Faulty Card...or driver problem?

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I've got a bit of a dilemma here. I upgraded my AGP system from a 6600GT to a HIS X1950 Pro Turbo 512Mb a couple of months ago. However, since then I have been experiencing a lot of lockups, all with similar characteristics:

• Lockup within seconds of BF2 gameplay
• Lockup within seconds of C&C Generals Gameplay
• Lockups at intermittent intervals while watching DVDs

The most recent crash was while watching a DVD, with the blue screen mentioning the 'video scheduler'.

Here are the steps I have taken to try and find the cause:

• Reset BIOS to fail-safe defaults
• Invest in a new PSU - Antec NeoPower 650W
• Try playing BF2/CC under XP32 dual-boot
• Re-install Vista 64bit
• Revert back to 6600GT

The XP dual-boot suffers exactly the same lockups as Vista.
The Vista reinstall made no difference whatsoever.
When I reverted back to the 6600GT, the lockups dissapeared completely.

My spec is as follows:

Vista Ultimate 64-bit
AMD X2 4200+
VIA K8T800Pro NB
VIA 8237 SB
2GB OCZ Platinum Dual-Channel

The question I am now asking myself is whether these problems are more likely to be caused by a faulty card, or by an ATI incompatibility. Unfortunately I have no secondary ATI card and so there is no easy way to test this. What do you suggest?

Let me also add that I can play hours of COD1 and COD4 without a single crash...ever.

 

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Hi everyone...thanks for the suggestions.

i would try again this time using driver cleaner to remove all trace's of the nvidia driver's before installing the ati catylist driver's

I would have thought the fact that I clean installed Vista with the ATI card inserted would avoid the need for this?


I am using the ATI 7.7 drivers at the moment as I have heard these are the best for AGP cards. However, I have also been on the 8.5s, and nothing has worked.

Would it be worth upgrading to the 3850 Pro? The price deficit would only be around £50 after the sale of the X1950...