Faulty Card...or driver problem?

[box]

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.

 

[sir-les-mp]

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

 

[classicVin]

I think its a driver problem, Lots of people seem to be getting these lock ups with the x1950, including me !

 

[drunkenmaster]

the agp drivers aren't necessarily the best when it comes to the x1950, think most people recommend using an older driver set, however i have no idea how old or which set. No ATi don't really massively support agp anymore with new drivers, but at this stage are you really expecting massive speed gains through drivers years after release? old drivers would perform the same as new and same features for same old cards, the driver number however would increase. IE i'm getting that in a perfect world the new drivers would work, but in reality it wouldn't make the slighest bit of a difference as the stuff your card uses is still basically code from years ago anyhow.

Thats "if" it is a driver problem. Its perfectly possible for certain engines/games to not cause certain hardware problems.

 

[thegoonden]

This is why everyone should dualboot, (even if it's just 2xXP) 10 seconds can eliminate software or hardware from the equation. Normally a knoppix or kubuntu live-cd would do the same, but not with 3d stuff, as they cannot legally distribute it with Nvidia/ATi drivers (not that you'd want the ATi linux drivers anyway....UGH!)

EG. My M-audio card has failed (or doesn't like the PCI bus on the new MOBO), XP claimed it wasn't there, so I checked Vista64, not there either, and just to eliminate MSFail as a cause, I booted knoppix from my teeny weeny waferdrive, and it too failed to see the card. No messing, a 5 min diagnostic.

 

[box]

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...