Pc Graphic Card Problem

[DogKnight]

Because I know there are a bunch of IT savvy people on SAU, I figured id post my problem im having here hoping someone may have an answer for me. Im just copying and pasting posts ive made on other forums. I know its long, but any help would be appreciated.

Hey guys, need help with trying to get a Graphic Card working that I recently purchased.

Its a HIS x1650 Pro 512mb AGP.

Very similar to this card. However instead of the GT version its listed as Pro. Otherwise identical.

http://www.hisdigital.com/html/product_ov.php?id=345

I bought this to give my old PC a last kick. I've only got AGP so this was one of the better options available.

Installed this card and went to install the drivers off the CD. After driver installation on my Windows XP drive, the graphics came up all distorted and the windows defaulted to 800x600 with 8 bit colour. I uninstalled the software that came with the card and downloaded the latest drivers and catalyst off the ATI site. After installing that, same results and the whole system was unstable. Constantly crashing and after a few restarts, the WINXP HD would no longer boot. Tried booting safe mode to remove software and reverted back to my original GC a Radeon 9550 but still XP refused to boot. Bugger.

Booted on my Vista HD and the graphics appeared distorted. Installed the drivers off the HIS site, vista version and it booted okay. However system was very unstable and the card would keep crashing. It would either be restarted by ATI's VPU Recover software, or it would just lock up. After uninstalling all software from the x1650 and putting the 9550 back in it booted okay.

So I decided to fiddle around with it on a fresh HD to try eliminate any other faults. I disconnected the other two HD's and put in a third HD. Clean install of Win XP Pro SP2. Also disconnected other components to help eliminate any issues. Only left the one HD and optical drive attached, removed sound card, raid card, TV tuner card.

Installed motherboard drivers for AGP and others.

* Installed software off CD and graphics card didnt load (800x600 and 8 bit graphics)

* Another Clean install and tried with only drivers off the HIS website, didnt work.

* Another clean install and drivers from the ATI website, didnt work.

Note: When I say it didnt work, either the graphics card didnt load properly or it was so unstable that even opening my computer or start menu caused it to crash and need a restart. Sometimes getting to the point where windows XP wouldnt reboot.

Did a clean install and didnt bother with motherboard AGP drivers.

* Installed software off CD, graphics card didnt load. Uninstalled the ATI catalyst and card driver. Left the other components in there that the installed put on (MS C++ distribution, .NET 2.0 framework and one other component). Then I reinstalled the drivers and catalyst off the ATI site. It booted and seemed to be working okay. However when trying to do anything slightly graphics intensive, the computer would freeze and need a restart (for testing I installed Frozen Throne which it couldnt even get past the menu without crashing let alone start a game).

So after all of this im planning on returning the card today. I know MSY can be tight asses when it comes to returns and they will probably only exchange it at best for the same thing. However the LED light on the cooler doesnt light up so im going to use that as an excuse to return it within RA/RMA period.

Others things to note is that the card requires a connection to the power supply. It uses a standard FDD connector. I though possibly power could be an issue as I only have a 400w power supply. To test this though I removed all cards and drives, including the network card even and only had the HDD, Optical Drive and graphci card connected. I even disconnected case fans. Still made no difference so I doubt this is the issue. The fans on the graphic card power up and run fine regardless of whether or not everything is connected or removed. I also tried using the floppy connector on my power supply as well as the dongle they package with it which converts your standard IDE power cable to the floppy attachment, no difference.

My machine specs are as follows.

Pentium 4 2.4ghz HT

1gb DDR 400 Kingston RAM

1 x 200gb HDD (Vista drive)

1 x 180gb HDD (Original WinXP)

1 x 160gb HDD (Testing WinXP - note: this was not connected to the raid card while troubleshooting)

2 x Pioneer Optical Drives (DVD & DVD-RW)

Normally uses Gigabyte Radeon 9550 128mb AGP 8x GC

Motherboard is a Gigabyte board, cant recall model number atm (at work)

Any suggestions on what to do or how to fix this problem would be great. I've tried searching the net and there have been multiple others with problems with this card but couldnt find one that listed the same problems as i'm having and how to fix it. Go nuts.

_____________________________

"Went down to MSY after work today and exchanged the GC for a new one of the same model. Also purchased a 550w power supply. The manual recommends 400w minimum so surely this should suffice. And it definetly has 12v 20w rails. No luck thus far, same issues.

Motherboard is a Gigabyte P4 Titan series. Model number is: GA-8S648FX"

_____________________________

"Yeah, pretty much covered the Power Issue I think.

The monitor im using is a CRT. Its a Philips 107E4. Which I believe is a decent CRT monitor. And im running it on minimal settings for what the monitor is capable of."

_____________________________

"Testing now using the LCD attached to my mac normally. Its a Philips 190G. Im running it at very modest settings. 1024x768, 32bit colour and 75hz. This was the same on the CRT, but i figured id keep it safe on the LCD as well while testing.

The CRT monitor and LCD both run fine using the graphic card im updating which is a Radeon 9550 128mb. Im using Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne for testing as its a pretty simple game thats easy to reinstall as im doing clean installs of windows every now and then. On the 9550 its flawless on full settings. On the x1650 it crashes at the menu after the intro movie. Also ive loaded the game on the 9550 and set the video settings to 1024x758 at 32bit.

Still no luck.

Being the second card now, while its possible its less likely the card is actually faulty. Ill keep trying different things and see what I get. Next step I guess is to go through the rigorous test or trying earlier catalyst software. It came with 8.4 on the CD and ive tried that and 8.6 off ATI's site. I've read of some people sing as early as 6.2. It seems a bit extreme, but ill see how it goes."

[paulr33]

a wierd conflict on the mobo or something wierd in the bios

check the usual shadow ram crap on the video card

check the agp settings, reset bios to defaults

check for bios updates

[Slim Mat]

a wierd conflict on the mobo or something wierd in the bios

check the usual shadow ram crap on the video card

check the agp settings, reset bios to defaults

check for bios updates

Agreed.

Try what paul has suggested.

[Betz]

I realy dislike ATI vid cards, I have always had trouble with them and thier drivers, if you can convince MSY to exchange it for an equiv Nvidia card and try that?

[DogKnight]

Already done BIOS defaults and checked AGP setting.

Right now im trying the card in another PC i have lying around and seeing how that goes.

[DogKnight]

So it appears after all this it may just be a conflict between the graphics card and my motherboard.

I tested the GC in a spare PC I have and it worked perfectly fine using drivers off the ATI site first try. There are some BIOS updates for my motherboard but they are all in relation to CPU changes, so I doubt they'll work. All I can really try with my existing machine is to use an earlier catalyst version and see if it works.

My other option is to make my spare PC my main one. Most parts are transferable but the main difference will be a drop in the CPU. My current machine is a Pentium 4 2.4ghz HT with 800mhz fsb. The spare is an AMD Athlon 1800xp with a 400mhz fsb.

RAM, HD's, Optical Drives, Sound card, etc can all be moved across. One issue that im slightly worried about is that when this was my brothers PC it often overheated. Whether thats an issue with the Athlon processor or whether thats just got to do with where he kept it (under the desk in a small area) im not 100% sure.

Need to decide if the drop in CPU speed is worth the change in graphic card from a Radeon 9550 128mb to a Radeon x1650 512mb.

[nismo_GTST]

I had the exact same problem with the same card. All I did to fix it was delete the driver and the catalyst control centre, then just reinstall the driver but not the CCC. Been working fine ever since.

[DogKnight]

Im not too sure if that would affect performance of the card or not without having the catalyst installed. But thanks for the advice, ill try it tonight.

[adznight]

Kick it, and if that doesn't work kick it harder.

[some_cs_student]

Have you tried the alternative drivers from Omega's Corner?

http://www.omegadrivers.net/

They're based off ATI drivers but tweaked for performance, its debatable if its faster than ATI or not...

[gazal]

Kick it, and if that doesn't work kick it harder.

lol....

[adznight]

lol....

Oh I'm serious, you have no idea how many of our clients kick PC's!

[Stagea_Neo]

-In the bios check that graphic display option is set to agp and not pci.

-also set the graphic aperture up around 32mb.

-ensure all elements of the old video driver & applications are removed, reboot pc

so it's working in 8/16bit mode with default windows driver then run install of new card/software.

Try even going into device manager, right click on the video display adapter and choose uninstall

reboot and try install with the new card & software.