[Cid Highwind]

I am having some serious problems when playing Gunz online. With Catalyst 5.7 and 5.8 the game crashes after the loading is done, it simply locks up. Now I am using Catalyst 3.8 and at least the game will not hang instantly. But when I am playing the game still crashes. Most of the times the monitor will simply switch off. After I wait for half a minute I hear there is a message or something. When I want to alt-tab there I will get the weird screen of which I have a screenshot. At an other time I got a different message, the one with the blue screen.

I think there might be a connection with my Morrowind problems: Whenever I installed some graphics updating plugins / texture packs, the game would crash when it has to load a large city with alot of NPC's. In other words: When there is alot of (texture?) loading to be done. The crashes happen in about the same way as in Gunz.

My pc specs:
P4 HT 3gHz
512 DDR400
SBlive! 24bit
ATI Radeon 9800se 128bit

I haven't overclocked or soft-modded anything at all. I really hope someone will be able to help me with this. And about the catalysts: I only used the older ones with Gunz, because Morrowind ran fine with the latest drivers.

Edit: Forgot screenshots

 

[RF]

Uninstall everything ati related, ati even has an application to remove everything *ATi on your system at their website. Then boot into safe mode and clean up everything you can with driver cleaner. Then install omega drivers

 

[Mr. Killjoy]

Change your PSu and/or check if the 9800 has some dodgy components

 

[Cid Highwind]

Change your PSu and/or check if the 9800 has some dodgy components

Nice suggestion when you're broke Ofcourse I can go back to the shop and demand a refund, I told him my specs and he said this case+power would be sufficient. (300W)

Anyway, what do you mean with 'dodgy components'?

I'll use this as a last resort btw, first I'm going to follow your advice Reich, even though I have the feeling Killjoy might be right

 

[Mr. Killjoy]

I though there could be a damaged component, most likely the molex connector or
a capacitor. But I wouldn't bet on it.
Both my 9800 and 6800 displayed such garbage just before being unusable.
On the 9800 it was a the moment the connector unplugged itself,
on the 6800 it was when my PSU started making a huge high-pitched noise.

200w PSUs aren't enough, even with a little Athlon and TNT2 card

 

[refraction]

hmm, check your fan, altho i have a strong feeling your card is now perminantly damaged, but it sounds like the fan might have stopped and the system overheated.

so check if your fan is running, if it is try it in another pc, if it works its a proper with either your psu or motherboard, if it doesnt, youll need a new graphic card.

iird 9800se's are just pro's that didnt work properly, so they locked out 4 of the pipelines to fix it and sell it on. i suggest in future you steer clear of any graphics card with "SE" written on the end

 

[Cid Highwind]

I know what you mean Refraction about the SE cards, however, this one has been running with all 8 pipes unlocked and overclocked till max without problems back at R2RX's place. I didn't unlock them or overclock them myself on my own pc. I will try to see if Reich's suggestion works, if not I might put it in the pc downstairs, but I will have to check it's PSU and everything.

 

[Cid Highwind]

Alright I tried the latest Omega's. They work better than the latest Catalysts in a way that they get the game started. But when I wanted to select the channel in Gunz it locked and I got to see what you can see on the screenshot. However I was still able to CAD myself out of there and continue working on my pc. So I ended up posting this in one go without a reboot.

EDIT:

I put my 9800 in the computer downstairs, which has a 350W psu, and I tried the latest Omega drivers with Gunz. At first it seemed to run better than on my own computer with the 300W: it didn't crash instantly. But after one game of 5 minutes the game locked with the same kind of screen as on my own computer. So my guess is that it isn't the PSU, but it's an overheating problem Which makes sense because I can leave my computer on for whole day without problems, but when graphically intense games are running it locks up. With PSX emulation it didn't lock up, but that might be because that's more CPU intense than GPU. What are your thoughts about this?
(btw, as you might have figured Reich, the Omega's didn't prevent crashing, but I like them, thanks )

 

[Mr. Killjoy]

>> So my guess is that it isn't the PSU, but it's an overheating problem
You're not sure, if your 350w PSU is a lower quality brand or noname, it's like having a 250w one. This kind of corruption looks like damaged RAM, insufficient power can do that.
Try at a friends place (someone who has a good PSU), if it works fine, don't plug it in your PC until you get a good PSU or the damage will be permanent

 

[Cid Highwind]

So what would be best to do now?

- Continue using the 9800 and just wait and see what it can handle and what it can not
- Put in my old TNT2
- Use onboard video: Embedded UniChrome II 3D Graphics with 64M share memory

 

[Mr. Killjoy]

TNT2, of course don't expect to play even old games with high details, Gunz itself will be better played with everything to low.

Unless your "Embedded UniChrome II 3D Graphic" performs faster of course, but I've never heard about it. Just think it's temporary.

 

[D.D.]

sorry but i only glanced thru the thread and wanted to offer my opinion...i apologize if anything i bring up is outdated

this one has been running with all 8 pipes unlocked and overclocked till max without problems back at R2RX's place. I didn't unlock them or overclock them myself on my own pc.

that sounds sorta suspect? dont know, but mebe the mod was a direct bios mod and the pipes/clocks might be set thru that. have u tried making sure that its at stock 9800se everything by using something such as ati tray tools?

 

[Cid Highwind]

DD, are you saying I need to unlock the 8 pipes because the hardware might think it is supposed to be that way? oO

I've used ATItool before, and normally it just set the clocks and everything to stock default. It also detected there were 4 active pipes, if that answers your question.

TNT2, of course don't expect to play even old games with high details, Gunz itself will be better played with everything to low.

Unless your "Embedded UniChrome II 3D Graphic" performs faster of course, but I've never heard about it. Just think it's temporary.

Yeah of course it's temporary. I don't know anything about those onboard video graphics. I don't like the sound of it already. And I've always been wondering what the TNT2 can do, since it's always been tied by the feet by my old cpu Time to unleash the beast

 

[Mr. Killjoy]

TNT2 is a slow GF2MX... better than nothing, but if the other one is 64mb, you my use it

 

[D.D.]

DD, are you saying I need to unlock the 8 pipes because the hardware might think it is supposed to be that way?

I've used ATItool before, and normally it just set the clocks and everything to stock default. It also detected there were 4 active pipes, if that answers your question.

yes u answered my question. sorry if there was confusion but u seemed to have figured out it all out anyway >__<. and your card seems to be at stock (i was afraid it mite be the 8 pipes thing still causing problems)

btw what happens when u run the artifact detector integrated into ati tray tools?

 

[refraction]

did you check the fan on the graphics card was working??

altho iirc, the hsf's on the SE's arent too special, might be worth you buying a replacement GPU hsf and some arctic silver, maybe even some ram sinks (i think the ram has nothing on right?)

but id touch the ram during a game, see how hot it is n check if the fan is spinning ok.

 

[Cid Highwind]

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse :???:

I put back the 9200 in the other computer, uninstalled the Omega drivers, did a reboot. When I got into windows it loaded the normal programs and just when it was about to load Spysweeper my pc got stuck... Forcing me to do a hard reset. When I did that the screen stayed black, no signal from the video card, not even a *beep* which indicates the pc is starting. Meaning I can't even get into the bios... *sigh* Now what? I guess now I also need to test what's causing the problems on that computer... Any suggestions? Broken Mobo? Did I fry something? :S

 

[refraction]

as said before, it could be your PSU, cheap nasty ones are useless, then again it could be your motherboard, then again it could be both.

 

[Cid Highwind]

Well that was the other computer I was talking about, not my own one with the 9800se and the 300W PSU. The one which doesn't even boot anymore was the 2600+ with 9200se of my parents, which worked perfectly before I used it for testing the 9800. So that one not even beeping is a completely new mystery to me -_-

 

[refraction]

its starting to lead me to believe something is shorting on your 9800, especially if it has damaged the other pc. forgive me if i have the wrong end of the stick its 3:30am here ;p