Graphics card problems =O

[bapplebo]

Again, fanks to everybody who helped in the other thread.

I use a Ares Radeon x600 PRO 256mb PCI-E

For those who don't want to read a long story, cut to the bottom of my post.

After the format, and getting basic stuff done (Anti-Virus, Firewall, WIndows XP, Office XP etc), I decided to go play WC3. I reinstalled it btw.

So, I start the game, started to make a base, went out for a drink, and when I come back mah screen is all pixellated. I knew what this was as it happened before the format, and I thought it was a system problem.
To cut a long story, I installed drivers from the gfx card CD (im on 56k so I can't d/l the drivers), tried again and still no effect. I messed with some settings in the BIOS (changed the Video Settings from 'PCI-E Graphics' to 'Auto' [PCI-E Graphics may be wrong, I'm not sure]).
Failed again. So I played a different game, (WH40K Dawn of War DEMO), and it worked so well that it let me finish a skirmish. Played the sp campaign, still didn't work.
It wasn't only 3D Games. It is also 3ds max and Milkshape. When the gfx card does crash, it comes up with a VPU Error. Always. In the background, I have ewido Security Suite and BitDefender Professional Plus v8. I also set ati2evxx.exe in the Task Manager to High Priority.

I'm now sitting with the computer fan turned to the window.

For the people who don't want to read a lot:
GFX Card crashes frequently, havn't got latest drivers due to 56k (30mb for drivers >=o ) . Crashes randomly (with intense action on the screen or not). Straight after format.

I'm not sure if its my PC, my GFX card, or anything else. I would really like to play a game without having to reboot every 5 minutes.

 

[|Overlord|]

Did you buy any chance install any of the service packs when you did your reformat (service pack 2 had drivers for radeon products, but of course those default drivers are utter crap, so it's a good thing you are using the ones from your cd, but possibly those drivers are still lying around on the system if you use sp2)?

What driver version are you using ? Does you gfx card get got (If so, might be an idea to invest in some cooling, maybe some case fans in this case).

All the recent ati drivers reequire sp1 and up (I haven't ventured much into that though). I'd go around to a friend's place that has a decent connection to get the latest drivers and see if that helps. The latest ATI drivers from a benchmark I looked at not long ago also show some performance enhancements for the x600pro (little to say the least but more is alaways welcome ).

 

[Smith|]

Make sure your motherboard drivers are installed.

 

[bapplebo]

I'm not sure if I should bump this, but anywho...

After a few weeks of testing, modifying and screaming, I got it to the point where it is actually quite stable (though it crashes a few times when running FEAR and 3dsmax). The motherboard and BIOS drivers really helped xD.

I've got the software part fixed, but when i got ATi Tray Tools from a website, the core speed is 398 (mhz? I'm not sure). I thought the speed would be a factor of 10, but im not sure.

I don't need an external power source, I have verified that. Im checking right now for temperature problems.

EDIT: So it was the temperature. My motherboard and CPU were getting temps of over 65 degrees! (Celcius). I defragged my D drive, and the temp went down by 18 degrees.