Hi,
I built the following machine about a month ago:
£114.95 x 1 - Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Alendalle" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£89.95 x 1 - Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£129.95 x 1 - Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£62.95 x 1 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£79.95 x 1 - Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Black) (CA-049-AN)
£28.95 x 1 - Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler (HS-020-ZA)
£59.95 x 1 - Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-025-EN)
£124.95 x 1 - Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-092-CS)
The machine worked fine for a few weeks, however then I began to notice frequent yet intermittent crashes when playing some games (Battlefields 2 and Half-Life 2 are examples). These were generally VPU recovery errors, where the GPU seemed to be able to crash independently of the rest of the system.
I immediately assumed this was a problem with the graphics card, and replaced it with the following:
£129.95 x 1 - HIS ATI Radeon X1900 GT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-057-HT)
This didn't resolve the problem, it carried on exactly as described. I've also replaced the motherboard with a different unit of the same model, tested both ram sticks individually, and tried a different power supply. None of these steps helped.
I'd tried both the 6.8 and 6.9 release of the Catalyst drivers, but it had never occured to me to try the 6.7 release (which I had been using originally when the crashes didn't occur). After installing the 6.7 release last night the problem seems to have become either much reduced or gone altogether (I need to do more extensive testing to be sure). I find this extremely suprising that this might resolve my problem, since searching on the internet doesn't reveal anyone else actually experiencing it.
I've tried various chipset drivers, BIOS revisions, reinstalling Windows, disabling sound altogether in the BIOS, I can't really think of what else to do.
Does anybody know why this is the case, whether the card is faulty (it's the second card I've tried though...), and if the card isn't faulty whether ATI will fix the drivers so I can use the latest release?
Many thanks for any help you can give, this has been driving me crazy for weeks!
Rob.
I built the following machine about a month ago:
£114.95 x 1 - Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Alendalle" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£89.95 x 1 - Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£129.95 x 1 - Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£62.95 x 1 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£79.95 x 1 - Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Black) (CA-049-AN)
£28.95 x 1 - Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler (HS-020-ZA)
£59.95 x 1 - Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-025-EN)
£124.95 x 1 - Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-092-CS)
The machine worked fine for a few weeks, however then I began to notice frequent yet intermittent crashes when playing some games (Battlefields 2 and Half-Life 2 are examples). These were generally VPU recovery errors, where the GPU seemed to be able to crash independently of the rest of the system.
I immediately assumed this was a problem with the graphics card, and replaced it with the following:
£129.95 x 1 - HIS ATI Radeon X1900 GT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-057-HT)
This didn't resolve the problem, it carried on exactly as described. I've also replaced the motherboard with a different unit of the same model, tested both ram sticks individually, and tried a different power supply. None of these steps helped.
I'd tried both the 6.8 and 6.9 release of the Catalyst drivers, but it had never occured to me to try the 6.7 release (which I had been using originally when the crashes didn't occur). After installing the 6.7 release last night the problem seems to have become either much reduced or gone altogether (I need to do more extensive testing to be sure). I find this extremely suprising that this might resolve my problem, since searching on the internet doesn't reveal anyone else actually experiencing it.
I've tried various chipset drivers, BIOS revisions, reinstalling Windows, disabling sound altogether in the BIOS, I can't really think of what else to do.
Does anybody know why this is the case, whether the card is faulty (it's the second card I've tried though...), and if the card isn't faulty whether ATI will fix the drivers so I can use the latest release?
Many thanks for any help you can give, this has been driving me crazy for weeks!
Rob.
Last edited: