Help! Riva TNT2 Pro problems

[mrbungel]

posted 04-01-2000 08:25 PM
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Someone please help me. First of all, let me say that I'm computer literate, but I am not too savvy with switching drivers, BIOS, etc..
I have an HP Pavilion 700mhz Athlon, 128 MB RAM, Aureal Vortex2, and a 32MB Riva TNT2 Pro. I believe my chipset is an AMD Irongate(that's what HP told me..)
Anyway, my computer freezes up whenever I play games utilizing the TNT2 Pro (NHL2000, Madden2000, etc). EA Sports told me that the 3D card is completley compatible with their games.. I've updated the drivers and still have this problem!
Does anyone have any idea what's causing the freeze up?
Please help!!

[RobRich]

It sounds like a driver related issue to me. Have you downloaded the latest 3.77 drivers. The can be found here:

www.reactorcritical.com/download.shtml (http://www.reactorcritical.com/download.shtml)

If all elase fails, you want to try the latest 5.13 drivers, but only as a last ditch effort. These are still alpha release. They should be available from the same page.

Also, other issues to check. Do you have the latest AMD agp driver for the Irongate chipset. They are available from the page listed above.

Also, make sure you have DirectX 7.0 installed. To find out, just type "dxdiag" in the run dialog box on your windows start menu. If not, then you can obatin a copy from a variety of sources. I commonly download it from:

www.hotfiles.com (http://www.hotfiles.com)

Also, make sure that the following options are defnied in your bios settings:

-video shawdow: disable
-video cache: disable
-vga pallete snoop: disable
-memory hole 15-16m: disable
-assign vga irq: enable

While on the bios topic, your system might require a bios update. Through consultsing HP's webiste or tech support, you should be able to determine if a bios upgrade for your particular system has been published yet.

Hopefully these steps will resolve your problems. If it doesn't then you may need to change a few Windows registry entries. The easiest way to do this is through several small utilities floating around the net. Registry Tweaker for GeForce/TNT2 at the above reactorcritical page is highly recommended. The options you might need to change is to set AGP transfers to 1x and disable AGP sideband support. This forces your card to the lowest AGP settigns possible, and can resolve conflicts with the Irongate chipset.

Good luck,
Robert Richmond

[mrbungel]

Thanks for the reply. I've recently updated my driver to 3.77, still no luck. I went to reactor critical site and downloaded the following driver: AMD 751 AGP-driver, version 4.61
miniport_461.exe (145K) - 4 March.

Is that the proper Irongate AGP driver? It looked like the right one..?
As far as BIOS is concerned, I am not too familiar with it and do not know how to check/update it. Any directions would be greatly appreciated.

I've also used the RegTweak program and "checked off" Cool Bits and AGP2X.

Please let me know if there's anything else I could do to fix this darn problem.
Thanks!

[RobRich]

That should be the right Irongate driver. Just proceed to install the file. As for the bios, look for an option to enter it when first booting your computer. It is commonly accessed by the esc, del, or a function key. Once in your bios, just look around at all the options offered. Make sure to change only the options I've listed, as other options might cause even more problems. If the reg tweak app didn't solve the issue, then go ahead and put the AGP interface back to 2x with SBA enabled.

There are some common issue with Athlons that could cause your problems. But since you have an OEM system, I don't see how these could be an issue. Sometimes bad or non-spec memory will lead to these types of problems. Also, a non-AMD certifed power supply could cause this. Considering HP is a large AMD authroized vendor, these issues should not your system. I use the word SHOULD, as wierder things have happened.

Other than what I've mentioned, the last thing I could think off would be heat. Do you have adequate case ventilation. The TNT-2 chipset will crash under severe heat, esp. under 3d apps.

Did this card come with the HP system. If so, you might want to look at a possible return or replacement. If you added the TNT-2, then take the card back now, asuming it's still under warantee.

Any of you Athon owners got any other ideas?

[This message has been edited by RobRich (edited 04-03-2000).]

[drojman]

Mrbrungel, I see that you have the exact same question going on in tech support also. Perhaps you could just post the question in one thread next time. It makes it hard for people trying to help each other out to follow more than one thread on the same exact topic. That way also, we can follow it and see what the results are. We can all learn something.
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Good luck with your problem though...

[socalgal]

Thanks, drojman.

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum2/HTML/006042.html

[neo_otyugh]

I had similar problems with a different system, but with a tnt vid card....what made the difference for me was that somewhere in the bios there was a setting that controlled primary video out to either pci or agp...when set to pci with an agp card i would have crashes. when set to agp it worked much better. You might want to see if there is anything like that for your system...but i doubt it since it is OEM.

[mrbungel]

Sorry for the multiple posting.... I wasn't sure which thread would be most appropriate...

My computer has PhoenixBIOS and doesn't give me many options. The only real thing that I can adjust would be to set it AGP or PCI. It's defaulted to AGP. Are there any other ways to adjust the BIOS settings? What other options/programs/tweakers/driver could I try?

Thanks for your help.... I think we're making some progress..

[mrbungel]

Thanks to everyone for their advice. I think I've managed to fix the problem. I updated the drivers for my Aureal Vortex2. Since then, all of my games have been running smoothly!