Why does my Graphics Card Hate Me?!

[mrstarface]

I've been having problems with my PC for weeks now where it freezes for no reason with a BSOD, wont boot up properly or crashes within a few minutes of playing a game. Windoze said it was a device driver problem but wouldnt say which one it was but I think I now know its my GC.

I borrowed my mates GC and my PC then worked flawlessly with no crashing at all. Aha! I thought not good for my wallet but at least I know what it is. Thing is my GC worked perfectly in his machine so its obviously not a harwdware issue.

My GC is a Radeon 9700 Pro (my mates one was an Nvidia 9500 Ultra) and I'm running it on a NForce2 mobo, 1 gig ram, 3xHDD, 2xDVD/RW.

I've now tried uninstalling all my ATI related drivers and re-istalling them and cleaning out any bogus ATI files with a utility called driver cleaner but no luck the card still wont work in my machine. I've also tried a full virus scan and run ad-aware through.

What else can I do - any ideas? I really dont want to reinstall Windows XP as it would make me suicidal

[Force Flow]

Have you tried *that* video card in another machine?

[mrstarface]

Yep my card works fine in his machine as does his own...

[mrstarface]

Anyone got any ideas? Updated all the mobo drivers and bios yesterday so everything is slap up to date but still it crashes

[Iniamyen]

Have you tried installing different drivers, or only uninstalling and reinstalling the same ones? I've had issues with *specific* drivers before that an earlier or later version cleared up.

This may be beating a dead horse, but if that doesn't work, is reinstalling your OS and starting from scratch an option?

[mrstarface]

Have tried a few different ATI drivers and also some non ATI ones (Omega) but the same result.

One suggestion I've had is a a power supply issue as I do have a quite a loaded system - my 9700 pro, 3xHDD (1 through a PCI Card) and 2xDVD/RW but have no idea how to find out if there is enough juice getting to everything

[Alienware_Dude]

What size and brand is the PSU?

[mrstarface]

Its a Jeantech 400W Model Number JNP-400P....which I thought would be more than enough juice?

[deadman.inc]

the enlight 420w is pretty popular here, and i have a enlight 360w, which working pretty good. i did get teh 420w from enlight.

[Alienware_Dude]

I've never heard of that brand. 400W should be more than enough to power your system, but it depends more on whose 400W unit it is. A low-quality 550W PSU will cause more problems than a high-quality, reliable 300W unit like Enermax, or Enlight.

[mrstarface]

More puzzling - I have just rolled back the driver on my Graphics Card to the last official one from Gigabyte (who made the card) rather than an official ATI one. Its dated last December but I've had no error messages from the card so far and my system boots up....but when I tried to use my NEC2500 DVD Burner to read a DVD the system crashed with a BSOD and said a device driver was at fauly. So maybe the problem is with the Burner, but I though drivers for optical units where built into Windows XP?

Thanks for the info on power supplies but want to avoid getting a new one if the fault lies elswhere!

[Alienware_Dude]

That's understandable. They've all but disappeared with XP, but do you have any resource conflicts?

[mrstarface]

I've looked in Device Manager and can see no hardware with question marks next to it to indicate a problem or conflict.....more bad news this morning I left the PC on overnight and it had crashed again. Tried to restart it about 10 times before I had to leave for work and it wouldnt get past the boot up screen where it recognises the IDE drives.

This is getting seriously annoying now - my £35 a month for broadband is being wasted and I cant use the PC for anything! Maybe I'll try removing one of the dvd drives tonight to see if that makes a difference. I've emailed ATI with the error reports I've had generated but not expecting a reply of any worth!

PC's - so good when they work but if they dont a nightmare! And I've got Doom 3 waiting to be fired up

[imbest123]

Did you overclock your computer at all?

[Hi Ho]

Thanks for the info on power supplies but want to avoid getting a new one if the fault lies elswhere!

Using a cheap power supply is not a good idea because it can easily damage your system. With power supplies it's the quality that matters, not the number of watts. A quality Enlight 360w would be better than a generic "400 watt". I say you should replace the power supply no matter what. Cheap power supplies probably cause more problems than anything else.

[mrstarface]

OK I'll try and bite the bullet and get an Enermax or Enlight 400W PSU to see if that alleviates the problem - could a power supply really generate a device driver error message though?

[Alienware_Dude]

In a word: yes.

[mrstarface]

In a word - Cheers! I'm off to shop around for a PSU and hopefully get the beige box up and running again tonight.

[ROMMELL2004]

y tell us if it worked mate.

[mrstarface]

It didnt work. Fitted the new (and very impressive looking) power supply, which was a Tagan 480W, and checked everything was connected ok.

Switched on the PC and....nothing. Out of 15-20 attempts it loaded up past the boot up screen only once and then crashed after a few minutes

Tried disconnecting a couple of drives to see if this made any difference but didnt. Also tried clearing the CMOS but no luck. Its very difficult to troubleshoot as cant get the thing booted up long enough to investigate!

I think I'll have tp try and borrow my mates Nvidia card again to get the system working again and if that works and my card works in his (and I cant find a solution) might have to reinstall XP which fills me with dread as got so much installed would take ages to back up and rebuild.

[Alienware_Dude]

Yep, sounds like it's time to start swapping in known-goods.

[KoMoDo]

guys, y did u tell him to get a new psu ?
jeantec is fine, i even checked the list bigandy did and jeantec is up there in the good side...
i have no idea what can be wrong, ya i guess try swapping your video card again and see if it boots up, just take the optical drives out, besides maybe the boot up HD u have or something, see what the problem might be.

sorry i cant help more, tell us how it went.

KoMoDo

[mrstarface]

Thing is if I swap the card round with my mates nvidia and both systems work I'm still no closer to finding a solution except reinstalling XP all over

[KoMoDo]

what about getting a new gfx card or something ?
i say u should return your Tagan psu and stick with the jeantech man... its good

[Alienware_Dude]

I didn't say to get a new power supply. I said that I personally wasn't certain of the quality of that brand, and that a poor PSU can cause these types of problems.

[mrstarface]

OK I think I'm getting there - I dont think its a GFX card issue at all I think its linked to some well reported problems there have been with bios flashing/settings with NForce 2 mobos (mines an AbitNF7-Sv1.2).

Now I just need to perfect a solution as it isnt clear what it is!

..And soon as it crashed with a BSOD soon after I typed the above and wouldnt start up again until I cleared the CMOS. When I go into the Setup in Bios to change the chip to the right speed it starts to crap out...I realise this may be in the wrong forum now but any ideas people?