Computer probs - update
Discussion
Further to my grief of last week, I've done some fiddling - and probably made matters worse!
I started by trying to download the Windows update pack as suggested by Danny H. That took 2 hours once I got it to stay online.
Things were no better.
So I installed Win 2000, which miraculously found all the relevant drivers apart from a few I had disks for. It sorted out the IRQs, in the sense that whilst they were still shared by numerous devices, nothing caused any probs. Woohoo, I thought. So I installed the Flight Sim, and lo and behold the bloody machine crashed every time I tried to fly. Usually it locked up even before I raised the throttles! I tried all manner of graphics settings, reduced acceleration, the lot. No difference. So I took some more advice and downloaded DirectX 9: that didn't fix it. Then the thing would lock up if I was on the 'net, then it would lock up any time in any application. I booted up in Win 98, and it works fine on the net, but still has the IRQ/ lost devices scenario.
Tonight I've pulled the AGP graphics card (Geforce 2MX400), reinstalled my old 16M PCI Riva TNT and look: in Win 2000 the flight sim works (albeit with reduced graphics capabilities), I can get on the net and everything's hunky dory.
So, do I look for a different AGP graphics card or is my motherboard just a pile of toss that will never work as long as Tony Blair has a hole in his arse?
Answers on a Pentium 4 please...
Ian
I started by trying to download the Windows update pack as suggested by Danny H. That took 2 hours once I got it to stay online.
Things were no better.
So I installed Win 2000, which miraculously found all the relevant drivers apart from a few I had disks for. It sorted out the IRQs, in the sense that whilst they were still shared by numerous devices, nothing caused any probs. Woohoo, I thought. So I installed the Flight Sim, and lo and behold the bloody machine crashed every time I tried to fly. Usually it locked up even before I raised the throttles! I tried all manner of graphics settings, reduced acceleration, the lot. No difference. So I took some more advice and downloaded DirectX 9: that didn't fix it. Then the thing would lock up if I was on the 'net, then it would lock up any time in any application. I booted up in Win 98, and it works fine on the net, but still has the IRQ/ lost devices scenario.
Tonight I've pulled the AGP graphics card (Geforce 2MX400), reinstalled my old 16M PCI Riva TNT and look: in Win 2000 the flight sim works (albeit with reduced graphics capabilities), I can get on the net and everything's hunky dory.
So, do I look for a different AGP graphics card or is my motherboard just a pile of toss that will never work as long as Tony Blair has a hole in his arse?
Answers on a Pentium 4 please...
Ian
i have a GB MoBo as well and its $hite, Roop set up a wireless sharing conn thingy for our 2 pc's (don't know...don't ask) and it used to lock up for no bloody reason.
Roop did some research and on a forum GB theselves admitted that the USB wasn't upto standard but nothing they could do about it.
Roop wound the clock speed back and its been perfect (fingers crossed) ever since.
Not sure if any of this is relevent but hey...
Claire
>> Edited by Gaffer on Wednesday 26th February 20:59
Roop did some research and on a forum GB theselves admitted that the USB wasn't upto standard but nothing they could do about it.
Roop wound the clock speed back and its been perfect (fingers crossed) ever since.
Not sure if any of this is relevent but hey...
Claire
>> Edited by Gaffer on Wednesday 26th February 20:59
Hmmm... I can't fault the USB: everything I have in the USB ports (all 6 of them!) works fine - webcam, printer, graphics tablet, radio keyboard and mouse, radio joystick).
Another thing I did notice under Win 2000 was that the 10Gb Hard disk I had that failed to work in Win98 has suddenly started to behave itself... odd.
Ian
Edit: If I know Roop, yours will have a 26GHz processor with 512Tb RAM and a pipeline cache that would make BP envious...!
>> Edited by wedg1e on Wednesday 26th February 21:10
Another thing I did notice under Win 2000 was that the 10Gb Hard disk I had that failed to work in Win98 has suddenly started to behave itself... odd.
Ian
Edit: If I know Roop, yours will have a 26GHz processor with 512Tb RAM and a pipeline cache that would make BP envious...!
>> Edited by wedg1e on Wednesday 26th February 21:10
Had a similar problem to that wedg1e when i changed the graphics card for a geforce2 mx400.
caused allsorts of problems, kept conflicting and crashing.
Found out the sound card was having arguments with the new graphics card.
Old sound card was a vortex, new ones a sound blaster audigy, dosent cause me any probs now!
caused allsorts of problems, kept conflicting and crashing.
Found out the sound card was having arguments with the new graphics card.
Old sound card was a vortex, new ones a sound blaster audigy, dosent cause me any probs now!
Bloody PCs!! I have just sorted mine out now, after many re-intalling disaters with 98, ME, and now XP again, all down to slightly faulty new memory sticks!!!!
I changed the motherboard to an Asus A7N8X only because it supported the AGPX8 for my new 9700 pro graphics card, so I upgraded the processor to XP2400+, and got 3 sticks of 512MB of DDR Ram, as it's so cheap at the mo! I didnt think of the disasterous consequences of bad RAM!!!!!
Am now trying to get my money back from the site that I ordered it from, I now have the Crucial RAM, which is guarenteed!!!
Now though, I am worried sick every time I boot up the PC!!!!!!!! Even my TVRs taked second place in my head because of the damn PC!!
Chris
I changed the motherboard to an Asus A7N8X only because it supported the AGPX8 for my new 9700 pro graphics card, so I upgraded the processor to XP2400+, and got 3 sticks of 512MB of DDR Ram, as it's so cheap at the mo! I didnt think of the disasterous consequences of bad RAM!!!!!
Am now trying to get my money back from the site that I ordered it from, I now have the Crucial RAM, which is guarenteed!!!
Now though, I am worried sick every time I boot up the PC!!!!!!!! Even my TVRs taked second place in my head because of the damn PC!!
Chris
deltaf:
Yeah, I had the sound card out (along with most of the rest of the bits!) - didn't fix it.
The Mobo has no onboard sound AFAIK (well, Win2K didn't find any!). Curiously, when the PC locked up, the NumLock key was still operational, as though some bits were still running in the background.
So far tonight it hasn't glitched once, despite an extended session on the flight sim with all the display settings as high as they'll go for the Riva TNT. Obviously an AGP fault methinks...
Bah.
I can thoroughly recommend the Logitech cordless Freedom Pro 2.4GHz joystick, incidently: if I had an LCD projector I could use the house front window blinds as a screen and fly the plane from across the road! If only the radio kbd and mouse worked so well...
Ian
Yeah, I had the sound card out (along with most of the rest of the bits!) - didn't fix it.
The Mobo has no onboard sound AFAIK (well, Win2K didn't find any!). Curiously, when the PC locked up, the NumLock key was still operational, as though some bits were still running in the background.
So far tonight it hasn't glitched once, despite an extended session on the flight sim with all the display settings as high as they'll go for the Riva TNT. Obviously an AGP fault methinks...
Bah. I can thoroughly recommend the Logitech cordless Freedom Pro 2.4GHz joystick, incidently: if I had an LCD projector I could use the house front window blinds as a screen and fly the plane from across the road! If only the radio kbd and mouse worked so well...
Ian
wedg1e, the only thing I can think of is that the car may be trying to run at a higher AGP speed than your boatd can take. For example, if its an 8X card (I'm not sure about your MX), it should step down OK if your slot is only a 4X.
You can check in the BIOS for your AGP settings.
Another useful utility is PowerStrip - do a Google search for the site and download it. Essentially its an overclocking utility, but it has a diag mode that will give you a wealth of information about the card and what its doing or not doing. Particularly the AGP information.
That's a final question, I guess - HAVE you overclocked it already? If you have, turn either the mem speed or the cpu back down again.
Keep us posted. We'll get you sorted.
You can check in the BIOS for your AGP settings.
Another useful utility is PowerStrip - do a Google search for the site and download it. Essentially its an overclocking utility, but it has a diag mode that will give you a wealth of information about the card and what its doing or not doing. Particularly the AGP information.
That's a final question, I guess - HAVE you overclocked it already? If you have, turn either the mem speed or the cpu back down again.
Keep us posted. We'll get you sorted.
Greg:
I did a Google search for 'Has anyone else got a pile of 5h1+ from Gigabyte and another lump of turd from nVidia and got them to work' (or words to that effect!) and found a site that states 'the Gigabyte BX2000 will NOT work with GeForce 2MX cards'. So there you have it, although I don't know where/ how he got that information. I even tried it with the jumpers for a Voodoo card in, just on the off-chance! Not that I could tell you what the jumpers do, you understand. The manual is about as much help as someone on an IT helpline. Oops, er, I mean....
Now, I have an nVidia Vanta 8Mb AGP that I pulled from me Julie's machine (and which is currently on Ebay!): it may be another nVidia but it's not a Geforce so I may have a stab at that to see if it's an actual AGP fault. The PCI Riva TNT that I have in at the mo works perfectly apart from the fact that it can't draw smooth-moving graphics in flight sim (you gather that's the only PC 'game' I play).
At the end of the day, if the Geforce won't work, I'll just have to look for another card... or a new mobo.
The mobo has no adjustments in the BIOS for AGP, no manual allocation of IRQs and no indication anywhere in the manual of what speed the AGP is clocking at.
Useful, eh?!
Ian
I did a Google search for 'Has anyone else got a pile of 5h1+ from Gigabyte and another lump of turd from nVidia and got them to work' (or words to that effect!) and found a site that states 'the Gigabyte BX2000 will NOT work with GeForce 2MX cards'. So there you have it, although I don't know where/ how he got that information. I even tried it with the jumpers for a Voodoo card in, just on the off-chance! Not that I could tell you what the jumpers do, you understand. The manual is about as much help as someone on an IT helpline. Oops, er, I mean....
Now, I have an nVidia Vanta 8Mb AGP that I pulled from me Julie's machine (and which is currently on Ebay!): it may be another nVidia but it's not a Geforce so I may have a stab at that to see if it's an actual AGP fault. The PCI Riva TNT that I have in at the mo works perfectly apart from the fact that it can't draw smooth-moving graphics in flight sim (you gather that's the only PC 'game' I play).
At the end of the day, if the Geforce won't work, I'll just have to look for another card... or a new mobo.
The mobo has no adjustments in the BIOS for AGP, no manual allocation of IRQs and no indication anywhere in the manual of what speed the AGP is clocking at.
Useful, eh?!
Ian
Just been through very similar problems. Gigabyte 7IXE4 motherboard, Creative GeForce 2MX 400, Soundblaster Live! 5.1.
Decided to upgrade all of the drivers over the weekend. BIOS, motherboard, Graphics, Sound etc. Well, all seemed to be going well until I had finished (and an improved 3DMark2001 SE score up from 1503 to 1954).Then everything became so unstable that the longest it ran for was 20 minutes. The average was probably under 5.
So I have rebuilt the machine over the last couple of days (format upwards) and have downloaded and re-installed all the new drivers for everything. However, this time I did them one at a time and made sure things were pretty stable after each one. All went well until I came to installing the last set of updates. Then everything went t*ts up again. Doing strange things like seeming to be running but the monitor going into power-save mode because it's lost input or the whole system just locking up.
So the culprit? The latest Creative Soundblaster Live! drivers. Went back to the previous driver and everything became stable again. I am still waiting to do through tests tonight as it was 1am when I finished. However, it ran through 3DMark2001 and PCMark2002 tests fine with no crashes or lockups (it's still slow mind ).
Decided to upgrade all of the drivers over the weekend. BIOS, motherboard, Graphics, Sound etc. Well, all seemed to be going well until I had finished (and an improved 3DMark2001 SE score up from 1503 to 1954).Then everything became so unstable that the longest it ran for was 20 minutes. The average was probably under 5.
So I have rebuilt the machine over the last couple of days (format upwards) and have downloaded and re-installed all the new drivers for everything. However, this time I did them one at a time and made sure things were pretty stable after each one. All went well until I came to installing the last set of updates. Then everything went t*ts up again. Doing strange things like seeming to be running but the monitor going into power-save mode because it's lost input or the whole system just locking up.
So the culprit? The latest Creative Soundblaster Live! drivers. Went back to the previous driver and everything became stable again. I am still waiting to do through tests tonight as it was 1am when I finished. However, it ran through 3DMark2001 and PCMark2002 tests fine with no crashes or lockups (it's still slow mind
). Sorry Ian, missed this both today and yesterday - my apologies.
If your mobo is relatively new (i.e. fast bus speeds) then there's no point in binning it - far more economically sound to bin the tatty graphics card and get a decent one.
FWIW (and this is only my opinion), I would avoid anything GeForce that has an MX chipset on it. Go for a TI series if you must have NVidia. Good drivers though, for all platforms.
Personally, I have an ATI Radeon card. Its not bang up to date but it has 64Mb DDR RAM, and I don't mind admitting its overclocked 'til Kingdom come. If it pops then I couldn't care - at the price it cost I'll just buy a new one.
Only downside is that it came with no XP drivers (er, hello? How long has XP been out?), and yet it said XP compatible on the box. Ah, that's XP in the sense that you need to download the ATI driver set, all 13Mb of it via my modem line? Thanks.
If your mobo is relatively new (i.e. fast bus speeds) then there's no point in binning it - far more economically sound to bin the tatty graphics card and get a decent one.
FWIW (and this is only my opinion), I would avoid anything GeForce that has an MX chipset on it. Go for a TI series if you must have NVidia. Good drivers though, for all platforms.
Personally, I have an ATI Radeon card. Its not bang up to date but it has 64Mb DDR RAM, and I don't mind admitting its overclocked 'til Kingdom come. If it pops then I couldn't care - at the price it cost I'll just buy a new one.
Only downside is that it came with no XP drivers (er, hello? How long has XP been out?), and yet it said XP compatible on the box. Ah, that's XP in the sense that you need to download the ATI driver set, all 13Mb of it via my modem line? Thanks.
big_man said: Anyone know anything about graphics cards for laptops?
Is it possible will it cost much?
Did a quick search on google and didn't turn anything up.
Thanks
There is one company that do a PCMCIA graphics card but its intended for dual monitor applications - about £400 from memory. Other wise laptops cannot be upgrade in this way - sorry.
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