gainward 4400 problem.....

[spp]

just got the rma from gainward..... i was pretty excited as this time the screen looks perfect... drivers and everything installed correctly...

but whenever i try playing a game.. (or maybe just anything with 3d i guess), the system crashes.

does anyone have the same problem?? i mean... it couldn't have been the game itself since i tried it with many different games... (quake3... serious sam... max payne... even just a 3d pool game..).

i also tried the newest driver from nvidia.... but the same problem persists.

any help is appreciated.

driver is 6.13.10.2832 4400 at 554/275
information of my system is in my rig below

thanks!

 

[Gulzakar]

you remove all those 3dfx drivers?

 

[spp]

how do you make sure that all 3dfx drivers are uninstalled?

 

[spp]

update:

so i have tried the following things so far.....

i installed the newer driver... 2834 i think.. and i installed the driver for AMD761 chipset from the epox website... and i changed the bios so that now the fastwrite is disabled, and it's in 2x mode instead of 4x mode.

It seems that now quake3 is running fine.... and it runs a little bit of serious sam.... but it crashes after a few minutes (monitor just turns off... from no signal..)

should i just reformat my hd and try installing everything again?
thanks

 

[spp]

i'm still waiting for the reply from gainward...... and i hate to bother you guys with this but i really need help on solving the problem.....

plz???

 

[Therapist928]

Veeerrryyy interesting. I had a very similar problem. I don't have time to go into the details, but here's a couple threads for you to consider:

Go to search, video forums on anandtech, type "4200". My problems under GeForce4 Ti4200 HELP!!!!"

Go to advanced search, hit select all for forums, look up "Epox and Geforce"

Both situations seem to be power supply issues
Read up

 

[spp]

i guess i didn't really include this in my spec.... but my ps is a enermax 350 silencer...... is that a good enough ps?? (i guess i can try disconnecting stuff and see.... i don't really have another ps to try around..)

 

[spp]

ok..... so in light of another thread, i looked at the voltages from mbm5.....and here are the numbers.

core 0: 1.84V
core 1: 1.57V
+3.3: 3.44V
+5.00: 4.71V
-5.00:0V
+12.00: 12.43V
-12.00:0V

what are each numbers and am I having a voltage problem? and also, how do I fix this problem besides getting a more powerful ps? (i thought that my 350W enermax is good enough already... but maybe not..)

thanks for all the help!

 

[Therapist928]

core 0: 1.84V
core 1: 1.57V
+3.3: 3.44V
+5.00: 4.71V
-5.00:0V
+12.00: 12.43V
-12.00:0V

what are each numbers and am I having a voltage problem? and also, how do I fix this problem besides getting a more powerful ps? (i thought that my 350W enermax is good enough already... but maybe not..)


Hi,
Those numbers seem fine, but that doesn't tell you the whole story. The 3.3v and 5.00v rails basically supply the power for the motherboard and components in an AMD system. The 12v rail supplies it for the storage (CD, DVD, HD). Those values for 3.3 and 5.00 and 12V should all be within 5% (i.e., 5% of 3.3, 5% of 5.00, and 5% of 12). Any more than 5% lower and your PS might not have what it takes to run all those components hooked up to it.

But, an Enermax 350w should do the job, it's a quality PSU. Those numbers don't really say much since I have a 400w generic PSU and I read 3.47, 5.08, and 13.14 for all my rails. Yet my power supply is definitely not doing the job - once i tried a friend's 300w from Antec, my Geforce4 4200 worked perfectly. The total wattage (300 or 400) doesn't matter. A more important number for PSUs is the combined load on 3.3 and 5.0V. You should find this on your manufacturer's website. Most of your components and especially your video card drain the 3.3 + 5.0V. You'll want a combined load of around 200w for 3.3v + 5.0v.

I'd say to try a friend's PSU before you go out and buy one, of course. And try all the little things like reseating the card, getting different versions of detonator drivers (older ones, like 23.11 or something). Try running games with all your cards taken out except for the video card. Try running with only 1 stick of RAM, or with different RAM. Try running games at really low stress (low res, low details) and see if the problem is stress related. Worst case scenario - back up and reinstall windows cleanly with just the card in, see if that works.

I'm fairly certain that my problem is a PSU one... just ordered a new PSU from newegg. An Enhance 350w PSU with 220w on the 3.3v and 5.0v rails combined. I'm praying to god that it'll work.

Good luck with it

 

[spp]

Thanks for the response.... well, i am backing up everything and trying to reformat and reinstall windows right now... it's just a pain backing up 40 gigs of stuff....

as far as ps........... do you think that sparkle 300w is better than mine? that's probably the one i'll try this weekend..

 

[Atif]

I wouldn't necessarily say that a Sparkle 300W power supply is better than the Enermax 350W power supply you currently have. In fact, it might even be a bit of a downgrade.

EpoX boards are known for requiring a nice consistent supply of power to keep them (and the components attached to them) running smoothly. For some reason, Enermax power supplies in general tend to have a 5.0v rail that dips and skips along instead of staying above the 5.0v mark (as is evidenced by your 4.71v reading for the 5v rail)

Instead of picking up a Sparkle 300W power supply, I'd suggest that you pick up one of the following supplies instead:

Antec TruePower 430 (430 Watt ATX Power Supply with 12V [P4] connector)
Channel Well CWT420ATX (420 Watt ATX Power Supply with 12V [P4] connector)
Sparkle FSP400-60GN (400 Watt ATX Power Supply with 12V [P4] connector)

There are several other high-quality power supplies you might want to look through here These power supplies are all quality units. Basically it comes down to how much you have to spend and the warranty length you find more attractive, nothing more, as they will all serve you well.

Best of luck!

- Atif

 

[spp]

thanks for the reply....
so you guys think it is a power supply problem??
i wouldn't have believed that i actually need something above 400w for my personal computer... but maybe that is the case..

 

[Therapist928]

so you guys think it is a power supply problem??
i wouldn't have believed that i actually need something above 400w for my personal computer... but maybe that is the case..



It may be a power supply problem, it was for a bunch of other people (including me, i hope... still waiting on my new PS from newegg)

But like we already said, total wattage (300, 350, 400, etc) doesn't matter. It's the 3.3v and 5.0v combined load wattage that matters.
Honestly, if your 350w Enermax isn't doing the job, then the Sparkle 300w probably wouldn't do it unless your enermax was defective or it may be that the enermax isn't supplying a steady enough 5v rail.

It only takes like 10 minutes to try out a new power supply - you don't even have to take out your old one. Just disconnect the old from the mobo and devices and put the new power supply on your desk next to your computer and plug everything in. I'd suggest trying the 300w Sparkle and maybe something higher, like a 400w Antec or something.

So try it already!! And don't forget to try all the other stuff I mentioned before

 

[spp]

ok.... so i tried it with a antec 300w............ and now the voltages in mbm5 are
3.45V, 5.03V, and 12.25V..... all above the standard value... but core1 is still around 1.59..

i've tried it with the sims.. and it seems to work fine.... i've also tried max payne, and it ran fine until the transition to the next level... i dunno if it's the program itself or the video card, so i'm gonna try it again later..
seems kinda weird that the antec 300w is providing more power than my enermax 350w..... maybe mine is a bad performer..

 

[spp]

ok i tried max payne again........ and it still throw me off a lot back to the operating system, but at least right now the game does not lock up ............ so i guess it's probably a ps problem... and i should get myself a better ps.......... which one do you guys thnk that i should get?
(o and one thing about it is that the buttons from the start menu and my task bar keep showing up when i was playing max payne.... did you guys experience the same thing?)

 

[dude]

I got a generic 320 watt Power Supply but it works great without a problem.

I say check out the Enermax 430 (EG-465P-VE or EG465P-VE). These are expensive and run about $80. Or get the Antec 430 watt P/S. They have a line of power supplies called True Power. These should work fine for you. It should cost about the same.

The good thing about a name brand P/S is that it will have a better warranty and gives you a piece of mind. The bad thing is they cost quite a bit. The generic stuff ususally work about as good but that's a hit or miss.

 

[Therapist928]

Hmm, alot of people seem to like the Enermax 431w series but I think if you're having trouble with the 350w PS from enermax (maybe due to that unstable 5v rail) then the 431w might also have an unstable 5v rail and give you problems there too.

Antec 350w or 400w seems to be a real good choice, especially the truepower series.

I'm STILL waiting on my PSU from newegg, the 350w Enhance with 220w combined on 3.3 and 5 (huge!) If it works i'll let you know

 

[spp]

what do you guys think of my problem with max payne though?
the buttons from the start menu and my task bar keep showing up when i was playing max payne (almost as if that it is half exiting back to windows...)

 

[Atif]

Make sure that you patch Max Payne to version 1.5 by going here first. There were many users who had problems getting the initial release to work 'as-is' in Windows XP. I had the game kick me out to the desktop as well until I updated to version 1.5.

Good luck

 

[spp]

wow... thanks... that sounds like the right fix...
i'm gonna try other games too and see if antec 300w works for me..

 

[thaioneon]

Whats your front side bus at ?. With my Geforce3ti200 anything above 110 MHz causes D3d games to crash but any OGL games run fine. Mabe your AGP bus speed is out of wack.

 

[spp]

it's at default speed... ithink that is 133 (or 266) on a epox 8k7A+ with DDRs right?