Blue screens and my new Radeon

PedialytePedialyte
edited September 2003 in Hardware
Hey, i recently got my hands on a new Radeon 9800 Pro, ever since then i have been having frequent bluescreens, usually while running bittorrent or doing other 2d accelerated things, it has happened a few times in 3d games but very rarely compared to how much it does it in the windows desktop. I have a hunch it may be the power supply and lack of juice for the high power demanding radeon. I have only a 300W PS, does this sound like the likely problem? I do have quite a lot of thing hooked up to this dated PS, especially with the Radeon needing to be directly plugged into the PS. Any other ideas?

Athlon XP 1800+
Abit KX7-333
300W PS
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
256 PC2700 Samsung
WD 160Gig Special Edition
IBM 30 Gig
Acer DVDROM
Verbatim 32x12x40 CDRW
3 case fans (just to approximate the power consumption)

Comments

  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    Welcome!

    It sounds like you naile a good part of the problem. You should have at least a 400W PS these days (especially if you are running one of the newer top line vid cards). Another thing possibly contributing could be remnants of old graphics drivers. I don't know what you previous video card was but you could track down all the associated files from that.
  • PedialytePedialyte
    edited August 2003
    Any recomendations for a good PSU? Im on a budget but am willing to throw in extra if its worth it.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited August 2003
    Here are some GREAT Cheap PSUs

    1) Powmax 400watt PSU (PSLP-8800D) $21 shipped

    2) Powertek 600watt $55 shipped

    These brands are Leadman Power OEM units. I use the Robanton 600watt PSU (Same OEM unit as the Powertek 600w) in my Dual Barton comp and in my Watercooled Barton 2.4ghz machine. And I use the Powmax 400w (PSLP8800D) in every Computer I build.

    These PSUs can sometimes be found cheaper on Ebay (I grabbed two Robanton 600w PSUs for $70 shipped earlier this year...)
  • citrixmetacitrixmeta Montreal, Quebec Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    damn it omega65! u rock! :D
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited August 2003
    Although not mentioned thus far, be sure your chipset/via drivers are the latest and grab the latest vid drivers from ati's site.

    The power supply could very well be the issue, but if it's blue-screening on the desktop/2d, then it's likely a driver issue or device conflict (if it's a device conflict good luck figuring it out as windows manages this and trying to 'unmanage' it for windows is a real PITA).
  • d-rkerd-rker UK
    edited August 2003
    before splashing some money on a new psu (a 350w> psu is desirable these days) ,re-install windows if you haven't done so and check for shared irq's .you could also unplug the fans ,cd drives and one disk to see if the psu is getting overloaded or not .

    what are the amps on each line on your current psu ?
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited August 2003
    600 watt anouther year and we will be at 1000 watt
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited August 2003
    Originally posted by Komete
    600 watt anouther year and we will be at 1000 watt

    Dual P4 3.06ghz Xeons (100+ watts each) :)
  • PedialytePedialyte
    edited August 2003
    Hmm just noticed while trying to make sure all my geforce 4 stuff was gone that there are two radeons listed under device manager... one being followed by "(secondary)"... does that seem a bit fishy or is there a reason for the two?
  • d-rkerd-rker UK
    edited August 2003
    the card has dual DAC's - that's normal .
    did you do a new windows installation after swapping cards ?
  • PedialytePedialyte
    edited August 2003
    no, the fresh install was about 2 weeks before i got the radeon, so i had my geforce 4 4200 installed for a couple weeks. I used the add remove programs to remove the drivers and searched for anything named nv*.* with nothing found. Any other places i may have to clean out?
  • d-rkerd-rker UK
    edited August 2003
    you could use DriverCleaner to search and delete any entries relevant to nvidia gfx .
    IMO ,i strongly suggest a new Os install - there's nothing like the fresh smell of windows kernel ...
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited August 2003
    Get Detonator Destroyer from Guru3D

    Also step up to the Cat v3.6 drivers if you aren't already there. (also available on Guru3D)
  • PedialytePedialyte
    edited August 2003
    Yeah i got the 3.6 cats, im going to try those cleaning programs out thanks a lot! Hoping i dont have to reinstall windows because i have about 75 gigs of stuff i would like to keep.
  • d-rkerd-rker UK
    edited August 2003
    partitions ?! great stuff ! ;)
  • PedialytePedialyte
    edited August 2003
    sadly no... just one big 150 gig one... when running the driver cleaner program though it found 2 nvidia driver files so i removed them in safe mode... ran about an hour without a blue screen, hope it keeps going.
  • BobyJoBobyJo N C Texas
    edited September 2003
    We push the Radeon video cards to all our customers and have excellent service from them for about the past year and half.
    The first thing you should look at is the removal of the old drivers from the registsry as well as lots of other places in the OS.
    nVidia is known to install reminants of thier drivers all over the place.
    The Detenator removers are good, the best is a new install of the OS.
    If you have your hd partitioned into segiments, one for the os, and one for games etc.
    The format and reinstall of the OS is not so big a deal.

    The Cat 3.7's are available from ATI's site right now.
    I downloaded them yesterday and they are the best yet.
    I understand the next version 3.8's will be ready in about a month or so. These are the one's we will all need to get.
    Best performance of any is rated the 3.7's on Rage3d's write up about all the Cat's from 3.0 and up.
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