Ti4400 and system lockups

[Embattle]

Have you tried the individual VIA AGP driver?

 

[Summo]

Yes, I have! Found version 4.11 and installed, but no joy. I also can't find anywhere in the BIOS that reports AGP voltage.

I have an unused (still boxed) 250W PSU, so I might try hooking them both up together. Power the MB from the 250W and the peripherals from my existing 300W. Should be able to test both the 'feed' of the PSU and whether more power is needed.

I also have a UPS. Could that be preventing power from reaching the PSU? I'll take that off as well...

I shall report back after this break...

 

[Embattle]

What motherboard you got?

 

[Summo]

Abit KT7A-RAID with latest firmware upgrade. So much to do...

 

[Yaka]

upgrade to an enrmax 451 watt psu it is a better solution than using 2 diff psu`s m8

 

[Embattle]

Infinite Loop - No
Graphics Card - Unlikely
AGP Voltage - Most probably Not (You don't have a setting to change it Any way)
I/O Voltage - Poss
PSU - Good Chance

Read this first item and take notice http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/faqgraphics.html#My graphics card is unstable. What's the cause?

 

[Summo]

Embattle... you're a God in forum-loiterer form.

I'll try out a couple of the tips from that page and make enquiries about a Yaka-recommended PSU and an Itchy-recommended cooling system.

You guys are fantastic. Its like having a hardware think-tank in the cupboard under the stairs.


/edit: Eep! £111 for PSU and cooler at Overclockers.

 

[Mas-]

speaking of voltages, does anyone know if this is bad or ok...

12v and 5v is low

im using a enermax 550w psu, would of thought that was enough tbh

could always add my old 450w psu in too, had a 350w+450w originaly but opted to change for just a 550w.

 

[Will]

Originally posted by SomeGuy
You guys are fantastic. Its like having a hardware think-tank in the cupboard under the stairs.

Let me out, it's so dark and cold.

*shivers*

 

[Summo]

Shit shit shit

Was passing PC World today and bought a new 400W PSU. Disconnected everything but the barest of bare essentials (mobo, floppy, 1 hard drive, CD) but the problem remains, exactly as before.

The voltage readings on this one is much nearer the mark so I might as well keep it. Not sure.

The problem now seems to be dodgy AGP slot or dodgy GeForce4. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Embattle]

Bummer

 

[Embattle]

Just out of interest, you may of already said, have you done a complete reinstall?

 

[Summo]

No. Maybe I should. I don't wanna. My system is beautiful and set up just the way I likes it.

/me avoids reinstalling, replacing mobo and returning GeForce

I guess they're all the things that might fix it. :/

 

[Embattle]

TBH you really should before you try and return any thing.

 

[S-Gray]

lol yeah, would have been one of the first things id have done

 

[Summo]

Hah! Easy! I'll install 2000 or summat to one of meh old hard drives and try again. brb.

 

[Skyler]

I got a 4400 Gainward from OCUK and I'm using it now, and I have no crash problems atm

 

[Summo]

Hmm...

Did a fresh reinstall of XP on a new disk and installed only the most essential drivers, VIA and nVidia. Problem remains.

I'm bored with this problem.

 

[S-Gray]

aye i hate problems that just wont fix within a certain time limit, sooo annoying lol.

Why dont you try something like, installing the VIA / nVidia / Whatever Drivers one by one.

As in, install first set, then see which ones cause the Problem, it has to be one of em.

 

[Embattle]

Re: Hmm...

Originally posted by SomeGuy
Did a fresh reinstall of XP on a new disk and installed only the most essential drivers, VIA and nVidia. Problem remains.

I'm bored with this problem.

Bummer you seem to have an annoying glitch.

 

[Summo]

I certainly do. Gray, I really don't think this is drivers. I've tried a selection but nothing changes. Has to be dodgy AGP and/or related components or duff card, neither of which I want to replace right now. A new mobo is on the cards in the foreseeable future so I might just run in AGP x2 mode until then. There's not a hugely noticeable change in performance, anyway.

But then again, these games do run in x4 AGP for a while before locking...

*thinks*

...


...


...


...


*nothing*

 

[S-Gray]

have you tried the Card in another computer? that would tell you whether its the card or the mobo thats f00ked?

 

[Xavier]

nice to see lotsa people have tried to help summo here but there seems to be a large chunk of misinformation thrown in for good measure (aint it always the way...)

The problem is almost definately NOT power related - your voltages have to sit OVER10% out of range for quite a while for the system to 'b0rk' so that just simply aint it...

As to CPU cooling it doesn't matter whether you're running 640x480 16bpp or 1280x1024 32bpp, the inclusion of AA makes no difference to the CPU, antialiasing is a hardware process done on the GPU...

The fact that 2x AGP makes a difference would either make me look at drivers or the card itself - the only difference between 2x and 4x is the bandwidth it allows, which in turn will increase/decrease GPU usage (again the CPU isn't involved).

It's possible if your case is really poorly ventilated that you're simply overheating the gpu - the gainward has an adequate cooling solution but coupled with air coming off a 50C+ CPU with inadequate cooling that could lead to lockups...

Try running the system with the case off if you can - if the lockups stop u need a card cooler and a front inlet...

Just to sanity check your system give us a quick list of the other cards installed in your system and the slot numbers they live in, also I know I'm gonna regret askin this but did you disable ACPI on install?

The AGP on the mobo is almost deffo fine, especially if it worked with your old GF2MX, the only mobos known that don't like all GeForce4 are certain old revisions of i845, so being an AMD wh0re u should be fine...

Oh, and for those out there that have bought a PSU when their 5v/12v rails were a little low, bad luck... you can raise the voltage on both rails by changing the pots inside the PSU, you only need a 400W PSU when you've got 400W worth of kit inside the box, and I doubt many of our peeps, (excluding the most die-hard) do...

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by ItchyTrigaFinga
What I really want is one of these...

Available from here and nowhere else in the UK.

the noisecontrol silverado?

u don't want one of those - we got one in to review and found what when the metal assembly gets hot after a few hours use it warms the nidec gammas and they begin to spray a fine mist of oil from their chambers across the interior of the case... messy!

I took my spare silverado apart and fitted the gammas directly over my raid array - instant (almost silent) cooling for my storage - and unlike normal fans they have no turbulence shadow or turbulent flow and produce a decent, even static pressure

Xav

 

[Summo]

Yeowzer! Thanks for that, Xav!

Overheating GPU sounds entirely possible as games run fine in 4x AGP for a random period of time (maybe between 1 and 10 minutes) before locking. The case has been entirely off since I installed the Gainward. I'll see if I can find a domestic fan and stick that over the case, just to see if it makes any difference.

What doesn't help is that when I was fitting my new 400W PSU (which I shall be returning as I don't appear to need it) it dropped through the bay and knocked my CoolerMaster Copper of the CPU. I don't have any thermal paste so haven't been able to reseat it properly, so now my idle temp is 63C and touches 75C under load. Need thermal paste! Quick! But that's a different story...


Current PCI slot arrangement is as follows:

• AGP - GeForce4 Ti4400
• PCI - Nothing. Space for some airflow and gap at the back
• PCI - 3Com NIC
• PCI - Adaptec SCSI
• PCI - USB Expansion, not PCI but uses the space for the socket
• PCI - Creative Sound card
• PCI - Modem
• ISA - nothing. Yay!

I didn't disable ACPI when I installed. This originally caused some problems with blue-screens until I flashed the BIOS. Now all okay. GeForce4 is ACPI-compliant, surely?

 

[Xavier]

ok,

well as a general rule of thumb the following applies to a 6 pci card system:

resource group one AGP, PCI1 PCI5
resource group two PCI2, PCI6
resource group three PCI3
resource group four PCI4

which means you can only install devices like SCSI, IDE controllers, modems and sound on PCI 3,4 and only ONE OF 2,6 (as long as the other in the resource group is empty).

If you have time, try re-arranging the cards and blatting a fresh install of windoze with the devices as follows

AGP - that there pesky GF4
PCI1 - emptee
PCI2 - NIC
PCI3 - SCSI
PCI4 - soundcard
PCI5 - usb backplate
PCI6 - modem

i.e. swap the soundcard and USB...

because of the way AGP4x works it could be an addressing issue between sound and graphics (just because the IRQ's are different doesn't necessarily mean the memory ranges are, especially on those specific slots...

try windows installs with and without ACPI - if it is a resource issue then one or other will miraculously work - I'd opt for XP considering you're now running GF4 (trust me on this one) but if you want to stick to 2000 then don't come running to me when it all goes pear shaped...


oh and get your arse onto MSN so that we can talk and try and get this fix0red asafp... OK!!??!?

 

[Summo]

Heh heh. I'm an XP man, born and bred! Ain't now way I'm going back to anything else.

I'll try swapping the cards round now.

 

[-adz-]

Dunno if its the same for XP, but win2k has a known problem with Athlons and Nvidia cards... (usually causes hanging with looping sound) there is a registry fix on the amd website