I recently put together a new machine and it crashes constantly whenever I do anything involving complex graphics / video. I can use Office apps, run WinAmp, rip CDs, use FTP and email apps, etc. etc. etc., but as soon as I hit a graphically-rich website, play a Real Media file, launch a 3D game, run 3DMark, etc. my PC crashes.
Sometimes it locks-up displaying the last state of the graphics buffer, sometimes the PC locks up and a jumble of random colors appears on-screen, sometimes the screen turns black, sometimes the monitor loses signal, sometimes the graphics settings revert to 640x480 16 color mode (not 16-bit) and an error message pops-up saying something like: "Windows has recovered from a critical device failure. Save your work and reboot" or some such. When most of these crashes occur WinAmp will continue to play happily in the background, even skipping to the next song in the playlist, etc.
I have tried a million different things and none seem to work.
I've replaced the 9700 Pro with a new card.
I've tried with various sound cards and no sound card.
I've got the latest drivers, updates, etc. for Windows XP.
I've tried the base XP drivers for the Radeon 9700.
I've tried the 3.1 and 3.2 Catalyst drivers.
I've updated my BIOS.
I've disabled Hyper-Threading.
I've set AGP aperture to 64.
I've set AGP override to 2X and No Override.
I've set my BIOS to all failsafe settings.
I've reformatted and re-installed Windows XP.
I've tried the latest drivers for various other pieces of hardware.
I've got the latest motherboard drivers.
I've tried various desktop resolutions and bit-depths and refresh rates.
I've upgraded the power supply to 430 Watts.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
I have found that I am most stable using the base Windows XP Radeon 9700 Pro drivers at 1024x768 16-bit 60 Hertz, but if I go above that most graphics / video apps will lock up my machine (refresh rate seems to cause many problems above 60 Hz). Using the 3.2 Catalyst drivers I crash on virtually every web page, video, game, app, etc. regardless of desktop resolution, bit depth, refresh rate. While I crash in almost every application, sometimes it takes awhile until the crash happens, sometimes it happens immediately but then goes away after several reboots and then is stable for a couple hours. I’ve taken to using Real Media Player as my test-case to verify each of my changes work or not because I can reproduce the crash all the time with it. The only graphics settings that don’t crash Real Media Player are: 1024x768 (or lower) 32-bit (or lower) and 60Hz (or lower). If I up the refresh rate to anything above 60Hz, and open a movie in Real Media Player my machine locks up. There are some rare cases where I boot up the machine and it will crash with the “Windows has recovered from a critical device failure. Save your work and reboot" message without doing ANYTHING at all, but that does not happen that often.
Here is my system:
Windows XP (all the latest updates)
3.06 GHz Intel Pentium 4 Hyper-Threading CPU
MSI GNB MAX FISR (M6565) motherboard (8X AGP, S-ATA, Bluetooth, GBit LAN, etc.)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (many flavors of drivers)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum (with internal break-out box)
2x 512MB Kingston HyperX Dual Channel DDR Memory SIMMs
Western Digital Special Edition Caviar 200GB IDE Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar 80GB IDE Hard Drive
Sony DRU-500A DVD-RW / DVD+RW Drive
USB 2.0 Controller Enabled
IEEE1394 Firewire Controller Enabled
Both Onboard IDE Controllers Enabled
Serial ATA Controller Disabled
Floppy Drive Controller Disabled
Parallel and Serial Ports Disabled
Using PS2 mouse and keyboard (not USB)
ViewSonic GS970 19" monitor
Onboard 10/100/1000 MBit LAN Enabled
Onboard Audio Disabled
Bluetooth Controller Disabled
Does anyone have any thoughts as to what's going on here?
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks.
Skip
Sometimes it locks-up displaying the last state of the graphics buffer, sometimes the PC locks up and a jumble of random colors appears on-screen, sometimes the screen turns black, sometimes the monitor loses signal, sometimes the graphics settings revert to 640x480 16 color mode (not 16-bit) and an error message pops-up saying something like: "Windows has recovered from a critical device failure. Save your work and reboot" or some such. When most of these crashes occur WinAmp will continue to play happily in the background, even skipping to the next song in the playlist, etc.
I have tried a million different things and none seem to work.
I've replaced the 9700 Pro with a new card.
I've tried with various sound cards and no sound card.
I've got the latest drivers, updates, etc. for Windows XP.
I've tried the base XP drivers for the Radeon 9700.
I've tried the 3.1 and 3.2 Catalyst drivers.
I've updated my BIOS.
I've disabled Hyper-Threading.
I've set AGP aperture to 64.
I've set AGP override to 2X and No Override.
I've set my BIOS to all failsafe settings.
I've reformatted and re-installed Windows XP.
I've tried the latest drivers for various other pieces of hardware.
I've got the latest motherboard drivers.
I've tried various desktop resolutions and bit-depths and refresh rates.
I've upgraded the power supply to 430 Watts.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
I have found that I am most stable using the base Windows XP Radeon 9700 Pro drivers at 1024x768 16-bit 60 Hertz, but if I go above that most graphics / video apps will lock up my machine (refresh rate seems to cause many problems above 60 Hz). Using the 3.2 Catalyst drivers I crash on virtually every web page, video, game, app, etc. regardless of desktop resolution, bit depth, refresh rate. While I crash in almost every application, sometimes it takes awhile until the crash happens, sometimes it happens immediately but then goes away after several reboots and then is stable for a couple hours. I’ve taken to using Real Media Player as my test-case to verify each of my changes work or not because I can reproduce the crash all the time with it. The only graphics settings that don’t crash Real Media Player are: 1024x768 (or lower) 32-bit (or lower) and 60Hz (or lower). If I up the refresh rate to anything above 60Hz, and open a movie in Real Media Player my machine locks up. There are some rare cases where I boot up the machine and it will crash with the “Windows has recovered from a critical device failure. Save your work and reboot" message without doing ANYTHING at all, but that does not happen that often.
Here is my system:
Windows XP (all the latest updates)
3.06 GHz Intel Pentium 4 Hyper-Threading CPU
MSI GNB MAX FISR (M6565) motherboard (8X AGP, S-ATA, Bluetooth, GBit LAN, etc.)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (many flavors of drivers)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum (with internal break-out box)
2x 512MB Kingston HyperX Dual Channel DDR Memory SIMMs
Western Digital Special Edition Caviar 200GB IDE Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar 80GB IDE Hard Drive
Sony DRU-500A DVD-RW / DVD+RW Drive
USB 2.0 Controller Enabled
IEEE1394 Firewire Controller Enabled
Both Onboard IDE Controllers Enabled
Serial ATA Controller Disabled
Floppy Drive Controller Disabled
Parallel and Serial Ports Disabled
Using PS2 mouse and keyboard (not USB)
ViewSonic GS970 19" monitor
Onboard 10/100/1000 MBit LAN Enabled
Onboard Audio Disabled
Bluetooth Controller Disabled
Does anyone have any thoughts as to what's going on here?
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks.
Skip
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