System crashing with ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

[Innocent]

Thank you for the timely response, I sure hope that I am not forced to replace my video card, they're simple too expensive.  This was the first video card used on this system other than the one built into the motherboard.

quote:Originally posted by TX-EcoDragon:Well, unfortunatelly Shadow never actually worked out his Radeon Issues, though he did have some initial succes as stated above though he is now running an nVidia Ti4600. His issues seem to be different from the fairly common OpenGL issues that others have.TX-Ersky did get his 9500 to run well, though he did a full reformat and reinstallation of everything on his machine. Did you happen to use an nVidia card in this machine before adding the ATI?There is no doubt that the ATI cards produce excellent quiality images and performance when running well, it is a shame that they can be so finisky in our chosen sim.S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[TX-EcoDragon]

Well, the instant action items are to check the power supply, check the fan on the card, and verify that it is seated on the chip (carefully), and given that your running an ATI card, to try running in DirectX.  There is another ATI thread here that had a fan mounted on the card that had no thermal compound on it, and another that had a metal GPU guard that held the heatsink too high above the chip. In reality taking teh card out and messing with the heatsink is a semi risky operation depending on how careful you are.  Just in case, dont use any metal tools on the chip, as tehy may have acquired a magnetic charge, and also, you must ground yourself so that you do not give the card a static discharge, do this by keeping one hand against a portion of the metal case of your machine. Simply getting a freeze/crash seems like an overheating issue, since power isnt an issue. Probably the easiest thing to do to test this is to render the game using the DirectX mode, to verify if it is driver related. What have you tried as far as software goes? New drivers? running it next to an open window with the case open etc? Have you tried running the sim in DirectX?S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[TX-Rahman]

You may have done this already but what they hay....You mentioned that your system board has an onboard video card also... Have you gone into the bios and disabled thie card.  It still may be utilizing resources and causing a conflict resulting in a system crash.  Just a hunch...Regards,Rah

[Innocent]

Thank you for all the suggestions, I'll respond to them the best I can.I've only done a superficial check of the card's cooling, the fan itself seems properly placed and functional.  Whether or not there is a thermal compound on it I cannot tell as I am not supremely confident doing too much to the card, without damaging it.I've run the game in DirectX mode on a few occasions, when it worked for nearly an hour was through DirectX (something I surely ought to have mentioned).  However, running it through DirectX now results in the same behavior as using OpenGL.I've tried both new and old Video Card drivers, performed all of the windows XP updates, and have the most up to date motherboard drivers, bios, etc.  I'm currently running the case open, since I've been taking it apart and putting it together so much lately it's not worth the hassle, and this should keep it a bit cooler regardless.  I've not put it against an open window, but then again it's 20 degrees hotter outside than it is inside so I am not sure what good it could do.  The only thing I can imagine doing to provide more cooling is to blow a fan into the open case on top of what I currently have.Unfortuantely I'm dissappointed with the BIOS for this board, I'm unable to disable the on-board video card, and have no options as far as power distribution goes.  If the Intel Active Monitor is correct, then my new PSU hasn't helped the voltage on my 3.3V rail, it still runs just below 3.25V.  I'm currently running a True Power 430W PSU, made by Antec.  I'm considering returning it (just purchased yesterday) and getting an Enermax or Topower PSU, which may provide more power where I need it.  However, I am not convinced that this is a power issue, though it may be.Lastly, just want to thank you again for the support.  One of these days I'll get the game working, and you guys will always be my favorite squadran

[TX-EcoDragon]

And I assume you read the post that sammie made". . .The fix, go into BIOS and make your AGP voltage 1.7 or 1.8 (try 1.7 first). That should clear up the issue.. . . "   He is talking about a specific issue with an ASUS mobo but its just a thought.About your cooling, I guess if it is cooling related it may infact be that the metal guard on the GPU is too tall, or perhaps there is no thermal compound on it. At least for me, the fact that the same issues pop up in OGL and DX seems to point at a hardware and not a software issue. And if you go to "start">"Control Panel">"System">"Hardware">"Device Manager" you dont see a listing for "Display Adapter" with your video card listed next to the built in device? That is odd. . .but if you do, just right click it and click disable.To see an example of an ATI card that came with serious heatsink issues, and the remedy, go to this thread and see the links:http://www.txsquadron.com/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=&TOPIC_ID=741S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[Innocent]

On the subject of my onboard video card, I do have an entry labelled as "Radeon 9700 Pro- Secondary" whatever that is, I have disabled it, to no avail.I also decided that it was time to pop off the heatsink and see what there was, the metal guard does not appear to be too big, and there is what appears to be a wax square for head conduction.  Does anyone believe that it would be worthwhile to put some heat conduction compound on it instead of the wax that is already on there?  I have never used such compound myself, as it's never been an issue for me before, but I am willing to do so if it would help.

[TX-EcoDragon]

Hmm .. interesting that it says secondary, is that the only listing? That one is your add in card, so that is the one to have enabled. . if there is another listing under graphics adapter, that is the one to disable.S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[Innocent]

The lists are:Radeon 9700 ProRadeon 9700 Pro- SecondaryWith the first one disabled, I do not get the crash, but I also get absolutely unplayable performance.  I'm not sure what the "secondary" is but I do not think it's the ATI card.

quote:Originally posted by TX-EcoDragon:Hmm .. interesting that it says secondary, is that the only listing? That one is your add in card, so that is the one to have enabled. . if there is another listing under graphics adapter, that is the one to disable.S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[n/a]

The 9700 pro has dual output.  The "secondary" reference you notice is for the second monitor output.  You should disable this, ATI has published that unless you disable the secondary monitor output, you will have trouble running games in openGL (at least prior to the latest driver release, which was on 6/23/03 -- get the new drivers if you don't have them already).To disable the second monitor, go to your device setting in the system control panel and locate the seconday monitor entry.  Right click on it and select "properties" and then choose "disable in this hardware profile".  After rebooting, you should be all set.WJiggyVFMA-333 Tres Equis=XXX=Anytime, Baby!

[TX-EcoDragon]

The odd thing is that even after disabling the onboard video, it still should be shown in the device manager. . but as disabled. So Iggy cleared up that issue, so it looks like you might botha  driver upgrade, and to disable the 9700Pro-Secondary.So does that mean ATI cards couldnt run dual monitors in OGL until 3 days ago?S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[n/a]

My understanding is yes.  I have the 9700 pro and ran it in Direct X until the most recent driver upgrade, as there was performance hit with openGLWJiggyVFMA-333 Tres Equis=XXX=Anytime, Baby!

[Falcon50]

Ati problems with has dissapeard with catalyst 3.5 I had the same problem with my 9700 Pro.  Just download the latest driver .http://mirror.ati.com/support/driver.htmlBack during development of FB, Oleg's crew was coding the new "perfect" settings for NVidia cards. As best we could gather, they did not have any ATI cards in house and did not do any development with them (and there were some problems evident as a result when the game was released.) Back then Oleg said that ATI card support might be improved in a patchOnce I did that the IL-2 FB runs like a champ...zero problemsSKULLS FalconMichael J. Lockhart

[TX-EcoDragon]

This is good news for those of us who had that as the main reason to not buy an ATI card.Thanks for the updateS!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX Squadron XO

[Innocent]

Well, I have the new drivers, and have disabled the secondary listing on my device manager.  No luck unfortunately.I did experiment again last night, and turning off "Fast Write" and turning AGP Speed down to "1x" I did manage to get more time out of the game, between 30 seconds and a minute at a time, rather than the second or two (if even) before.This sounds like a heat or power problem to me, just not sure how it could be.  With a brand new 430W power supply that ought to be fine, and I didnt see anything wrong with the heatsink when I popped it off.

[Innocent]

Thanks again for all the help, I'm sending my 9700 Pro in to ATI to see if it needs any servicing.  I just dont know what else the problem could be.For now I've got my old Hercules 3d Prophet II GTS 64MB card in, and Il-2 runs great.  Hopefully the ATI card will work at some point in the future.