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Low 3dmark03 Score :-(

CaneyJ

CaneyJ

CaneyJ

Associate
Joined
15 Dec 2002
Posts
1,075
Location
Birmingham
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 :rolleyes: ' PSU

Running default 3Dmark03 I get a score of 2659 :mad: (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.
 
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yep, very low. i know i got 5,334 with my old xp1700 & r9700. are you running with fsaa enabled by any chance?

clone said:
Your machine is well out of date m8 upgrade time if you want a better score
Click to expand...

NOT. HELPFUL. :rolleyes: you'd suggest buying a new pc because his is scoring half what it should be? is that because your not intelligent enough to fix the problem yourself?
 
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assuming you didn't re-install windows, when you swapped over the cards and removed the nvidia gfx drivers, you didn't accidentally remove the chipset drivers too. might be worth reinstalling those anyway. :)
 
Well not my machine :p , 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.
 
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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.

If the PC switched off under load that's a good indication that the PSU may be overmatched, although it could also be a heat issue.

Also use the 3DMark03 ORB to check scores for similar systems.
 
fish99 said:
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.
Click to expand...

CaneyJ said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
you should install the motherboard drivers first. it shouldnt cuase a problem, but can and has before for me. the motherboard drivers include the agp drivers, which should be on the system before the graphics card driver:)
 
CaneyJ said:
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.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I missed that bit :)

Definitely sound like there's a power issue though. Run 3DMark03 a few more times, and maybe run 3DMark06, especially Deep Freeze, see if that makes it switch off. Or run a demanding game for twenty minutes (Oblivion, Doom 3, Far Cry etc).

The poor score could possibly be explained by the card not getting enough juice.
 
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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 :rolleyes: .

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 :D ).
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 :confused:
 
Yep, definitely worth a try :)

FSP Sparkle 300W probably puts out more power than a 450W Q-Tec, especially on the vital +12V rails.
 
Its definately the Q-Tec, ive seen that before with those where the PC just switches off totally, classic Q-Tec sympton that, i bet when you press the power button to get it back on it has no effect, you have to unplug the kettle lead and plug it back in again to get it to come back on. :)
 
Use the 300w you have spare, FSP are very good and will most likely be better than the Q-tec (almost certainly). Ages ago I had a 9800pro/2500+ and managed to squeeze out 7,000 on 03 and 2600 on 05 with it. I had to use a 550w Q-tec as thats all I had available and I got the exact same symptoms after a while (it was also VERY loud)
 
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