Please Help, I think it's a heat issue

[splenda20]

Hey everyone, I was looking for a some help. Here's the deal... I had an old Radeon PCI vid card that played games almost decently. One problem i would have is my games would crash pretty frequently even though I was still getting good framerates, about 70 FPS in RTCW. I thought it was a heat issue and found out that my CPU temp was around 55-60 degrees (obviously pretty hot). Today I bought a Radeon 9500 Pro vid card and thought that the better card would alleviate the stress on the CPU, but now it just crashes more (altough now the games just look much better and have higher framerates before they crash). I'm not positive that this is a heat issue, but i think it is. Any help would be much appreciated. BTW, here's the rest of my specs

Gigabyte 7VRXP mobo rev 2.0 with updated bios and drivers
Athlon XP 2100+ w/Thermatake Dragon Orb 3 fan
512 of ddr333 memory
Radeon 9500 Pro
Audigy X-Gamer
40 gig Maxtor HDD
Enermax 350 power supply

 

[4Ryan6]

The Athlon 2100+ Model 8,and Model 6, are both 266FSB not 333FSB, if you're after stability get a stick of 512Mb, PC2100, 266FSB, and run the XP2100+ at its proper speed, and the Volcano Series cools better than the ORBs do, by at least 10c.



Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.

 

[Teq]

1) 55 or 60 under full game play load isn't bad at all. The chip's safety limit is 90c. IF you are concerned about heat, you can do a lot better than a Dragon Orb cooler.

2) If you are on win2k or XP you might be running into a known software problem with AMD processors and DIRECT X's 3d rendering... the fix for it is here:
<A HREF="http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/798/" target="_new">http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/798/</A>

3) It could also be the VIA latency problem. If you haven't already you should obtain and install the latest VIA 4 in 1 drivers. You can get them here:
<A HREF="http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2" target="_new">http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2</A>


Simple rule: Never start out blaming hardware when there's software involved. Every piece of software ever written has at least one bug in it just waiting to get ya.



---> <b>Press ALT-F4 for IQ test</b><---

 

[splenda20]

Thanks for the quick response. Please correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't the 333 or 266 refer to the speed of the ram. I didn't think that it had to match the speed of the FSB of the CPU. My mobo supports PC 2700 DDR333 Ram but not Athlons with 333FSB.

 

[Rubberbband]

You're right. I also use the 7VRXP and I run PC2700 Ram at 333 and my Fsb is 133 (266). As for your crashing problem if you can borrow an Nvidia based card and test it in your system. The reason I say this is when I first got the mobo (rev. 2) I also purchased an 8500 LE and could not get it to run stably ever. Formatted and re-installed four times and tried every driver conceivable. So I threw in my GF3 and it ran super smooth. Eventually I freed up some cash and got a GF4 Ti4200 and haven't looked back. You might want to check out: <A HREF="http://www.rage3d.com/" target="_new">http://www.rage3d.com/</A> for all kinds of Ati tips and tweaks (great forum for Ati users). And also <A HREF="http://www.amdforums.com/" target="_new">http://www.amdforums.com/</A> for lots of info on the 7VRXP. Whatever you decide good luck. BTW I'm not a fanboy for NVIDIA it's just what seems to work on this mobo. Others have had success with ATI.

The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it. <A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=327&s" target="_new"><b>MY SYSTEM</b></A>

 

[splenda20]

I've thought about that, but money is really tight and I'm not prepared to blow some dough when there could be a simple fix. I forgot to mention, it's not a normal crash, it locks up and continues playing the same sound over and over until I reboot. I mentioned earlier that my temp was around 55 - 60, that's when it's idle, i'm not sure what it is during full load.
Please anymore suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[hellodeadcat]

I had the exact same problem when I tried to play games with my Fire GL 8800. I have a 9500 pro too and that never has any problems and is a great card (they get switched in and out of same machine). If you do figure it out, please post how you resolved it. I tried nearly everything to get the 8800 to work, but it still had that issue. I doubt it is heat if your problem is the same as mine. My case and cpus run very cool and it still happened. Make sure you are using the newest drivers for your 9500 and agp stuff.

 

[4Ryan6]

Your M/B supports 333 Yes but the CPU you've got runs at 266, you mentioned stability thats why I posted what I did and you'd get more stability from matching the RAM to the CPU fsb speed, or get a CPU that runs at 333 and take full advantage of the M/B and RAM capabilities. You can overclock from 133, you may even get it up to 150 but not stable unless you drop the multiplier, but it won't run at 166, the processor doesn't have the capability to go that high, Crash City. The RAM you have will clock down to 266, but it wasn't designed to run that slow, and will probably crash every now and then because of that.


If as you say your money is tight, set the FSB to 133 and leave it there.



Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.