Completely Baffled - Radeon 4850

BoogieNYC

Hey all...

I've been trying to figure out why my problem has been happening and I've tried pretty much everything without a solution.

Sys Config:
Asus P5Q Deluxe
4GB RAM
System Temp ~35-38C
Asus Radeon 4850 1GB
Seagate 1GB @ 7200 RPM
Win XP Pro SP 3
Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW 20 Wide @ 1680x1050

The problem I'm having -- consistently -- is when I run a game, close it out and then re-run it an hour or a few hours later.

Example: Bioshock (1.10 -- most recent update).

Game runs perfectly for an hour or more at highest settings.
Quit game, go do other stuff, PC is cooled down and running fine.
Re-run Bioshock, program crashes when going into 640x480/16 colors.

Example 2: FEAR 2

Game runs perfectly for an hour or more at highest settings.
Quit game, go do other stuff, PC is cooled down and running fine.
Re-run FEAR 2, program crashes when going into 640x480/16 colors, gives error message "Unable to initialize the renderer to a valid video mode."

Drivers: Catalyst 9.4; Direct X 9.0c (newest release, few days ago).

WTF?

This system should have no problem with either game, but it's having problems with Direct X and 640x480 and 16 colors?

Something else troubling: when I do a reboot, the last thing I see before the system shuts down is what I assume is the 16-color 640x480 blank desktop (I recognize it because it's got one of Windows' built-in desktop patterns). Why is this showing up? And when I check the Catalyst settings -- nothing is overclocked, btw -- I see an option for a second monitor. I don't have a second monitor (and I uninstalled and reinstalled my Samsung to be sure the system wasn't mistakenly seeing two monitors).

Anyone have any suggestions? I just did a fresh install of WinXP/SP3 about a month ago.

I've tested the RAM so that shouldn't be the cause of the problems, but I have noticed when running uTorrent that on occasion -- even with plenty of disk space -- the program gives me "system has insufficient resources to proceed."

I tried duplicating these game problems without uTorrent running and -- at first -- no sign of trouble. However, a little while ago, the problem recurred with Bioshock so it's not a uTorrent compatibility issue.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

-B-

PS I did a search for this problem here and all over the place and I haven't seen anything approaching an answer or solution....if this problem has been discussed/addressed here my apologies in advance.

kris23

Hey BoogieNYC welcome to DH

sounds like a system where drivers were not completely removed prior to the 4850 install....

did you properly clean out all the drivers? did you have an nvidia card prior to the 4850?

i recommend if you havent done so, to clean out all drivers, ATI and Nvidia from your system using Drivercleaner or another similar program and see how that turns out.

next i would recommend a full reformat which should fix ANY issues.

lastly, this is rather specific to certain driver releases.... sometimes computers have issues with CCC so they would crash games and programs if CCC was installed or installed inproperly. i recommend installing JUST the ATi driver and see how that runs.

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BoogieNYC

Hey Kris, thanks for the response:

This was a fresh install -- I had had some problems with the setup in February so I tried an Nvidia, but the same problems were happening. We confirmed there was a problem with the mobo and we swapped it out.

So there are/were no previous drivers here.

I tried installing the plain driver -- same issue. I tried uninstalling the drivers (via add/remove programs) and that didn't work.

I would consider a full reformat but the system is essentially fresh.

Is it possible I got a second bad mobo from Asus? I suppose.

Is it possible that, in addition to the problem mobo, my Radeon needs to be RMA'd? I guess.

I haven't had any problems once the card is running games, but I am able to replicate the problem pretty consistently. I'm wondering if I should wipe out the ATI driver with regedit or drivercleaner and reinstall the plain driver.

But the thing is when I see that error message in uTorrent I'm guessing there may be other issues.

Either that or something else is creating a problem. And why do I see the 16-color, 640x480 screen during reboots?

I was wondering if I should go pick up another graphics card and see if that helps.

LOL...the hole in my wall is growing from each time I'm hitting it with my head :-)

Thanks for the help.

Judas

sounds like a display driver issue... i would suggest removeing the driver completely and trying the 9.3's... see if it exhibits the same thing...

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kris23

well.... ive always found games crashing more on a bad hard drive than other programs, try testing your drive. i doubt the system is an issue

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OldBuzzard

I'd try downloading the drivers again as well. It's possible that yours were corrupted duing the download. It happens some times, and you can get some very strange results when it does happen. This is kind of rare, but it does happen.

Did you install the mainboard drivers when you did the OS install?

Do yuo have the latest BIOS?

Does that Monitor have VGA and HDMI input? If so, have you tried BOTH to see if that could be an issue?

EDIT: OH, seeing two mointors is normal. Don't worry about that.

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

comp_ali

About u torrent issue I think it has nothing to do with your problem , I have it and it says the same thing "insufficient....." don't know why but mostly because of running many torrents of big size " couples of GBs at the same time .

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