Graphics Card Crash

HelterSkelter

Hi All,

looking for a bit of help here. Bought a second GeForce4 440MX AGP 8X card to speed up my old system. Since installing the computer screen keeps freezing. When playing Flight Sim it freezes the minute I begin flying. Windows crashes after 5 - 10 mins of use. The card is not overheating, it is barely even warm. I tried running with the case open and a fan pointing at the card just in case but no difference.

I read of a lot of people having similar problems with this card on google but have found no real solutions. Anyone got any ideas?

My system:
AMD Duron 1.1Ghz
Gigabyte GA-71XEH Motherboard
512MB Ram
120GB HD
Direct X 9.0c installed
Windows XP Pro

I tried running the DirectDraw and Direct3D tests on dxdiag and they ran fine.

8T8

Is this your motherboard the GA-7IXE4 ? if not download CPU-Z and run it and see what kind of chipset it reports if it says AMD/751/761/Irongate then I perhaps know a possible source of the problem as those AMD chipsets had bugs in them with NVIDIA AGP graphics cards the solution was to either get a bios update from the motherboard manufacturer if they offered a fix or use a software workaround which I will explain below.

Download latest NVIDIA drivers and install them.

Download Rivatuner and install it.

Run Rivatuner under where it says “Forceware detected” click the customize button and select the first icon called system settings [looks like a graphics card] look for the compatibility tab and look for a section called “AMD Irongate compatibility settings” tick the box for “Enable AGP 2x transfer rate” and also underneath tick the box for “Enable motherboard compatibility chipset mode” leave side band addressing off for now it usually was the cause of problems rather than the solution back then but if this works you can try enabling it and see if affects the system stability.

Anyway click apply and ok and Rivatuner might prompt you to reboot if not then close Rivatuner & do so, fingers crossed it should be okay now.

HelterSkelter

Thanks 8T8.

My motherboard is the GA-7IXEH (http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-7IXEH.htm). According to the gigabyte site the chipset is VIA 8363E(KT133E) North Bridge & VIA 686B South Bridge.

I already downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers, made no difference.

Should I go ahead and try your Rivatuner solution?

P.S. I tried putting the AGP port down to 1X in my BIOS settings, didn't work.

8T8

Ah typo that 1 is an I anyway yeah try Rivatuner with the “Enable motherboard compatibility chipset mode” ticked & set your AGP to 2x and disable side band addressing in the bios if at all possible.

If you havent done it try updating the bios to the last release also Gigabyte hide the advanced bios features so press Ctrl+F1 to reveal them that might allow you to turn off SBA.

The VIA KT133E wasn't exactly know either for its stability try updating the chipset drivers as well because they supply their own AGP driver get them from VIA Arena.

HelterSkelter

Nice one 8T8, I'll give it a go tonight.

TerrorFirmer

I had this same problem with a Geforce 4 in an intel board. After a few minutes it repeatedly gave either garbled graphics and/or froze the pc.

Strangely, I found that installing older detonator drivers sorted it out...

Spocker

Found original driver disk for this card (it was me that sold it to Helter); XP drivers are dated 30/8/02 > 30/9/02 - will post it on to you.

S

[Edit] Card is an Aopen Aeolus MX440, AGP 8x (not Asus as I orginally thought). Search for product number 90065775 on www.computeruniverse.net for the full specs. Its where I bought it[/Edit]

HelterSkelter

8T8 wrote:

Ah typo that 1 is an I anyway yeah try Rivatuner with the “Enable motherboard compatibility chipset mode” ticked & set your AGP to 2x and disable side band addressing in the bios if at all possible.

All those options are greyed out. Any ideas why?

8T8 wrote:

If you havent done it try updating the bios to the last release also Gigabyte hide the advanced bios features so press Ctrl+F1 to reveal them that might allow you to turn off SBA.

Haven't tried this yet.

8T8 wrote:

The VIA KT133E wasn't exactly know either for its stability try updating the chipset drivers as well because they supply their own AGP driver get them from VIA Arena.

Done this, system is still crashing.

*Edit:
These were the only AGP settings I could find in BIOS. Do you recommend I change any?

AGP Fast Write: Disabled
AGP Mode: 2x
AGP Comp. Driving: Auto
AGP Aperature Size: 64MB

HelterSkelter

Dr. Spock wrote:

Found original driver disk for this card (it was me that sold it to Helter); XP drivers are dated 30/8/02 > 30/9/02 - will post it on to you.

S

[Edit] Card is an Aopen Aeolus MX440, AGP 8x (not Asus as I orginally thought). Search for product number 90065775 on www.computeruniverse.net for the full specs. Its where I bought it[/Edit]

Thanks Spock.

8T8

Well I thought at least the last compatibility tweak would have been selectable it's labelled for multiple chipsets

As for the bios did you try flashing the most recent one that was available ?

In regards the settings try these, read more about the AGP Comp Driving here.

AGP Fast Write: Enabled/Disabled try both
AGP Mode: 2x
AGP Comp. Driving: EA
AGP Aperature Size: 128MB

I recall some saying that a particular driver worked for them (a good while back there was a rash of stability problems with primarily NV graphics cards + some ATI & VIA chipsets) but it was never really nailed down as to whats the cause as everyone who was affected had a particular solution that worked for them and usually only for them in some cases. The problem eventually went away through a combination of bios/driver updates that worked for some and the phasing out of products.

If the worst comes to the worst you could always gamble on a new graphics card and hope the problem doesnt occur again this ATI 9550 is the cheapest recent generation card (stay away from anything cheaper) that fingers crossed should be okay as the GF4-MX are roughly from the same time period when there were problems with those VIA motherboards (or at least I think they where it was quite a while ago), thats about all I can think of.

DemonOfTheFall

What video card did you have before ?

I recommend running driver cleaner to nuke any traces of past drivers. Then try the latest nvidias. If that fails try some random old ones from a few years ago...

HelterSkelter

Thanks for replies lads. Latest update is I updated the BIOS after which XP wouldn't boot!! It got as far as the while "loading time line" along the bottom then froze. I had to use the Repair Installation from the XP cd. After that the computer wouldn't recognise the Nvidia card at all!! So I'm back to my trusty Voodoo3 3dfx!! Time to hit the sack, will look at it again tomorrow night. Thanks again everyone, especially 8T8, I owe you a few pints if I get this working!

HelterSkelter

IT'S WORKING!!

Thanks for all the help lads. Finally got it fixed by updating BIOS to latest, Downloading lastest VIA Chipset software and repairing XP using the XP install CD (XP wouldn't boot when I updated the BIOS) - [that's the short story!!]

Flight Sim looks great now, can play it with all display settings turned to Ultra High with no probs!!

8T8

Congrats