Graphics Issues

[Rolinos]

I have a odd graphics issue that I wanted an opinion on. First off I have a,
Dual PIII 866
512Mb Sdram pc133
20gb Hd ata 100 (I am pretty sure)
GeForce 3Ti 200 64mb Hercules card
Abit motherboard with a VIA4n1 chipset
A 350w Enermax PS
More fans then you can shake a stick at
Windows XP all updates applied

When I am running most games after a certain point I get a lockup (& have to reboot), a bluescreen (&have to reboot) or my game will just crash to the desktop. Sometimes when I get done rebooting I get a msg about a sysdata.xml file that hates me. I have re-installed XP from scratch, tried pretty much every driver that I could find on guru3d.com to no avail. I was wondering after browsing here (a friend said this was a good trouble shootin site) I notice alot of talk in this graphics forum about power supplies could that be my problem a 350w does sound a bit low considering all im having it do.

Thanks

 

[Greeny]

Dual-processor and multiple fans? Ya I don't think 350W will cut it... Maybe get a second power supply?

 

[Crashman]

VIA chipsets for the PIII are slow and have stability problems. Furthermore they have been known to have some wierd compatability issue with nVidia cards, especially with certain driver revisions. The latest driver is not always the most stable. Most of these issues have been addressed and 90% fixed. Meaning that 10% of the problem is still there.

Of course it could just be a run of the mill power problem, your video card draws more power as soon as you start any 3D app. And it could be a heat problem, you do have a lot of hardware, are your fans oriented to make air flow through the case or just swirl it around?

Once you've eliminated the possibility of power or cooling problems, tried various driver revisions for the chipset and card, etc, you're all the way down to the unfixed flaws in the chipset.

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[Skipper007]

What's your audio configuration?

 

[Crashman]

Mine? Gee, I got an Aureal Vortex2 SQ2500.

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[Skipper007]

I meant the guy having the problem that started this. I'm not an expert on it, but I noticed that he didn't list his sound card, and I know sound boards can sometimes cause trouble.

 

[Crashman]

Yes, VIA has that damn PCI Latency issue, the further you go back in chipset revisions the worse it gets I think.

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