Leadtek A350 Instability

[bob1787]

i got a leadtek A350 (FX5900).

it will run games like vietcong for a long time, usually 30-45mins but any games like americas army 2 will run for about 30 seconds.... i have tried different combinations of drivers (chipsets, cards, agp bridge etc) but it will still keep crashing. it usually says general protection error and always something about windows repaint. i have followed all FAQs on the leadtek website and that leads nowhere.

i did have an IRQ conflict with my network card but i took it out and it no longer conflicts but it will still crash the games.

runs fine in 2D aswell

Specs:
AMD Athlon 2600+ (166 @ 11.5)
TA DDR RAM (2700MB 2x256MB)
K7N2G NVIDIA nForce 2 Chipset
Leadtek A350 NVIDIA FX5900 XT (128MB)
300W ATX Supply (Tsunami)
Windows XP Professional MSDN (SP1a)

[BipolarBill]

Try running the system with the case cover off and a small housefan directed at the card. It's probably excessive heat.

[bob1787]

GPU runs at about 40'C and it says max threshold is 140'C. i think its sorted now because i had to re-install windows when i replaced the motherboard and i think directX was all fuded up with mismaching files etc. sorry for any inconvenience

[iceblue]

Even though temps didn't turn out to be the issue, you can lower temps by simply flashing your A350 to the A380 BIOS (5950 Ultra). You'll get a better overclock too. :t

[bob1787]

really, that sounds pretty neat... so just flash over with A380 bios and presto, FX5950 ultra?

[bob1787]

hmmmm, following up on my previous ill judgement i have been running the game with the temp monitor on and a trend of when the GPU reaches 43'C - 44'C the game will crash, i will take up your advice of the housefan and see how it goes from there

[iceblue]

Originally posted by bob1787
really, that sounds pretty neat... so just flash over with A380 bios and presto, FX5950 ultra?
righto :cool:

[bob1787]

sorted, just download 5950 drivers from leadtek site. usualy taiwanese web site trick of going 5KB/s :confused:

[bob1787]

:mad: hmmmm shortsightedness of me (version 3.7 update)

MSI BIOS Images (http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=393&NAME=MS-6570)

[causticVapor]

Yeah, the 5900 really knows how to throw off that heat and a lot of it.

But be happy, it's a nice card :)

[bob1787]

FYI i bought a new motherboard and got me a nice new gigabyte, works a treat, it was just this MSI motherboard being lame