Needing some help sorting out a vid card issue
 

Hello all, I need some help sorting out some issues involving a new vid card.

My system specs: OS is XP Pro, up to date. Mobo: D865PERL with a single core P4 3.0, 2 gig of RAM, and have ran an ATI all-in-wonder 9600 series 128mb card with 8 pixel piplines in AGP format for the last four years without incident. I am able to run a 3D Mark 3 benchmark with this setup in the 2700's.

The card was replaced with a EVGA GeForce 7300GT with 512mb same 8pixel pipeline and the same AGP format. I am unable to run the sim-it will start but is very sluggish-to the point it takes about 30 seconds for the cursor to reflect the movement I have made. Needless to say the sim is unplayable. When I run the same benchmark test, it will get through the first portion, but then crashes, where I have to reboot. What I see before it crashes is a marked improvement in frame rates.

Today the screen scrambled and sent an error message "THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER" I would imagine this points to a driver issue but not sure.

I have downloaded the latest drivers from nVidia and EVGA, and installed them correctly from what I can tell. I use driver cleaner, a program to remove all old drivers, which I haveused on other applications and it works OK. I installed nTune version 5.5, which is a device to help tune the card on non nvidia mobo chipsets.

I'm a noob to this sim, and have a general knowedge about computers. I replaced my stock 300w PSU with a Corsair 520W modular, so power supply is not an issue. An interesting note is Im able to surf the web and navigate on my computer, it seems to give me probs when I put a load on it, such as the benchmark test or laoding hte sim.

HELP!!!!

How many time you format and reinstall your windows? A ligth and fresh Windows help a lot the system, I sugest to you a processor Intel e6600, 1GB DDR800 and a GF7900GT is enougth to higth quality and no too expensive.

Does your new card have an auxilary power connector? If it does and you forgot to hook it up you'll get exactly the symptoms you are getting. Look on the end of the card for a plug.

It has a molex connector that is hooked up for power. The fan is running so Im pretty sure I have enough power to the board. I'll test the connector on a fan to make sure it good from the PSU, a corsair 520w 3 rail modular, but I'm guessing that's not the problem.

I have not done a re-install of the OS, as it has not given me any issues before this card. I have the latest updates and all seems to run well when using the other card.

As far as the upgrades, This is an older system and I know its limitations. I'm going to be doing a different build in about a year so it's pointless to put too much money into this one. Its going to be used a a media storage and web surfer for the kids after I'm done with it, which it does just fine for now. So putting much more money into it is simply not an option.

I am leaning on thinking the card is bad, but was looking at some different ideas before sending this one back to newegg.

It's worth checking the connector, as the cards usually run fine in 2d (the card gets plenty of power from the AGP slot to run with no load) then crash under 3D load when they're not getting power. Another thing you might want to do is check the bios to make sure your AGP settings are kosher for your new card. I know I'm going over the obvious stuff, but (at least for me) it's usually the obvious stuff that gets missed. I would also suspect that something might not be getting cleaned up with the drivers, although I can't offer any help there.

You might want to post over at UBI's tech forum, there are some clever guys over there. (more cleverer then me anyways)

As the other fellow said...and go one more. Uninstall drivers. Turn PC Off. Remove card. Use isopropyl alcohol to wipe all the connecting pins on the card, let dry, reinstall carefully and definately connect the aux power to the card. Fire her up and reinstall the drivers that shipped with your card.

Let know if it still errors out.

It sounds like to me that the drivers are not installed correctly from his discription on the mouse moving so slowly. I installed "ntune" on my computer also and had to remove it as it slowed my computer WAY down and most of the information was missing. I did not try to run the game with it installed so cant say how it behaved. Sorry.

OK,

I tested the connector with a fan, and it seems to work OK. I know this isnt load testing, but I just replaced the PSU with a Corsair 520W three rail modular system because I though the card was acting initially like it wasnt getting enough power. As it acted the same after changing power supplies, I'd say that is not the issue. I didnt wipe the connector off with alcohol but I'm pretty careful not to touch the connectors with my fingers for that very reason, When I try installing the card again I'll do that.

As far as the dirvers go, I use something called Driver Cleaner Pro, which does a good job of getting rid of old drivers and also cleans cabs out too. Ive never had an issue before with remnants of old drivers, but Ive never had this problem either. I didn't install the drivers that came with the card because they are pretty out of date, but I will try that to reason out the possibility of an issue there. I'm really thinking there is an issue with the 3D portion of the card, whether its a lack of power, driver, or bad card issue I'm not sure.


The BIOS I'm not sure of, I'll take a look at it later today when I have time. I'd like to mention the BIOS on the machine is from 2004 and has not been updated or modified. I dont have any experience in changing or messing with the BIOS. I have heard horror stories from flashing the BIOS, so I havent messed with it. I'm not sure what I'd be looking for anyway. I'll take a look to see if anything looks aout of place though.

Thanks for the replies. I hate sending stuff back, and want to make sure its the card that has an issue instead of the operator.

I forgot to add I have since taken nTune off the machine, but it did not show any issues in other modes of the computer, and the game ran as slowly before I added nTune, so I doubt this had anything to do with the speed the sim was running.

I have put the old card back in and it runs fine without any issues. I am able to run the sim as before.

So, I'd say that is not the problem.

If anyone could help with pointers to make sure the BIOS is running right, I'd appreciate it. As stated, I dont have any experience with changing or looking for problems there.

**edited to say I checked the BIOS, with the video options being selected for AGP instead of PCI. I'm not sure what else to check that would pertain the the video card or issues****

OK, latest updates.

I went back in and load tested the power connection by hooking up two hard drives, and two fans on the same rail with the same power cable. This checked out OK, so I'm saying the power supply to the card is good.

When installing the card I made sure the conection was good with the molex connector, and all was seated and happy.

I then removed all drivers and utilities by using Driver Cleaner Pro, rebooted into safe mode to run DC Pro, and followed instructions. I removed all traces of anything to do with ATI or Nvidia.

I then installed the program from the installation CD and ran a benchmark test. Same thing happened as before. I then uninstalled the drivers that came with the CD, and installed the newest drivers, with the same thing happening. After this I uninstalled the drivers and card, re-installed the 9600 and everything worked fine. I almost forgot to say I even went in and took out the hardware acceleration to test if that would make a difference. I was able to get the game to start, but it still took a while to navigate with the cursor, which would move every 3 seconds as compared to the thirty before. In 2d mode it would work just fine.

At this point I have tried everything posible mentioned here and that I can think of to get the card running, and have ruled out power or driver issues. I looked at the system's BIOS, and it was selected for AGP cards, which is right for my application. I have concluded the 3D function of the card is not working, and will be contacting newegg tomorrow for a return RMA. I had the same luck with Seagate hard drives, going through two duds before I told them to keep them and went with a WD, which fired up from the start. And the Seagate name always stood for quality.

So, I know electronics Quality Control is just about worthless these days, and will wait for another card that hopefully is working right this time.

I appreciate the help everyone had given me, and I've learned alot now about how to trouble shoot vid cards. I hope I can help someone else like you have to me.

Thanks again, Baghr

Rma
 

Sounds like you have defective vidcard. SOmetimes the best diagnostics are swapping a bad item for one that works. The date of NVIDIA drivers shouldnt matter, my experience is that older less "unified drivers" give me more FPS, so i stick with those. So you have reseated, swapped another card, and reinstalled and it is NO GO...I would agree RMA time.

Good luck sir and let us know how this ends up.

PEACE

Good luck M8.

Allow me to doubt that the card is defective; I think 75% of the RMAs are not justified, and the vendors only send back replacements because they don't want the bad PR that would come from some loudmouths there.

I see that you did almost everything BUT a nice clean install for the Windows. I had the exact same experience a couple of times, when switching from nVidia to ATI cards and back to nVidia, solved only by a clean Win reinstall.

Fastest AGP card available is a GeForce 7600GT 256mb GDDR3 AGP.
The best you can get of those is the XpertVision GeForce 7600GT 256mb GDDR3, it has a nice big cooling block on it keeping the temprature nice and low even under the highest load.
With a 3.0Ghz Single Core CPU it runs even Crysis fine at Medium Settings.

I dont know why you bought a 7300 series card and why EVGA bothered with fitting 512mb on there but those are cards that are not suitable for most of the games from that came out the last 5 years. Even my GeForce 3 Ti 500 runs IL2-1946 better.
Found this out wen i replaced my GF 3 ti 500 with a 7300 card thinking it would be an improvment for my old computer.

This most interesting information. I'm by no means a computer expert, in fact I have just enough knowledge to make me dangerous.

The reason I bought the 7300GT? I was looking for a card with 512mb RAM (cuz I read the sim likes it) and it seemed like a good deal. Please don't club the newbie. :) I thought I had done enough homework, but it appears I have not. As stated earlier, I don't know that much about computers and am new to IL-2, so I'm bound to make some mistakes along the path. I've never re-installed the OS, and it somewhat scares me, as I'm not sure if I would be messing up any programs by doing so. I know this is not a tech site, but if anyone could give me some pointers there...

The reason I ask these questions here is because I know all are interested in the same thing I am-to get our beloved sim working as well as possible. When I ask on other sites how to get my system tuned for performance, it might not be what is best for this sim, which would then be useless. Here I know you folks know what I'm looking for. Point is, I'm just not interested in spending a wad of cash on something that will give the added boost needed to play the latest first person shooter up to snuff, because I've no intention on ever doing so. I'm interestested in flying in IL-2, or Oleg's new sim. Period.

I'm an aviation nut, and all else pales in comparison. (I'm sure a few here can relate to that statement :cool:)

Many of you have been down this path before, and I'm just old enough that I can understand and learn to use other's information to my advantage....;-)

I have not made the jump to online simming yet, as I have to "pay my dues" in the trenches fighting the AI before I move on. (while I can land a 737 in zero visability with a 30 knot crosswind under a complete ILS setting, this fighter buisness takes a little getting used to :grin:) What I noticed initially was when playing some missions, my FPS began to stutter, which is no good when flying at tree top level. (I havent figured out how to display FPS in the sim, but will look around) I suppose I could cut everything back to the minimum settings, but at that point the sim isnt interesting to me. At a minimum I'm interested in running "Excellent" settings, with a goal of "perfect". I can set it up for the latter, but it turns into a slide show when getting in the thick of things....no fun. I know my system is outdated; It will be replaced when Oleg gets the new sim out so I can built it to the specs to run well in that. But we all know that's still a ways off yet.

So in conclusion, I don't want to buy a 200.00 card that will not make a difference because my cpu is the bottleneck. If the cards you talk about will work with my system, giving it an signifiant increase in FPS, I would be more interested in buying one. The money is not really an option, as long as I am being realistic about it. I'm not looking for 300FPS, I just want it to run like a movie insead of aslide show. I think a minimum of 25-30 FPS would be enough to get me through the rough spots on the settings I talked about earlier. I don't want to throw a bunch of money away in parts that can't/won't help an aging system in the first place. I have plans on using this rig for movie storage, media system and the kid's web brouser in the living room after I've got the new system up and running, which it should have no problems doing. I'm looking at another 5 years of use out of it before sending it to the glue factory....so spending a little extra now can be justified in my book. In this time frame, I'll probably be looking at over a year yet to be used on IL-2......

As an update, I have sent the card back, and am curently waiting on a new one. With a little reassurance, I will reinstall the OS if this is an issue again, as long as I know I shouldn't screw things up. (tips here would be appreciated) I do appreciate the input, and have a feeling there are others this is helping that have not posted due to a myriad of reasons.

Sorry for such a long post, but I guess I had alot to say. I really do appreciate all the help that has been given to me. My goal is to return the favor to others as I become better acquainted with the sim.
Baghr

I had a similar problem when I upgraded my graphics card to a HIS 2600 XT agp.
It turned out to be driver conflicts with an old sound card I had. I worked this out by the fact that on my XP x64 partition it ran perfectly, lol the sound card didn't have any x64 drivers, but kept crashing on my standard XP partition.
It may also be caused by other conflicts
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic40683.html
Good luck with the fresh install

XTC, this is very interesting to hear, cuz of late I have had some issues with an older Creative Soundblaster Live! card. I seem to have some random issues with it making a "clipping" noise when in surround sound mode when playing the sim, where there is not sound except for this sound. Its not distorted, and the closest I can describe it sounding like a "farting" sound when in this mode, (sorry for being so crass), or overloading the signal, making a square wave sound.

I have done all the usual checks, removed and reinstalled, and have the original drivers because its not a new card and there isn't service for it anymore from what I have been able to find. The funny thing is I can start my webbrouser and play music, and no probs with the midi sounds, everytime. When doing a diagnostic, all perameters on the card check fine, just when testing the speakers does the "clipping" start. To add another fold to the mix, I can seem to test fine with left and right speaker; just appears to be problems with the surround sound. I can reset to default settings for the card and randomly and get a good test in surround sound many times without problems, then it resorts to the "clipping" again. Grrr.

Frankly, this one has me baffled. I cannot find the random issue, unless I play the sim, then the sound goes nuts again, but will sometimes run fine for a half hour or so, but only if it start that way, and will never revert to a good sound if started "clipping".... This card has worked well four years straight, but I have done some upgrades lately, and am clueless to what this is. Of course the troubleshooter does not cover this, and a search results in nothing. When checking under the device manager, all implies there are no probs.....and I'd hate to replace the card without knowing what the problem is. My gut tells me its not the card but a conflict somewhere that I am unable to find, based on my (and the troubleshooters guide) lack of knowledge or information.

My biggest issue (frustration?) is the fact its so random, and I cannot get it to come or go based on the areas Ive looked. I am gathering enough courage (and knowledge) re-install my OS soon, but I'll be hosed if I blow it there, without a way to get the system back. If I ever get this figured out, I'll post my findings.

All I want to do is fly, not be a computer tech.......