Need opinion / advice

[s0l1tud3]

Sup guys... I would like to get you guys advice concerning my lil problem. First of all here are my specs:
AMD64 3000 (754)
GA-K8U Motherboard
3 Gigs of DDR 3200
500 Watts PSU (Antec)
ATI x700 256

PROBLEM:

Prior to installing the X700 gpu, I was using a Nvidia 6200 OC by BFG. I can play BF2 with my settings on medium. I have no problems, except for when I ride vehicles, and when I get out of first peron view, everything around goes on bright with ne textures at all. When Im in first person, everything looks fine.
So I dug up an ATI 9600SE256 from my storage and see if it will work. Well it worked for about 10 mins or so then the PC locks up with the crackling noise then the monitor shuts off.
At first, I thought it's the drivers, so I uninstalled the drivers and used a step down from the newer drivers for ATI. I used the Omega drivers btw. Still the same thing. It will load up then it will lock up.
The second thing I thought, maybe because of my PSU. I used to have a 300watt PSU, so I bought a 500watt thinking that it will solve the issue. NOPE.
I then went to my bios and pretty much changed it to default. NO JOY
Set everything for my GPU to default. NO JOY
I figured its my GPU, so I bought the X700. Still NO JOY. And it showed this error message click . With that error message, it's got to be the driver right? I tried 5 different drivers from Omega 6.3 and down to see if it's going to work. NO JOY

The funny thing though, I play Counter Strike Source, have everything set on high *using the X700* and I have no problems at all. When I used my old Nvidia 6200, it never lock up.

I thought bout too much heat too... i have 3 fans going in, 3 going out.. bought a Zalman cooling fan for my cpu. I even opened up the side, to have the heat vent out a bit. NO JOY

I uninstalled/reinstalled BF2 thinking it will fix it. NO JOY
After each uninstall of the drivers, I ran CCleaner and Driver Cleaner. Installed new drivers. NO JOY

I'm sorry if this is like a novel. I just want to explain it thoroughly. My last resort is, reformat everything and install windows again :-(

Mahalo in advance

[Scinto]

Re: Need opinion / advice

BF2 is a bit more graphically demanding that CS:S,,

have you tried the official ATi Graphics drivers, personnally i dont use omega drivers, i prefer the catalysts and havent had such problems with my x700

[s0l1tud3]

Re: Need opinion / advice

I actually tried it. The latest official driver from ATI and the prior drivers from ATI. Still the same thing happening. Tried the Omega the Warcat drivers.. still the same.

[Scinto]

Re: Need opinion / advice

ah hmm your x700 is AGP8x as mine is PCI-E so hmm will hav to look into it

[s0l1tud3]

Re: Need opinion / advice

Yeah. crap I totally forgot to mention that.. yeah I'm poor so I'm still stuck in the AGP world hehehe

[Smiley_ie]

Re: Need opinion / advice

I no you have a 500 psu, But it does sound like a power/over heating problem. When i run BF2 i hear my psu sounds go up & down anad i have a 550 psu. How many hd drives & cd/dvd drives do you have connected. What i would suggest disconect anything you can, internal fans extra drives HD / cd dvd, Card readers or anything usb -Game controllers - Printers. Leave the side panel of and try it again.

[s0l1tud3]

Re: Need opinion / advice

I have 2 HD, 1 DVD writer, Printer/keyboard/mouse/ all usb..
internal fans? like the case fans? disconnect them?

this sucks cause Im at work at the moment.. I have to wait till I get off before I can try you suggestion :-(

Seriously though, I really don't get it. I started to have this problem when I installed the ATI based cards.

[Smiley_ie]

Re: Need opinion / advice

I have 2 HD, 1 DVD writer, Printer/keyboard/mouse/ all usb..
internal fans? like the case fans? disconnect them?

this sucks cause Im at work at the moment.. I have to wait till I get off before I can try you suggestion :-(

You said : PC locks up with the crackling noise: which doesnt sound good!
You could disconnect 1 of your HD, Printer, Leave cpu fan & your psu may have a fan built in, any other fans at are connected to the mother board or psu disconnect.
If it works : add 1 device at a time and try again.

[s0l1tud3]

Re: Need opinion / advice

The crackling noise is not coming from the PC itself.. it's coming from the speakers...and to add more, once the PC locks up, the the monitor shuts off and it displays "no signal" but the pc is not rebooting.. I had to do a manual reboot everytime


I'm so sorry.. it's 2am here in Hawaii and I'm a bit slow.. my apologies.. I know you're trying to help and I really appreciate it. I'm writing down all your suggestions.

[Smiley_ie]

Re: Need opinion / advice

Either way your system is crashing - shuting down, Which is mostly based on hardware failure or over heating. As you said its only in BF2 & CS works fine. If it was a hardware fault ie Video/ram/system board then CS & other games should have similar proplems.
Disconnect what you can to see if its power releated, If you get it going well your on the right track. Keep us posted.
Cheers

Ive 2 systems on a network, 1 of them is a does shutdown for no reason running games or not. I leave the side panel of and it runs fine ?

[s0l1tud3]

Re: Need opinion / advice

Got it.. thanks dude... I'll definitely jack my pc when i get back home... Much appreciated...

ta

[LoD]

Re: Need opinion / advice

If I were you I would have reformated before spending $100+ on replacement parts... lol

Try a reformat, otherwise it could be your motherboard. Wouldnt hurt to update the bios, especially if you have a very early s754 bios, back when those boards were buggy and brand new.

[s0l1tud3]

Re: Need opinion / advice

I think I finally figured it out. I played BF2 for 2 hours today with only 2 lock ups. The 2 lock ups happened cause Im still fine tuning and checking different configs to narrow down the problem.
HEAT Problems, that's the culprit.

The built in fan for the gpu is set to lower fan speed. So I turned the fan speed to about 95% thru ATI Tools, set in game graphics to medium 1200x900 60hz resolution. Played with no problems for an hour. Got a lil greedy, decided to juice it up a bit. everything set to high, 1200x900 85hz res, OC'd the gpu's memory and clock speed, then BAM.. pc lock up...

right now, im sticking with the default clock and memory speed of the gpu, in game graphics to medium using 1200x900 60hz res. I just need to buy a vga cooler after work tomorrow...

Thanks guys for all the inputs