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  • Time to solve this problem.

    Ok gang, I've had these troubles for a while now, and it's really beginning to bug me now, and I could use some assistance trying to fix it. I think most of the regular [MU]'s have heard me bitching at some point in time, and have seen me suddenly drop from games fairly regularly.

    So, here's the problem. A little over a month ago I bought a 32mb SH G400. Now when it works, it works great. Trouble is, it stops working fairly regularly.

    Symptoms are as follows:
    In Windows 2000 SP1 using either 5.10 PD or 5.11 PD, while playing Unreal Tournament, everything works fine for about a half hour, and then my computer hard locks. No C-A-D, no Alt-Tab, no Windows hot key, although for about the first 5-10 seconds, num-lock does still work(which means that it doesn't completely lock right away).

    While playing Diablo II in D3D can play for several hours, but eventually I get the same thing, hard lock.

    All OGL games(ie, Heretic II, Half-Life, Quake) lock within 5 minutes of starting.

    Unreal in D3D locks within 5 minutes.


    Now, in theory, since I install 2000 w/ACPI support IRQ's shouldn't be a problem. Nevertheless, just for the info, my G400 is sharing with my SBLive, my PCI Modem, and IRQ Steering on IRQ 7.

    My hardware specs are in the sig. The memory is on 2 sticks of 128MB generic 3-2-2 PC133 SDRAM. I've tried installing the VIA driver pack, and it just makes things worse. It currently is not installed(except for the USB filter).

    AGP is currently at 2x(I think), aperature is at 128. I tried 256 and it causes games to lock my 'puter in less than a minute. There is no Video cacheing of any sort turned on in the BIOS. I have a 300W AOpen PSU.

    Furthermore, just as a reference I also have 98 installed on my system. I have the Via 4.23 driver pack on that and PD 6.0whateveritis. OGL games work basically fine under 98, although they still do lock eventually, but it takes several hours. UT gets that awful garbled screen lines everywhere mess after about 5 minutes every single time. 98 is also detecting the G400 at AGP2x I believe.

    I used to have a G200 in this system, and I never had ANY problems. Nothing was blazing fast or anything mind you, but at least it was all stable.

    Ok, that was a rather long and rambling post, but I think I got most of the important details all in there.

    Thanks for any sage wisdom you guys can impart.

    Ian
    Primary System:
    MSI 745 Ultra, AMD 2400+ XP, 1024 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro, 3Com 3c905C NIC,
    120GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, 60 GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, Pioneer DVD 105S, BenQ 12x24x40 CDRW, SB Audigy OEM,
    Win XP, MS Intellimouse Optical, 17" Mag 720v2
    Seccondary System:
    Epox 7KXA BIOS 5/22, Athlon 650, 512 MB Crucial 7E PC133 SDRAM, Hercules Prophet 4500 Kyro II, SBLive Value,
    3Com 3c905B-TX NIC, 40 GB IBM UDMA 100 HD, 45X Acer CD-ROM,
    Win XP, MS Wheel Mouse Optical, 15" POS Monitor
    Tertiary system
    Offbrand PII Mobo, PII 350, 256MB PC100 SDRAM, 15GB UDMA66 7200RPM Maxtor HD, USRobotics 10/100 NIC, RedHat Linux 8.0
    Camera: Canon 10D DSLR, Canon 100-400L f4.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon 100 Macro USM Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon Speedlite 200E, tripod, bag, etc.

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

  • #2
    Heh, forgot to add the sig.

    Edit: The NIC is not currently in the system. /Edit

    ------------------
    Epox 7KXA BIOS 5/22, Athlon 650, 256 MB PC133 SDRAM, Matrox Mill G400 32 SH PD5.11, SBLive Value,
    3Com 3c905B-TX NIC, 56k Zoom PCI winmdm, 13.6 GB 7200RPM UDMA66 IBM HD, 15gb UDMA66 7200 RPM Maxtor, 45X Acer CD-ROM, Win 2000,
    RedHat 6.2, MS Intellimouse Optical, 17" Mag 720v^2
    Next on upgrade list, Matrox G450? G800? G800 Fusion? we shall see...

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

    [This message has been edited by HedsSpaz (edited 06 September 2000).]
    Primary System:
    MSI 745 Ultra, AMD 2400+ XP, 1024 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro, 3Com 3c905C NIC,
    120GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, 60 GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, Pioneer DVD 105S, BenQ 12x24x40 CDRW, SB Audigy OEM,
    Win XP, MS Intellimouse Optical, 17" Mag 720v2
    Seccondary System:
    Epox 7KXA BIOS 5/22, Athlon 650, 512 MB Crucial 7E PC133 SDRAM, Hercules Prophet 4500 Kyro II, SBLive Value,
    3Com 3c905B-TX NIC, 40 GB IBM UDMA 100 HD, 45X Acer CD-ROM,
    Win XP, MS Wheel Mouse Optical, 15" POS Monitor
    Tertiary system
    Offbrand PII Mobo, PII 350, 256MB PC100 SDRAM, 15GB UDMA66 7200RPM Maxtor HD, USRobotics 10/100 NIC, RedHat Linux 8.0
    Camera: Canon 10D DSLR, Canon 100-400L f4.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon 100 Macro USM Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon Speedlite 200E, tripod, bag, etc.

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

    Comment


    • #3
      Sage advice it is not but I recognise the problem and can only pass on my own experience.

      I had exactly this problem, in win98 a few months ago. Turned out to be insufficient cooling on my celery (366@550 at the time) and when it was throttled back a bit it was fine.

      I can thus only suggest a look at the cooling, although a look thru the post again suggests that is unlikely to be the problem.

      Unless win2K stresses the processor that very much more.

      Uberlad

      ------------------
      -------------------------
      8 out of 10 women say they would feel no qualms about hitting a man.
      5 out of 10 referred to me by name.
      -------------------------
      8 out of 10 women say they would feel no qualms about hitting a man.
      5 out of 10 referred to me by name.

      Comment


      • #4
        yo HedsSpaz,
        Sup dude, remember me from the UBF vs MU UT clan games? Anyways, I don't know if I can help you much, but here goes...

        I noticed your IRQs are kinda messed up, I remember that G400 and SBLive cannot be on the same IRQ, and I forgot which one has to be on a certain IRQ number. I don't really have experience in IRQ configs, but I did find out that it does cause severe problems. I guess you should try to play around with the combination which the PCI cards go to get different IRQ setups, and test it from there...if thats not the problem, I guess you should try using VIA 4in1 version 4.24 drivers with the newest AGP drivers, this should make the AGP problem go away, if not, try using the Matrox reg hack program that was release a while a go...

        if those still didn't do the job, then I apologize, coz I had similar problems back then and I managed to solve it using those same steps...




        ------------------
        Sanjuro Makabe

        P!!!550E @ 733Mhz
        ASUS P3V4X 1005, 4in1 4.24, AGP 4.03
        128Mb PC100 C2 Ram
        Matrox G400Max PD6.01 beta
        SBLive! LW3.0
        WinMe 4.90.3000 Full Retail
        Sanjuro Makabe

        Pentium 4B 2.26GHz
        ASUS P4T-EA
        Samsung 512MB Rambus-T
        ATI 8500 Retail
        SB Audigy Plat. ex+
        WinXP Pro SP1

        Comment


        • #5
          'Course I remember you Sanjuro, I took your head off a couple of times and got some good reactions out of you.

          Of course, the number of times that you turned me into a pile of gibs more than made up for it.


          Anyway, on the IRQ thing. In theory, when ACPI is working properly, IRQ sharing is supposed to be alright. In practice, well, I never had any trouble with my G200, but that doesn't mean much. I honestly don't think that it's an IRQ problem, but I suppose I shouldn't rule that out. There is a way to disable ACPI, but I'd rather not if I don't have to. It's a dangerous trick and it could horribly break my computer. Aside from that the real problem is that there is no easy way to change IRQ's.

          As to the Via drivers, I'm more than a little reluctant to try those. I tried them once and they didn't really help much, if anything, they made my computer lock up faster. Well, I just downloaded and installed it anyway though. So now I have to reboot. I geuss we'll see what happens.

          uberlad, even though you seem to change your mind have way through your post, I've been wondering the same thing. Nothing points to a heat problem though. I'm not oc'ing my Athlon or my G400, and it just doesn't seem to me that they should really be getting that hot.

          I can think of two ways right now that I can probably solve the problem. One is to get a new motherboard. The other is to get some good quality memory. I don't really want to do either cause 1) I can't afford it, and 2) I want to get an AMD760 based mobo, some DDR SDRAM and a Thunderbird in a month or three.

          In the meantime, I'll just keep poking at it and see if I can get it to behave.

          Thanks guys

          Ian

          (Damn, am I long winded or what? I think I'm incapable of making a short post. )
          Primary System:
          MSI 745 Ultra, AMD 2400+ XP, 1024 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro, 3Com 3c905C NIC,
          120GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, 60 GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, Pioneer DVD 105S, BenQ 12x24x40 CDRW, SB Audigy OEM,
          Win XP, MS Intellimouse Optical, 17" Mag 720v2
          Seccondary System:
          Epox 7KXA BIOS 5/22, Athlon 650, 512 MB Crucial 7E PC133 SDRAM, Hercules Prophet 4500 Kyro II, SBLive Value,
          3Com 3c905B-TX NIC, 40 GB IBM UDMA 100 HD, 45X Acer CD-ROM,
          Win XP, MS Wheel Mouse Optical, 15" POS Monitor
          Tertiary system
          Offbrand PII Mobo, PII 350, 256MB PC100 SDRAM, 15GB UDMA66 7200RPM Maxtor HD, USRobotics 10/100 NIC, RedHat Linux 8.0
          Camera: Canon 10D DSLR, Canon 100-400L f4.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon 100 Macro USM Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon Speedlite 200E, tripod, bag, etc.

          "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

          Comment


          • #6
            HedsSpaz...
            Those are cool animation...how did you do that? LOL

            ------------------
            Sanjuro Makabe

            P!!!550E @ 733Mhz
            ASUS P3V4X 1005, 4in1 4.24, AGP 4.03
            128Mb PC100 C2 Ram
            Matrox G400Max PD6.01 beta
            SBLive! LW3.0
            WinMe 4.90.3000 Full Retail
            Sanjuro Makabe

            Pentium 4B 2.26GHz
            ASUS P4T-EA
            Samsung 512MB Rambus-T
            ATI 8500 Retail
            SB Audigy Plat. ex+
            WinXP Pro SP1

            Comment


            • #7
              Hedspaz:

              I've had several problems since I upgraded to Win2k SP1, and I'm not alone. That bastard is POISON!! I'm gonna hafta reformat just to get rid of it. This may be part of your problem. We have different specs, but I've heard bad rumblings about 2K SP1 all over the place. MS futzed up. My specs, for the curious:

              P3 700@933
              256MB PC133 RAM
              Asus P3B-F mobo
              GeForce 2 GTS (Creative Labs, Nvidia reference drivers)
              97Gig UDMA66 HDs (40 / 40 / 17)
              Promise Ultra 66 controller card
              SB Live Value
              Modem Blaster 56K
              Some cheap-ass NIC for cable modem

              Bart
              Bart

              Comment


              • #8
                Sanjuro, take a look at this page. It's awsome. http://smilecwm.tripod.com/

                The Rock, I hadn't thought of that one. I haven't heard anything all that bad about SP1 though, could you give me some references? I'd like to see what experiences other people have had. So far I haven't seemed to have had any trouble other than the subject of this thread. Maybe I'll try uninstalling SP1 tonight.

                I had a suggestion from Kindness to try playing in 16bit color instead of 32bit, and I'm not entirely sure yet, but that seems to have made something of a difference.

                I'm begining really lean toward my POS motherboard and generic RAM chips causeing the problem. I'll definately keep SP1 in mind though.

                Thanks
                Ian
                Primary System:
                MSI 745 Ultra, AMD 2400+ XP, 1024 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro, 3Com 3c905C NIC,
                120GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, 60 GB Seagate UDMA 100 HD, Pioneer DVD 105S, BenQ 12x24x40 CDRW, SB Audigy OEM,
                Win XP, MS Intellimouse Optical, 17" Mag 720v2
                Seccondary System:
                Epox 7KXA BIOS 5/22, Athlon 650, 512 MB Crucial 7E PC133 SDRAM, Hercules Prophet 4500 Kyro II, SBLive Value,
                3Com 3c905B-TX NIC, 40 GB IBM UDMA 100 HD, 45X Acer CD-ROM,
                Win XP, MS Wheel Mouse Optical, 15" POS Monitor
                Tertiary system
                Offbrand PII Mobo, PII 350, 256MB PC100 SDRAM, 15GB UDMA66 7200RPM Maxtor HD, USRobotics 10/100 NIC, RedHat Linux 8.0
                Camera: Canon 10D DSLR, Canon 100-400L f4.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon 100 Macro USM Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon Speedlite 200E, tripod, bag, etc.

                "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

                Comment


                • #9
                  While it may be difficult to change IRQs, I do think that it is best that video does NOT share.

                  It's OK if sound shares with printer and with ACP bus, but NEVER video, reguardless of OS.

                  My 2ยข.

                  Comment

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