a CRT anywhere.

I'm going to try the voltage issue by going from an Enermax 550W and going to that highly touted PC Power and Cooling 510W Deluxe.

finsmaniac02

so, switching monitors definitely didn't help.... I bought a new power supply about 3 months ago (left my 350 watt power supply and got an antec 430 true power), i know the antec isnt as good as what u r talking about getting... but my point is, it didnt help. I think maybe if i get a battery backup with AVR, or a power conditioner and see if that helps because maybe the card isnt getting a clean signal of power?

finsmaniac02

well..... i MIGHT have a solution.... even tho i have had this problem with 2 different motherboards, i did remember that i hadnt flashed the bios of my new one yet... well, i just did and far cry has worked for much longer than it ever has with this problem (which is only like 10 mins so far loll, but i quit to come type this message) I will continue testing to see if it really worked

kelston

Well i'm running the most stable BIOS for my mobo, and the only one I can run since the 1 BIOS revision that is newer won't let me run my processor.

finsmaniac02

scratch that, it still crashed... but it is at least a little playable... it still seems like i need a new video card, i might take mine over to a friends and try it on his computer and see if it works, if not... theres my answer

kelston

I wouldn't recommend that route. I tried it and well, I paid 250 dollars to still crash.

finsmaniac02

does the battery backup with AVR make any sense? Logically if the AVR actually produces a clean signal regardless, the that COULD be the solution (i still think it has to be the videocard either overheating or the power source to it being not stable enough also)

kelston

Well, as a minor audiophile, I have power conditioners hooked up to all my outlets and that's what my PC and audio equipment hook up to. For reference, i'm using two of these:

http://www.psaudio.com/products/ultimate_outlet.asp

Currently, I even have a custom power cord for my PC. It's a 14(gauge)/3 SJT, shielded, ferrite clamps on each end power cable that's green dotted, so i'm getting as clean a source of power to my PSU as I can reasonably afford (I'm not going to pay 400 dollars for a power cable). And as far as I can tell, my new PC Power and Cooling PSU is the best PSU I can buy, i've not found any that is more stable. For reference, my power cord is like the one in the picture with the exact same specs, I bought a couple from the first group buy:

http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80793

According to OverDrive on my 9800XT, I top out at about 60-65C when playing games if it's a hot day. 57-60C on desktop. CPU runs around 38-45C. Mobo at about 25-30C.

I went and upgraded my case cooling as well. Because of the PSU, all my cables in my case are now wrapped and I added 20cfm exhaust, and subtracted 10cfm intake to bring my case to have negative case pressure. I'll deal with the dust if my computer is much cooler. I also added a desk fan blowing on to my closed computer, maybe by some freak act of heat transfer, my aluminum case will actually pull out some heat. Right now i'll believe and try anything.

finsmaniac02

alright, some new news... I hooked two more fans up in my case and have them all running, flashed my mobo bios, and made sure my videocard was the only thing on the line from my antec 430 watt power supply (made sure my hard drive, etc was hooked up to a different power lead)... i can say for sure that it at least lasts longer (just turned off far cry last night because i was too tired) and I am gonna keep playin around and see how it is. The only thing NEW that i have done since the last time i wrote was make sure that my video card was the only thing connected on that power line... we'll see how long this lasts

kelston

Same deal with me. The card is on it's own lead, nothing connected to it with the new PSU.

I was able to play through 3 maps of Battlefield 1942 Desert Combat (about 1.5hrs) before it crashed yet again. So at least that does change it though it may just be a freak occurence since that's the first time I tried it.