Crashes with 9700 Pro!

[Mr_Flibbles]

Hiya. I've browsed through the forum and found no problems particularly similar to mine, so here goes:

Built a new system the other day:

Athlon XP 2700+ (333Mhz FSB)
GA-7VAXP Mobo
350W PS (pcpowerandcooling.com)
Radeon 9700 Pro (built by ATI--latest Catalyst drivers)
1 stick 512MB Kingston PC2700 DDR
SB Audigy
16x DVD
48x CDRW
120GB WD HDD (8MB version)

Installed WinXP Pro, DX9, and newest drivers for all components. Windows loaded fine, and all of my apps (Internet, Word, etc...) ran properly. CPU temp around 45C.

However, no games or graphics benchmark programs work. I tried 3dmark03, JK2, Warcraft 3, Tribes 2, and all of them crashed as soon as any 3D-accelerated graphics displayed. The games loaded fine, it's as soon as I tried to display the actual engine that the coputer either hard locks at a black screen, reboots, or crashes to the desktop with a Windows error. I tried setting the AGP transfer mode to 4x and disabled fast writes, but doing so only got JK2 working. I even tried disconnecting the DVD, CDRW, and Audigy to try and free power and system resources, but to no effect.

Should I reformat and NOT install DX9 (stay with 8.1 instead)? Is this a driver conflict or faulty hardware? Note that I did run some DirectX 3D tests in the DXDIAG tool.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm bloody stuck.

 

[aliu42]

Did you install DX9 before or after your Video/Sound drivers?

Also..did you install SP1 before DX9?

And did you install your motherboard drivers...before everything else?

Aliu

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
-Albert Einstein
3DMark2001<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6317063" target="_new">http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6317063</A>

 

[Mr_Flibbles]

I know that the motherboard drivers were installed first, followed by the video card drivers (the ones that came bundled with the board). And I'm pretty sure that DX9 and the updated Catalyst drivers from the ATI website were installed next, in that order.

I suppose it wasn't particularly smart to immediately install the newest reference drivers from the 'Net, huh?

 

[jankphil]

ok, this may sound weird but give it a go. That particular mobo doesn't like (usually) pc2700 ram, and i know quite a few ppl who can't run the 333fsb without upping the voltage on the ram. Give it a try and see if that helps

"What kind of idiot are you?"
"I don't know, what kinds are there?"

 

[Mr_Flibbles]

How much is it safe to jack the voltage?