Problems with 9700 Pro

[crumpledmidget]

I recently installed a 9700 into my pc. I'm using XP home. I have a 1.4 athlon, 512 megs sdram, on an ecs mobo. also because i've heard it come up, a 400w power supply. My problem is in UT2003, and Hitman 2 mostly. The game will either freeze, go to a garbled image(in the case of Hitman 2, the monitor clicked like 5 times to different garbles screens), or close completely. Oftentimes when the game closes, I'll re-boot, and the pc will run scandisk, and then after windows opens it will say that the system has recovered from a serious error. I have been having multiple problems with games since installing this card. I have updated the drivers to the newest ones. Any help would be appreciated.

[BipolarBill]

Are you overclocked?

Two things come to mind. The 9700 Pro requires a power connector, right? Is your power supply up to the task? You may be out of "steam".

What are your CPU and system temps like?

Welcome to SysOpt!

[crumpledmidget]

Not overclocked, and while ide in my bios(trying to mess with some settings there), my cpu temp went to 48 C and system was at 39. I spoke with a friend who thought it may be a heat issue. Oh, I have a 400W psu, and only like 2 case fans, a burner, 1 cd, floppy and the gpu. Thanks for the welcome, glad i can be here.

[BipolarBill]

The temps are good - it probably comes down to the usual ATi driver fiasco.

[cusimar9]

I'd have thought ATi would have learned their lesson about their **** drivers... if they're still not up to scratch they need a slap or two!

[AllGamer]

I believe it's not in the driver but in the IRQ

if you swtich from ACPI PC to Standard PC

the problems will go away

[BipolarBill]

Please don't. I do not recommend using Standard PC unless the BIOS is older than 3 years on this PC. If it is, update it.

[crumpledmidget]

Well, so far I believe it to be heat. I used a tweak for the card and underclocked it as low as i could and played ut2003 for an hour with no problems(usually crashed within 5 minutes). I put my hand above the card and felt extreme heat, kind of like a radiator, except hotter!!! I would assume that the heatsink and fan on the card would be sufficient for cooling, but, hey, I could be wrong. I have friends with this same card, and actually overclocked it, and have no problems at all. Is there something besides heat that the underclocking could prove to be the culprit??

[BipolarBill]

Is the AGP fan spinning at normal (fast) speed?

[OpK Chowdy]

try playing with the case open and the card at stock speeds. if it doesn't crash then you need more case fans or ventilation in your case

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Betcha its another gpu shim problem. Yunno keeping the hsf from touching the gpu properly like the other 20% of 9700's that got butched. Its such a new card it must still be under warrenty. I would exchange it now before its too late. Underclocking the gpu and mem fixing it proves it to be vid card heat related and not cpu or system.

[mraltoid19]

Ok, I had simular issuse when I got my 9500 Pro. All I did was re-install windoh's XP and all my problems where fixed. It was as stable as it was before when I had my Geforce 3. Before the re-install in UT2K3 the character would sorta stretch and get weird on me. In Max Payne and 3DMark 2001 SE the guns would disappear froms Max's hands!! Like I said a fresh install fixed things right up. It more Windoh's fault than ATI's, I wish microsoft put a utility that would erase any trace of a previos driver so stoopid ****e like this wouldn't happen. Sure their add/remove but theres still a trace left. Oh yeah, and ATI has Catylst 3.0 available for download. Beware you need Direct X9 to use it, BTW DX9 is also available at MS's website. My 3Dmark went up a little and those demo's are sweet. I wish nVidia had it's demo's available for download

[omega31]

Betcha its another gpu shim problem. Yunno keeping the hsf from touching the gpu properly like the other 20% of 9700's that got butched.

Ah, yes. This thread:
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthre...hreadid=123569

[crumpledmidget]

For OPK, I've tried with the case open, but to no avail. I figure heat is probably the issue, but its the gpu, not the caseor cpu. I'll probably just RMA it now before its too late. I've read many a thread about 9700 issues, but mine seemed kinda different. I just know I can feel extreme heat above the card when I'm gaming with it under-clocked. I should have saved the $$$$ and stuck with Nvidia!!

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Yep omega31 thats the one. I like ATI and Nvidia have a 8500 and G3. BUT I must say they really messed up the shim on a few batches. I dont know HOW they could have made that huge of a mistake. I mean thats really off there in that pic and so were alot of others that had bad artifacts/lockups in games from heat.

crumpledmidget- If you can feel immense heat on the backside of card, and underclocking really helps alot-- all but fixes it. Than I would say it safe to say, its rma time just to be sure. Gotta give them credit though, its a newer concept. Shimming the gpu so give it time. Im sure it doesnt take much to fix in the fab process. And prob. already is fixed. Sorry you had such a bad experience sufice it to say it can happen with any video card though. I had a TnT2 back in my pre Voodoo3 3000 days that was bad right out of the box. It too was causeing graphic tearing but was the mem not the gpu. I know it was the mem cause it was really HOT.