Low 3dmark03 Score :-(

[CaneyJ]

Just fitted a new AGP ATI 9800xt 256mb gfx card to my dads machine. It’s my old ex-gaming system which has the following setup.

- AMD XP2100 Thoroughbred B
- 1 GB (2x512mb) of DDR400 Basic Generic Memory
- 120Gb Western Digital IDE
- DFI Ultra Infinity NF2 Ultra Motherboard using on-board sound
- Zalman Flower Cooler
- Super Lanboy Case
- Q-tec '500w ' PSU

Running default 3Dmark03 I get a score of 2659 (comparatively half of what of what I was expecting). Before the system was running a rubbish NVidia FX5500 card and got a score of 1397. Could it be the CPU or RAM holding it back?

I ran the test before and the system blipped off but all seems to be running fine now, maybe the cheapy PSU is starting to feel the strain I don’t know.

 

[CaneyJ]

Well not my machine , personally I have P4 3.6Ghz, 2GB Ram ATI 850XT, 300GB HD etc so thats me sorted.

I guess my dad will be happy with it. It Does well in the actual games and maybe I could see about overclocking it like I used to do but now it's got cheepo memory (since my dad wanted quantity for his photo editing over my quality 512mb of corsair I used to have in it)

I did use Driver Cleaner after add/remove and accidentally removed all NVIdia drivers including motherboard ones. However after re-installing the new ATI catalysts I re-installed with the latest NVidia board drivers.

 

[CaneyJ]

Uninstall the ATI drivers, reboot into safe mode and use Driver Cleaner Pro (free btw) - you've probably got some nvidia files hanging around messing things up. Just select all the nvidia sounding strings when you run it (nvidia, nvidia wdm, nvidia stereo). Then reboot and reinstall the ATI cat 6.8s.

I did use Driver Cleaner after add/remove and accidentally removed all NVIdia drivers including motherboard ones. However after re-installing the new ATI catalysts I re-installed with the latest NVidia board drivers.

I did exactly that as it instructed in safe mode. Every bit of Nvidia I removed right down to the mobo drivers. I reinstalled those only after installing catalyst.

 

[CaneyJ]

Well I uninstalled the new Catalysts and put on cat 5.11. It ran through a sequence of 3dMark03 getting a slightly higher score of 3612 and it also completed a cycle of 3dMark05 getting 1787.
Did a few hours web browsing and desktop work without trouble then tried running another cycle of 3dMark03 and the computer blipped off, ho hum .

Disconnected the power lead, left it a minute and reconnected and powered on again. Tried a game my dad likes, EA Golf ‘03. Went through the menu system fine enough and ran the game for 3 odd minutes before the computer again blipped off.

I haven’t noticed any graphical anomalies during all of this and my old rig offers excellent cooling so I am beginning to think the cheapo gold Q-Tec is the culprit you lot reckon?

My dad doesn’t fancy spending more money on the comp (Since 1) It is old anyway & 2) He is looking at nice shiny Panasonic 32” LCD ).
Now the new retail PC I got as a replacement came with a PSU which I discarded in exchange for a more powerful Hiper 480w when I also bought an ATI 850XT.

At the time the NVidia 5500 that came in my retail rig originally was then put into my father’s computer to replace an old GF3 Ti200 before it began acting up and I replaced that with this new ATI. 9800xt.

While this discarded PSU is only rated at 300W (came from my new rig) I can assume it is better quality than the Q-Tec giving more reliable power rails. It has a 120mm fan and branded FSP Group if that means anything.
It was capable after all before the GFX upgrade of running a High Grade Duel Core Pentium 4 so in theory it should be able to cope with the older system despite the GFX upgrade. Can’t hurt to try I guess

 

[CaneyJ]

Thats exactly the symptom , so looks like my Q-Tec has run out of '500W fairy' juice. Better it do that than blow up taking half the system with it. The other option I have is fitting a 300W version of the PSU listed first on here.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Sparkle_Power_Supplies.html