New 7600GS Causing Reboots

Folks,

Recently bought a PC Power and Cooling 360 watt PSU to go with a NEW Gigabyte 7600GS with Heatsink for an old AGP Intel P4 2.4 Ghz system with an Intel MB. The old card was an XFX 5700 LE.

I put in the new PSU
I unistalled drivers on Add/Remove
I cleaned out drivers with Driver Cleaner Net
I put the new 7600 in place
Loaded the new drivers with the CD
Upated the drivers via the Gigabyte web-site

It's now 'basically' stable when doing nothing. However it will stop and reboot automatically any time I try to run DOOM 3 and, so far, an old FEAR demo program. Strangely, it will run a copy of City Of Villians without an auto reboot. I'm going to try some other demos I have and see what happens.

I'm at an utter loss to explain the probem. So far as I can tell it's not a power or driver conflict issue.

Can anyone think of anything else? I guess I could try to flash the cards BIOS, but I REALY doubt this is the problem.

My basic specs
Intel 478 2.4 ghz
Intel - old AGP 4x only MB (maybe not fast enough? doubt it)
1 Gig 333 Mhz ram
2 DVD drives
2 Hard Drives (40 and 300 respectivly)

I'm at an utter loss to explain this situation.

Tom

 

That is interesting. I bought the card from NewEgg which refereces it as 4X/8X compatible.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814125039

But, you're right about the Gigabyte site details. They only seem to reference 8X.

Now, the first thing that comes to mind is that if my motherboard's 4X AGP slot is causing the problem then why would the card work at all. Then again, both failed games are graphically intensive (Doom 3 and FEAR) while City Of Villians seems to be geared more for the masses, so to speak, and seems like a less graphically intensive game.

Still an interesting point.

 

Could it be the monitor???

I have a ViewSonic VG 175 and some time ago, I forget why, I was in POST and the monitor was way out of whak, basically showing horizontal bars on 1/3 of the screen with text pushed to the side and disorted.

I called ViewSonic in a panic and of course they told me the monitor was broken and needed replacement/fixing...big shock.

I subsequently "fixed" the out of whack POST screen via a simple use of the auto-adjust feature. This did indeed "fix" the problem, but strangely and ONLY in POST the screen still shimmers as if a thin sheet of water were being poured over the screen. I was able to recently test my PC with his old CRT (where I was initially loading the video card) and the POST screen is perfectly clear on this monitor.

Given this, is it reasonable to assume there is, in fact, something 'wrong' with my ViewSonic? Maybe, but the interesting thing is that you can only see this shimmering effect while in POST, not BIOS and definitely not in the main Windows XP screen or other Windows activated screens.

 

I typed in "will an AGP 8X video card work in an AGP 4X motherboard" and got this off the Internet.... I don't think it's 8X/4X at issue here, but not 100% sure.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1125005

 

There does seem to be something rotten going on here.

Just loaded Hammer And Sickle from a demo disk and it to crashes and causes the reboot. Why on earth City Of Villians is continuing to work (at least for now) is utterly beyond me.

 

Just played a full round of Star Trek StarFleet Command Volume 2 without any crash/reboots....very strange

 

Well, now I'm starting to think it might be the power supply.

I had the video card AND two fans connected to the PSU all on one bundle (not sure what you call it). I disconnected both fans and with the door off tried the King Kong demo again, this time with the GPU havin dedicated access.

Interestingly, the Kong demo now runs...and looks nice I might add. However, I can see some slow down and "hiccup" when the action gets heavy. But it stayed on this time.

Sadly, I tried Doom 3 and nada. It'll install the game, but within a minute it'll auto reboot.

Like I mentioned, I bought a PCP&C Silence 360 based on Gigabytes online recommendation of a minimum of 300 watts. I figured the extra 60 and the quality of the manufacturer would mean I'd be okay. Now I'm thinking maybe the rail voltatage is low or maybe Gigabyte has woefullly underestimated power requirements.

I'm STILL not sure if this is the case, but it IS intersting that the Kong demo would run at all.

 

The Doom engine is quite different from other gaming engines. I would be quite certain that the problem is in the drivers (or there may be a slight chance that is due to the new vs old software, like the nVidia control panel).

I don't use "driver cleaners" and would not, in particular, use them on graphics drivers. Graphics drivers are the most complex drivers in the system. The method I use is to boot into Safe Mode and uninstall any software related to graphics listed in Add/Remove Programs, then uninstall any listings in Device Manager for Display Adapters.
Try that method if you like, but if you still find problems you may have to start from the beginning, that is, uninstall the new card and it's software (Safe Mode), replace the card with the old one and install the drivers and software for that, then proceed to uninstall those (Safe Mode), put the new card in again and install that.

When you boot after physically putting the card in and the hardware wizard runs and asks for where to find the drivers, click Cancel, that will run Windows on standard graphics drivers. When you get to the desktop run the driver installation from the CD. When the installation is finished it will ask to reboot, if the hardware wizard then runs the second time, direct it to the drivers CD.

Basically, for complex drivers like those, do uninstalling in Safe Mode and installing in "normal" mode (and...my tip, don't use driver cleaners on graphics drivers, you might find their barrel is aimed at your foot ).

Matt

 

Thanks Matt,

It's something else to try for sure, I'm definitely not sure either way, but I haven't tried that specific formula.

I may never do this again, assuming I ever get this to work. It's a shame it should be this difficult.

Tom

 

Since you can get some things to run, this doesn't sound like an AGP voltage issue. I would think if there was a true incompatibility you'd be having much more serious problems.

Since a "classic" symptom of insufficient power is rebooting when your system is heavily loaded (a la Doom3), my best guess is that you are underpowered. Some things I would do:

- check your voltage rails in your bios to see if they are marginal (somewhat below spec)
- use a multimeter to measure the 12v and 5v voltages coming out of your molex connectors (not sure if this would be reflect the problem though)
- test PSU with a PSU tester (of course assuming you have one)
- disconnect all non-critical components (case fans, etc.) and run games with side panel off.
- create a log of your voltages as you start up and play various games (especiall Doom3). I'm sure there's an Nvidia app that will log voltages over time. I use Tray Tools but it's for ATI only. Maybe RivaTuner can help you there. This log should tell you if once and for all if you're underpowered.

There are some BIOS settings that come into play here. You could:

- disable fast writes (if they are enabled)
- set AGP Aperture to its highest setting
- disable 8X AGP functionality and run the card as 4X AGP

But I would probably start with the assumption that this is a voltage problem.

I admire your decision to buy what is most likely the best PC power supply available but I question your decision to only go with 350W. If you truly are underpowered, there is the possibility that a higher-wattage PSU (of much lesser quality) would have given you no problems.

I would also recommend running with latest Nvidia driver on the Nvidia site and not go to the Gigabyte site to update the driver as there really should be no need to.

And as always, if all else fails, I would rebuild the system software from scratch (quick format, reinstall OS, drivers, etc.) but hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

Gary

 

Well, I followed Mattman's advice, which, unfortunatley hasn't relieved the problem.

I have not reinstalled the 5700le; last time I tried swapping back I got NO signal between the computer and monitor, though there may be ways to end rund the drivers in Safe Mode and reinstall there, don't know.

Trying drivers from the Nvidia site is something to think about.

I DO still wonder about power, inerestingly, since I gave the GPU a dedicated bundle (not shared with fans), the King Kong Demo DOES run better, but not perfectly, as it will still crash after a period of time.

DOOM crashes and reboots almost at the outset.

I'll be really PO'd if power is the case as I went with the recommended 300 watt PSU PLUS a 60 watt margin....but who knows. I'm going to call PCP&C and see what their take is on the subject.

One other thing I haven't mentioned is that this is a Gigabyte SILENT 7600gs, I wonder if the heatsink causes greater power requirements (counter intuitiave I know).

I'm really at a loss, which is a shame, cause Kong did look good...when it was running.

I've long been thinking about making my 300 gigabyte drive the single primary and stuffing my old 40 gig drive in a case I bought about a year ago. Maybe its time, but my roommate will FREAK if I lose his City Of Heros characters, but one would suppose these settings could be retrieved off the old drive. Plus I have about 38 Gigs of "stuff" on the old drive, but again, I wasn't planning on reformatting, just stuffing it in a drive case.

Appreciate the help of course, keep any suggestions coming.

 

Oh, and I'm using an old Intel 478 2.4ghz chip on an Intel D845PEBT2. This board is 4X agp and must have been bare bones since many of the options I read about seem to be non-existant on this board.

 

Just got off the phone with PCP&C; they had me check voltages (something I never did before) and there all spot on target. I also gave the fellow I was talking to a quick rundown of the issue and my system specs and he did NOT think it was a power supply issue. Which, of course, doesn't mean it isn't the real culprit.

Maybe Nvida drivers???

 

So I went to the Nvidia website; couldn't find any 7600gs drivers.

Interestingly, they recommned turning anti-virus off when loading drivers. Now, I can't do this because I'm using an LCD screen and once I remove the old drivers in safe mode and reboot normally I can no longer see the Norton utilities icon.

Let me ask, does anti-virus activate in Safe Mode? Can I load drivers from a CD in Safe Mode?

Also of interest, Nvidia recommends against Download Acccelators when downloading drivers. This is the exact opposite of the Gigabyte recommendation to use a Download Accelorator.

 

Just download the one main graphics driver that is offered for your OS at nvidia.com - no special driver needed.

And Nvidia, putting in a new driver is usually a matter of going to Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs> Nvidia Driver>Remove. Of course, if you're prompted to remove several Nvidia drivers, only choose one - Graphics Driver - nothing else. And I'm talking normal mode, not Safe Mode here.

When done uninstalling, reboot. After a while (sometimes a long while), you're prompted with a window that says XP has found a new device and it wants you to help it find a driver. That's a good thing. Simply cancel out of the window and then execute the huge Nvidia driver .exe and follow the instructions.

If you are not prompted by XP to find a driver but instead are shown little ballons that say that a 7600GS has been installed, then XP has used it's own driver. Whether this driver will suit all your needs, I can't say. But the only way to avoid XP from using its own driver is use Driver Cleaner Pro - but I'll skip those details for now.

The Nvidia driver uninstaller usually does a fine job of cleaning up Nvidia drivers.

But you've entered another variable into the equation: the lack of fan on your video card. This introduces the possibility that your video card is overheating. I suggest you try running Doom 3 with your case's side panel off and a small fan focused on your video card area. It would be interesting if your results differed. But on the other hand, if heat was the problem, most likely it would take a little time for the heat to build up and your box to reboot. You said that your box rebooted the instant that Doom 3 started.

There's also a remote possibility that your AGP slot isn't providing enough juice for that card but the 7600GS doesn't have an external connector so if this is the case, you'd have no options. I don't know how you'd test for this either except trying the video card in another PC.

 

Actually, this GPU does have a dedicated line to the PSU (I believe some 7600 series don't).

I can't install the Nvidia drivers since I can't seem to click on the right button once the old drivers are out.

I'm at an utter loss. I think some of the problem is a lack of a CRT...makes things interesting.

Right now, I'd be happy to get the old 5700le up and running again, but last time I tried I didn't get ANY signal to the screen (did I fry the card? Who knows)

I'm also thinking it could be Norton Utilies...again can't turn it off once the drivers are out before installing new drivers.

Oh, and City Of Heroes, which was stable for awhile, is now crashing, so basically, it's now all games.

Thankfully, I have to go away from this machine for a few days, maybe this weekend I'll be able to take another crack at it.

 

Oh, and it's not heat, I've been doing all this with the case open. Plus I have temperature monitors that show a-okay.