Graphics Problem

I have been trying to solve a problem that is graphic related, I've been on it for months, as anyone who read "Graphics still not right-help please " would remember.

All kinds of drivers, BIOS's, even swapping hardware yielded no results, and, last off I was going to buy a new mobo. Well I have been trying to find one without on-board sound, I found one, an ABIT board, but after ordering it, the retailer informed me that the product is now obsolete, so it has taken a back seat for a while.

I recently reinstalled my PC again, and I have been running my machine as standard as possible (no wallpaper etc.), but this weekend, I put a picture on as wallpaper. Now, when I start up, the Desktop is completely all background colour, until after about 10 seconds, then the picture appears, it used to be that the wallpaper I had selected would be the first thing to load up.
Another anomaly is when loading up a game (Rally championship Extreme) initially, the screen goes all "Blocky ", containing bits of graphics of another application, or game that I might have had open previously that session.

Does this ring any bells with anyone?

Cheers.
Dig.

 

Hey Dig.....
I remember all the earlier stuff.......
I see you have the same type of problems........

IF you decide to purchase a new MB......look at the new ones from Gigabyte. I don't think your old (sorry) probs are related to that.
My best bet is still that Elsa video card and it's drivers.
What else do you have loading at boot up again.....Ms Office....ect??

Two other things that come to mind (from the earilier post).
TOP PERFORMANCE : DISABLED...........or try enabled
DRAM FREQUENCY : 133 Mhz......change to auto
SDRAM CAS# LATENCY : 3.............change to auto as well.......
Do you have 2 different DIMMS in there......Manufacturers.....timing ect??


Dale

 

Hello again Dale.

Buying a new mobo will have to come at a later date I'm afraid, funds are low.

I have tried another video card/drivers in my pc (this card works well on another pc) no difference.

The DRAM settings you mentioned I have played with before, I have tried the top performance either way, the frequency and the CAS# Latency.

I have got 2 different DIMMs yes, one generic one crucial, I have tried both DIMMs on their own, with all kinds of settings, no difference.

MSCONFIG reads (unchecked items ommitted):

ScanRegistry
taskMonitor
System Tray
LoadpowerProfile
zBrowser Launcher (Logitech Keyboard Config.)
LoadPowerProfile (Again??!!!)
SchedulingAgent
AOL 7.0 Tray icon
run= C;\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\cmmpu.exe

I have basically swapped every changeable compontent with known working units of the same quality-except for the motherboard-and there has been no difference.

Perhaps a new mobo may solve it, but I won't find out for a while, suggestions are welcome.

 

Isn't that cmmpu.exe a Windows 95 only driver?

Perhaps of no help...but it caught my attention.

Daizy

 

LoadPowerProfile (Again??!!!) --That is normal.

AOL 7.0 Tray icon---I would have a go at stopping that from loading at startup.

run= C;\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\cmmpu.exe

Start/run type sysedit and but a ; ( semi colon ) at the front of that line in the WIN.INI. As if it is a 95 file it can cause problems.

Also the Blocky problem you mention may indicate a Video Driver problem. The game may be trying to switch resolutions and may not be able to do it correctly. This may happen if the game happens to be an older game. Or if it is a DOS Game.

Also if the Monitor and the Video drvers are not matched it may cause that.

I put a picture on as wallpaper. Now etc. etc. Not all pictures work well as Wallpaper. I gave up on Wallpaper a long time ago.

Did the Blockyness also start at the same time ( when U added the picture )

Now a question.

When you redid the machine did you allow the Video card to be installed as a Standard PCI Adapter using the Windows default 640x480 16 color drivers ? Then update the Video drivers after restarting Windows a few times.

With some Video cards if this is not done they just plain will not work properly.

BillyBob

 

" monitor)I have disabled the AOL tray icon.

I have put a ; in front of "run= C;\.....\cmmpu.exe "

I am yet to restart after doing this.

The game does switch resolutions, the problem has been there ever since I installed the game (the playable demo was the same). The game was released end 2001, I have only put the wallpaper on in the last few days, the game has always gone blocky at boot. The graphics that appear in the these "Blocks" are sometimes bits of the wallpaper, but other times, if I have played another game during that "session" graphics frm that game will appear in the blocks, as if it remembers the splash screen from it, loads it in, and scrambles it up.

The Drivers for the video card are off the CD that came with it. The drivers I am using for my monitor came from the Tatnung website (Tatung 19" Monitor).

I seem to remember that when I reinstalled, in device manager, the video card was automatically labelled as a standard PCI card, I installed windows then chipset drivers, restarted, then installed the video drivers, then all the rest.
Is this correct? or should I give it the drivers it asks for, in that order?

 

I thought that the two problems might be connected but they may not be.

The Drivers for the video card are off the CD that came with it.

Have you checked the Card Website for any newer drivers for YOUR Version of Windows.

But from what I read about the game there is not too much you can do about that. Unless the game's Website might have an update or patch.

Also how is your Virtual Memory ( swap file ) set up ? And does it have plenty of room to work. If it does not that can make for problems also.

I find the Swap file works best when on a partition other than C: and set to a minimum of 300meg.

BillyBob

 

The games' website doesn't exist for some reason.

I have tried this game on 3 other computers, doesn't do it on any of them.

How do I set up swap file?

Dig.

 

Welcome back digitalis .... yes, I sure do remember your earlier posts. I'm still leaning towards memory issues and video drivers as well as bios settings relating to same. In a rare move for the Rockster, I'll bite my tongue for a while and see how this thread develops. Nothing more to add at the moment.

 

Hello again Rock.

Talking about memory, I crashed out of a game the other day, windows hadn't changed the resolution back, so I pressed the reset button, when it booted back into windows, for about 2 seconds (while the desktop wallpaper loaded in) the taskbar button appeared for the said game I was playing before the crash.

It almost feels like my pc is only using a small amount of the memory I have, or it's "remembering" too much, like you say, the problem could well be memory.

I doubt whether it is a physical issue (with memory), as I have tried both my DIMMs in one at a time, the result is always the same, if it is physical, then it has to be my motherboard, all other replaceable components have been ruled out (as you know from the old thread).

Is there a setting anywhere in the BIOS which dictates how much memory the pc uses, or how much it "Caches "?

I really don't think it's graphics drivers, they are the same ones I have been using for ever, and they worked for about 6-8 months.

As I said in the last thread, this all started (I think) after installing a new CAD system, could it have changed BIOS settings during the install?

Also I have noticed that my video card is sharing the same IRQ with "ACPI IRQ holder for PCI IRQ steering" (IRQ 11) while IRQ 5 is free, is this correct? Does it matter?

Cheers ppl.
Dig.

 

Your IRQ sharing between video and ACPI very definately could make a big difference. You should be able to isolate your video IRQ assignment in the bios but I don't know your MB well enough to tell you this in definitive terms.

As to memory usage and cache settings - there is a lot more to cache settings than most people are aware of. My recommendation would be to install Cache Manager and first, save your original settings (read the help files) then, do some experimenting or go with one of the pre-selected user type profiles the program provides. This should give you a performance boost even if it doesn't resolve this specific problem.

Link as follows:
http://www.outertech.com/

 

Your IRQ sharing between video and ACPI very definately could make a big difference.

Can we be sure about that ?

I have

ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
VIA Tech PCI to USB host controller
VIA Tech PCI to USB host controller
AGP Rage 128 Video

All on IRQ 10.

No problems exist.

BillyBob

 

No we can't and I'll take to eating some crow for being to quick to comment without being more careful and more specific.

The ACPI IRQ holder for PCI Steering is going to appear as sharing an IRQ with most installed PCI devices - you'll see several of them. What I should say is that an IRQ used by the ACPI bus can create a conflict, especially with a video card. Sound card sharing with a video card is also a no no if there are any kind of DOS emulation drivers.

Digitalis has a PCI video card and it is isolated on IRQ 11 unless there is more on there that we don't know about. Mmmm ... that crow isn't too bad with a little hot sauce.

BB - two of the things that I like to keep isolated if I can are audio cards and video cards. Most newer boards and BIOS's handle IRQ sharing much better than old boards - kind of like the "new math" of 35-40 years ago - forget what you think you know and learn it this way, son. (Side bar - Was that distributed or associated? Hehehe ..... Most of em' can't even make change without a calculator or a cash register.)

On one of my machines, 6 devices are listed as sharing IRQ 9 although one of those is an ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering and two are Via Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controllers.

Regardless, I stand corrected.

 

Sorry to have mislead you Rockster, I should have stated (thought I had somewhere) that my video card is actually AGP.

Besides the video card and ACPI IRQ holder for PCI Steering, there are no other devices using IRQ 11, but I have noticed that ACPI IRQ holder for PCI Steering also appears on IRQ 9, which in turn is sharing with 2 other devices.

I know diddly squat about what we are talking about at the mo, so I am very grateful for all advice, even if my response to some posts seems irrelevant, or even misguided.

I am about to download the cache manager, I'll let you know how I get on.

Keep it coming.

Dig.

 

Hello again. I installed Cache Manager, and I have tried many of the predefined profiles, none of them seem to make any difference, I can't really notice any difference between any of them, or compared to how it was before I installed it.

Does this mean that memory isn't the problem, or does this have to go more in depth to eliminate it?

Dig.

 

Well, I'm stumped on this one. We've already been through a bunch of stuff going back to your earlier thread - all to no avail. Originally, I thought it was memory related due to mixing modules or memory speed settings. This wasn't the cause. You've also been through a bunch of video drivers if I recall correctly. Again - no soap.

The fact that Cache man doesn't seem to make much difference tells me your memory settings were prettty much optomized the way you were set up. - This tool is really for fine tuning, but your comments about this eliminates another potential source of the problem. So where does that leave us?

I don't understand why you would have an ACPI IRQ holder for PCI Steering on IRQ 11 if the only device using #11 is an AGP video card. Is there anything in your first PCI slot? (next to the AGP slot) - AGP and PCI #1 use shared resources, so to be safe, you should never put anything in PCI #1 if you have an AGP Video card.

At this point, I'm clueless. Not trying to grasp at straws here but I am curious as to what you are running for a power supply. Also, actual Core, 3.3, 5, and 12V settings. Do you have any type of MB monitoring software or can you check these out in your bios?

Stumped.

 

When I thought that this was a heat related issue, I made sure nothing was in PCI slot 1, just incase this was heating up the graphics card, so it remains emtpy.

According to SpeedFan the voltages are:

Core: 1.63V
+3.3V: 3.32V
+5V: 4.93V
+12V: 11.99V

I assume this is correct, although I have no idea what the Core is supposed to be running at (AMD Duron 800Mhz 100FSB).

The power supply I think is 200 Watts, but I have tried a 300 Watt unit in, no difference. As for all other components (Hard Drive, video card, sound card, modem) I have tried other known working units, again no difference.

As I said before, I think it is a faulty mobo, and a colleague of mine said that because I frequently "potch" and my cards are in & out of my puter so often, I could have damaged a connection in one of the slots, or even cracked a path on the mobo itself.

What do you think?

Dig.

 

As an aside, Cacheman isn't a good utility to use on any OS later than Win95. More information here.

 

Two Comments.

Brett - With all due respect, I beg to differ and my read of the article you linked to didn't tell me any different. In fact it reinforced my opinion. What am I missing?

Digitalis - If you can manually set core voltage in your bios, I'd encourage you to boost it incrementally. Understand that as you increase core voltage, you will also be increasing the temperature of your processor. Go slow on this.

 

Digitalis - one more

You may also want to experiment with a lower core voltage - these things can be individual cpu specific. I've had stuations where the same CPUs in the same motheboards with the same power supplies require different core voltages to stabalize. I believe core spec on your CPU is 1.6