Preserved Topic: New Video card/Dual Monitor set up = unhappy puter :(

ok, heres the scoop.....

just slapped in a new vid card (finally!, yes I am starting to upgrade!!!!). The card is an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro (64mb/dual monitor support). Uninstalled my old graphics driver (generic no name 8mb card) and seemingly successively installed the new card and driver. But what was once my trusty and very stable puter is now suffering from frequent lock-ups/freezing. I have checked me system devices etc for conflicts n stuff, but all seems fine there.

It locks (though unpredictably) when I seem to be doing CPU intensive operations in PS. It is not a repeatbale event either where I can go back, repeat an operation, and make it lock. It seems random (and velly annoying of course)

One thing I also noticed, is that if I am zoomed in to area of an image and have my marching ants displayed, there is a definate lag with the cursor as I move it across the screens? As soon as I return to 100% size, the lag disappears! Not sure if this is normal or an indicator as to what could be wrong? Also, when zoomed in, the marching ants flash with a lag too!

Now the bad news, these are my system specs, and I suspect that maybe my puter is just not man enough to handle the new bigger graphics card. (System requirements for the card I am just scraping in with)

System:
Win98se
AMD K6 II 400mhz (o/c to 450mhz)
256 MB Sdram
13.6g HD
monitor 1: Samsung Syncmaster 700IFT 17" (1024x768 - 32bit)
monitor 2: older Intergraph 21sd95 21" (1280x1024 - 32 bit)

Could this be a case of overloading my main CPU, overheating it and causing the lock/freeze. When it locks btw, ALT-Ctrl-DEL is not available. I have to hit the rest button

so anybody care to hazard a guess?

if anymore details are needed please ask, TIA

~Vp~

[This message has been edited by vogonpoet (edited 08-24-2002).]

Taking the easier of the two first, the lag time probably is because the proc just can't keep up with everything. Some of Doc's stuff (like his 404 screen) pegs mine at 100% utilization when stretched across both monitors. (Athlon XP 1800+, 1GB RAM, an older Radeon VE 32MB Dual-Display card, running two Viewsonic VG151 LCD panels @1024x768x32 each, under Windows XP.) So that part sounds like you just need more squirrels under the hood, or less animation on you screen.

As to the lockups, I've never experienced any, so I'm only speculating here, okay?

First, download the latest Catalyst driver from the ATi web site. Subjectively, it seems smoother with a bit better image quality. The big thing is that the new driver lets you tinker with all sorts of settings stuff that, frankly, I don't understand. I take the easy way out and set the one-button dummy mode to optimize for quality. Maybe tinkering in there will help you. I dunno.

Second, are you using Win98's baked-in support or ATi's HydraVision driver to do the dual-display magic? Whichever one you're using, try the other way. HydraVision has all sorts of stuff I'll never use, so I use WinXP's baked-in support. When in doubt, I go minimalist.

Third, see if there's an upgrade for your chipset, specifically the northbridge which handles data movement between the RAM, the proc and the AGP port. There may be a BIOS upgrade, newer drivers for Win98, or both.

Fourth, you may have something there with your thoughts on heat. Besides seeing what you can do to get more cooling to the proc, see if you get blisters if you touch the northbridge while it's running. If so, cool that too. My MB came with a heatsink and fan on the northbridge and it still gets pretty hot sometimes.

Fifth, power. There's a shitload of transistors on that Radeon sucking up juice. The next version of it is going to have an auxiliary power connector (using a power connector for a floppy) on it for heaven's sake. Maybe those extra few million transistors are starving.

I hope something here helps. Dual-displays are the best thing I've ever done for myself and I'm sorry that your experience so far is disappointing.

"the most incredible feats are often accomplished by
those who have had the most incredible challenges"

brucew has already said most of the things i would suspect too.

(you got the latest drivers from the ati website, do you?)

these new graphiccards take a lot of power. you should at least have a 350W powerdevice. better 400W.

could be overheating too (of the graphicscard processor). open case. cool room down. check if happens again.

if you have the possibility... upgrade to winXP.

Brucew/Grumble: Thanks for the info/advice. I will try whats suggested, though I think I will be building a new box around the vid card! heh

any thoughts on the perfect set up for a PS puter? AMD or Intel? lots of ram I know! dual HD's or a Raid set up? best m/b? even dual cpu's? how about OS?

be interested to hear from anyone who has a monster graphics orientated computer

thanks again for any suggestions! ~Vp~

Hey VP..

Well i just finally added the last few items to my pc after an upgrade that lasted a few months.

This is the path i went down,


Intel Pentium 4 1.7 Ghz
Asus Mainboard Intel 850 Chipset onboard USB2 and FireWire and raid controllers (supports 533 and 400 mhz FSB
2 x 512mb PC 800 RIMM Format RAM
GeForce 4 TI 4600 128 mb RAM
2 x 60 GB 7200 RPM HDD´s
ULtra wide SCSI controller Card
9.5 GB AV Rated HDD (purely for video editing)
DVD and HP CDRW
Creative LABS AUDIGY Sound Card

Thats the base machine i use it for 3d and PS work plus video editing and its stable as a rock on win 2000 pro and ps 7 flies on it.

On top of that i have a olypus optical drive (external scsi) and a minolta Dimage scan dual 35 mm and APS film scanner
plus mystandard hp 2200 flatbed and HP Deskjet both on usb.

I Never had a prob with any of the kit and the AOPEN MB was a dream to install, and i am at the point now where i am finally happy with my system. ok maybe another 512 mb ram,

Seriously though go for intel if ya can afford it and go for one of the newer 845 or 850 chipsets that supports 533 and 400 mhz FSB´s

i canibalised my old athlon system and had the new one up and running in 48 hours it was was easy with win 2k.

thanks for the reply tomeaglescz

sounds like you have a great set up!! can I be as bold as to ask what sort of investment that all was? np, if thats being too nosey.

cheers ~Vp~

Don`t know about * monster Graphics computer*, but my new one works pretty well. You have to stress a 100MB file pretty hard to shake it up.

It`s a P4 2.26 Ghz w/512K L2 cache,
1024 MB DDR SDRAM, 80 GB 7200 rpm HD.
A 128MB NVIDA GeForce4 M440G Graphics card,
Through WIN 2K pro.
No problems, so far.

$1900 (US) delivered ( includes a 15" flat panel, CD-RW, etc)

<edit>oh, yea, and Partition Magic ROCKS </edit>



[This message has been edited by docilebob (edited 08-25-2002).]

Hey VP sorry for the delay

OK base unit came to about 1400 euro's

add to that the sony 17 inch tft display 490 euros

add the basic scanjet 2200 scanner and hp 845 and optical drive in for another 250 euro's

and ya get a pretty good idea..

the killer was the film scanner when i brought it....that really hurt

it was the only model to do 35 mm positive and negative scanning aswell as the then new kodak APS System.....

todays equivelant is the nikon which weighs in at 5000 euros and only beats mine on speed (ie Firewire port rather than ultra wide scsi)

but i buy alll my kit direct from the main distributor here in the cz at about 30-35% less than RRP

np tomeaglescz! Thanks for the info (and DB too)

I am thinking at the moment of setting up a raid array and running a dual processor m/b (amd 1.7's), a couple of 20 gig drives...

still researching....

VP Think Carefully about the AMD route i had loads of problems with the athlon on a win2k platform, lots of freezes in processor intensive applications such as photoshop, this was one of the key issues for my upgrade, i know of lots of other people who had the same problem, raid is a good idea i will let you know of a good board my friend just purchased that was for the p4, when i see him next but the basic specs were this.

intel 845 chipset, support for 533 and 400 mhz bus

AGP Pro Slot

6 USB Ports (5 type 2 and 1 type one) type 2 is fully backwards compatible with type 1 slots and peripherals.

4 ie 3994 firewire ports

2 ide controllers

2 raid controllers

advanced 6 channel digital on board sound (it rocks)

support of cpus past the 3 ghz speed

3 gb Ram Total support in 3 slots

Basically this board is one of the best i have seen in a long time (Asus)

gimme 24 hours and i will give ya the model number, i can put ya in touch with a some people who moved over from AMD to Intel when they went with win2k as a platform due to freezes etc. so think hard about it, maybe better off investing in a very fast p4 than going dual, unless ya need the dual support for anything special.

anyway hope this helped

Tom

tomeaglescz: Thanks again for the advice !

I shall take that into consideration and look forward to your later post with the name of that m/b you mention above!

cheers ~Vp~

I'd also suggest you ask around at some tech forums before you buy anything...

Like tomeaglescz said, sometimes you end up with some combinations of hardware they just duon't wanna play nice. Personally, I've never had any trouble what so ever with my AMD. If you ask me the biggest probem with PC's today is that there's just too many people in the biz.... too many flavours of everything and some combinations of flavours just taste sour.

While I've never had any problems with my CPU, I've had endless problems with sound cards not wanting to play nice with my mainboard. I've also had CD-ROM problems too.... I seem to churn through these like nobodys business. Oh and steer away from Dimand Data CD-XXXXX drives.... Personal opinion: They suck long time!

So, before you buy anything I'd suggest you pop into a techi forum and ask around to see if anyone has had problems with the brands your about to buy. Oh, and if you do decide on the AMD route, shell out a litte extra for a good quality Mainboard. There's a lot of cheap dogey ones around todays. The Abit and ASUS borads for AMD chips seem to have a good rep.

Although, if I'm not mistaken, the Radeon 9000's are just re-named 8500's yah?... I ~think~ they tend to be more stable on Intel based systems... I think. However, stability issues with video cards are usualy only pop-up with running 3D applications or games. Your video card shouldn't really affect Photoshop cause it's not reallly working it that hard. Infact, running MS Word should put as much strain on your video card as Photoshop does.

If your still having that lock-up problem you could try switching off dual monitor support. If that fixes the problem then you'd be best hitting some techi forums looking for people with similar problems and or solutions. Remember, the card you have now is basically a Radeon 8500, so you could hunt around for problems/solutions fot that model too as I doubt there'd be a whole lot of stuff buzzing around the forums for the 9xxx series yet appart from the usual "I got a GeForce eater" braggin...

Anyways... I hope it helps. Best of luck with the upgrades and welcome to the Dual Monitor world!

Oh yah, you do realise that you'll soon hate using PS on anyone elses PC that don't have a dual monitor setup layed out the way you have it. It's worse than trying to use a computer that doesn't have a weel mouse!...

~looks up~ Darn... I'm ranting again....