Curse

pully2183 · Jun 02, 2005, 08:31 PM // 20:31

I'm currently using catalyst 4.11 drivers.
I went into add/remove programs and uninstalled the drivers and control centre.
I then ran driver cleaner.
When I tried to install the drivers that came with my pc catalyst 3.6 they wouldn't install. I kept getting a message saying something like they could not detect GPU drivers.

The same thing happened when I tried to install catalyst 4.1 drivers.

So I had to reinstall my catalyst 4.11. What am I doing wrong when trying to install cat 3.6

Dirkiess · Jun 02, 2005, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by pully2183

I'm currently using catalyst 4.11 drivers.
I went into add/remove programs and uninstalled the drivers and control centre.
I then ran driver cleaner.
When I tried to install the drivers that came with my pc catalyst 3.6 they wouldn't install. I kept getting a message saying something like they could not detect GPU drivers.

The same thing happened when I tried to install catalyst 4.1 drivers.

So I had to reinstall my catalyst 4.11. What am I doing wrong when trying to install cat 3.6

Have you experienced any problems with Cat 4.11?

Just to check. After the uninstall, the machine prompted you to reboot to complete the uninstall? If not, then you may have some driver conflicts on the PC when it comes to reinstalling the drivers, as they are conflicting with each other.

Very strange though. Are you running XP? And have you upgraded to SP2? If so, this could be having an impact on the driver install as well, especially if DX9 has also been installed. I have had similar issues with certain items not being detected.
Currently, I am running Cat 4.5 on my friends machine which is the Original that was with the card. I also have a very basic system running on this machine.
XP SP2, the original Nvida Nforce 2 drivers and ATI drivers that came with the machine. And I only have a few necessary pieces of software. Virus and FIrewall, and Guild Wars installed. THat is about it.

One other thing i have done also, is set the BIOS settings back to default and see what impact that has on the machine. I like to try things first before spending anymore money. If this seems to perform, then i start to add the features one by one. If something i change and the problem starts, then switch it off again. It's long winded, but it's not always about upgrades and money. So be patient.

beckermanex · Jun 02, 2005, 09:48 PM // 21:48

I've had a similar problem for the last couple of weeks. I have a Radeon 9600 PRO and the computer will crash...only in GW. I can play Max Payne 2, Halo, run Aquamark and everything is perfect, but GW likes to crash sometimes two hours in, sometimes two minutes in.

Yesterday it got pretty bad with crashing three times in 15 minutes (the screen locks up like I'm being lagged out, but I can't even CTRL+ALT+DEL or minimize the GW window to my desktop). Case temp is around 44C at full load, I finally turned my graphical settings all the way down and it ran, stable for over an hour before I logged off.

Not sure if that's any help, but from some Google searching and looking around at other GW sites and it seems ATI cards have some weird issues.

BTW: I'm running Catalyst 5.5 drivers and latest drivers for all hardware and the latest BIOS setting.

pully2183 · Jun 02, 2005, 09:49 PM // 21:49

After much fiddling about i eventually got cat 3.6 installed and yet again it made no difference. My pc still Black screened in the same way. I have reinstalled cat 4.11.

As for setting the BIOS back to default, I've never actually touched the BIOS so shouldn't they still be at their default settings?

Dirkiess · Jun 02, 2005, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by beckermanex

I've had a similar problem for the last couple of weeks. I have a Radeon 9600 PRO and the computer will crash...only in GW. I can play Max Payne 2, Halo, run Aquamark and everything is perfect, but GW likes to crash sometimes two hours in, sometimes two minutes in.

Not sure if that's any help, but from some Google searching and looking around at other GW sites and it seems ATI cards have some weird issues.

BTW: I'm running Catalyst 5.5 drivers and latest drivers for all hardware and the latest BIOS setting.

Thanks for the update. To see if it helps, go back to the older versions of the drivers. Namely, the Cat v4.x drivers. It appears from what i've seen and experienced, that the latest V5.x drivers are causing more problems for the older 9xxx series ATI cards when Playing GW. And possibly some other games as well.
If this is the case, then this needs to be looked at by ANet, which is why my THread, "Machine Lockups", is where I am trying to get people to Log all there details, experiences and possible fixes so we can pool the resources together and have more to go on, plus have something to hand to ANet, and get them to look into this problem, if it is indeed a problem with Screen Drivers.
Ok, I know it's a pain to go back to older drivers, but it may help with finding a possible solution. And to be honest, are 9xxx series cards really benefitting much from the newer drivers anyway?

beckermanex · Jun 02, 2005, 09:54 PM // 21:54

What about flashing your BIOS to the latest Rev?

Dirkiess · Jun 02, 2005, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by pully2183

After much fiddling about i eventually got cat 3.6 installed and yet again it made no difference. My pc still Black screened in the same way. I have reinstalled cat 4.11.

As for setting the BIOS back to default, I've never actually touched the BIOS so shouldn't they still be at their default settings?

Possibly, but is this machine a prebuilt system you bought or something you put together yourself?

If it was Prebuilt, then the BIOS would have the settings setup for using the hardware already installed. In some cases, not always fully correct.
There are normally several options in BIOS. Setting to Default(Safety), Optimised, Normal and Custom. Something along those lines.
Choosing the Default will set the BIOS to the minimum settings required with nothing fancy nor Hard Hitting to the hardware.
Optimised would normally detect all that is required and setup the machine, hopefully, to the best setting possible.
There is also Custom, which if you know what you are doing, is where the Overclockers normally tinker with the settings to get more juice.

Try the Default, Safety setting and see what happens.

Dirkiess · Jun 02, 2005, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by beckermanex

What about flashing your BIOS to the latest Rev?

Not always necessary. This is only really an option if the update has made a major improvement to the way your machine will function.
As most people say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Mostly, with the problems being expressed here, it's either something to do with Heat, Power or Drivers/Graphics Card?
Maybe even how things have been configured, but with other games working ok, it has to be one of those possible three and GW is involved somehow in the equation.

beckermanex · Jun 02, 2005, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Personally I've run some high-powered games like Vampire: Bloodlines, Half-Life 2, and Doom 3 with this set up and they are all powered by very high end engines and I haven't had anything as much as a stutter go wrong. So, at least in my case, and from what it sounds like with other people, its either an issue with Guild Wars and a piece of hardware in your system, which, as people have pointed out, seems to have a majority of the issues centralized on the 9XXX series Radeon cards.

I'm going to continue to try stuff over the weekend, and will hopefully have some good news next week.

Asrial · Jun 02, 2005, 10:41 PM // 22:41

I run the 9800 Pro and Athlon 64 3200+ (Newcastle) and have not had ANY issues with Guild Wars (or Doom 3, UT2k4, or Half Life 2).

I'll post the cats I'm using when I get home.

..and good that you replaced that power supply anyways, because 300w is just not powerful enough.

1) Does the game crash at any reproduceable point in time?
2) Does the game crash after a few hours of playing or can it crash after your computer has been off for a few hours and you just booted it up and got into the game?
3) Try running a Prime95 torture test for a few hours and see if anything happens, to test the CPU.
4) Try running 3dMark programs for a while to test the GPU.
5) Could also be memory issues.

Dirkiess · Jun 02, 2005, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asrial

I run the 9800 Pro and Athlon 64 3200+ (Newcastle) and have not had ANY issues with Guild Wars (or Doom 3, UT2k4, or Half Life 2).

I'll post the cats I'm using when I get home.

..and good that you replaced that power supply anyways, because 300w is just not powerful enough.

1) Does the game crash at any reproduceable point in time?
2) Does the game crash after a few hours of playing or can it crash after your computer has been off for a few hours and you just booted it up and got into the game?
3) Try running a Prime95 torture test for a few hours and see if anything happens, to test the CPU.
4) Try running 3dMark programs for a while to test the GPU.
5) Could also be memory issues.

Nice to hear it works on your machine.

With regards to your options, here are my answers, even though not my thread, but my friend's Machine has similar faults.

1. Has done on a few occasions, but more often than not, any time.
2. Can crash any time, doing anything. Has crashed right after boot up and started game, or after 30 mins or 2 hrs.
3. What is Prime 95?
4. Have run 3dMark from 03-05 for several hours. Nothing happens to the machine. Even left some hard hitting demos running. Nothing happens.
5. Memory has been swapped out and still problem persists.

Would be nice to hear the Posters answers on this though.

pully2183 · Jun 03, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asrial

1) Does the game crash at any reproduceable point in time?
2) Does the game crash after a few hours of playing or can it crash after your computer has been off for a few hours and you just booted it up and got into the game?
3) Try running a Prime95 torture test for a few hours and see if anything happens, to test the CPU.
4) Try running 3dMark programs for a while to test the GPU.
5) Could also be memory issues.

1) The game only seems to crash in in Roleplaying mode. I can play PvP ultil the cows come home and it doesn't crash. Ascide form that there is no particular region of the game or action that causes it to crash more.

2) It typically crashes after few hours. That said I've had it crash after 2 mins before. It rarely crashes when I start my pc up from cold (ie being turned off overnight)

3) I've ran the prime 95 torture test. It just ran normally with no problems. I left it running for about 4 hours.

4) I've ran 3dmark, it ran with no problems although the frame rate was laughable.

Asrial · Jun 03, 2005, 03:11 AM // 03:11

Prime 95 is a program used for multiple computer processing (using multiple computers to further progress a goal of some kind). It has a 'torture test' mode that pushes the processor to 100% constantly. This helps test for heat problems and a faulty processor.

I'm using the 4.11 cats.

Do you guys have ANY overclocks running at the moment? I know some games are very sensitive to any kind of overclock. UT2k4 hates CPU overclocks and Doom 3 hates GPU overclocks.

My settings for Guild Wars are maxed out. Default settings in video properties but maxed out in Guild Wars, including the Guild Wars anti-aliasing.

Dirkiess · Jun 03, 2005, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asrial

Prime 95 is a program used for multiple computer processing (using multiple computers to further progress a goal of some kind). It has a 'torture test' mode that pushes the processor to 100% constantly. This helps test for heat problems and a faulty processor.

I'm using the 4.11 cats.

Do you guys have ANY overclocks running at the moment? I know some games are very sensitive to any kind of overclock. UT2k4 hates CPU overclocks and Doom 3 hates GPU overclocks.

My settings for Guild Wars are maxed out. Default settings in video properties but maxed out in Guild Wars, including the Guild Wars anti-aliasing.

Where do you get Prime 95. Would be interested in trying it out.

As for my friends PC, no overclocking what so ever. It's bog standard, all set to default. Not too much in the GW config department either as the screen isn't big enough to enjoy the details and with the odd bit of lag, and only 512mb, i left it to a minimum for playing and testing.

I have yet to see it crash yet on the Cat 4.5 drivers, but will test a little more today as I have time to play it.

Also, it's interesting that you are using 4.11 drivers and have no problems at all. It still makes me think it is a driver problem more often than not, especially when the crash happens within the game itself.
If others are having slightly different problems, such as game stopping before it even loads, or machine crashing before it's even started to load, then that may well be a different matter altogether.
If that is the case, then exact details of when peoples PC's crash would be a nice addon. Not just I get black screen, or my machine crashes.
Specify whether it's in game, before game even loads, before PC has even booted into windows, or if the machine fails to even load up.

Anyone new with a problem, please add it to the thread "Machine Lockups". I am trying to keep one thread with all these issues together in one place, so everyone can read what is happening and being done to try and resolve the issues, so no one has to repeat themselves with possible fixes.

Edge Martinez · Jun 03, 2005, 08:59 AM // 08:59

I use an ATI 9250 256Mb and it solved any and all problems I ever had with GW. Granted it's alot lower end than the ATI cards you guys mentioned and PCI to boot, so hopefully this info is helpful... if not, I tried.

I tried to run the latest driver when I installed the card and it hated it. So I got rid of that driver, ran the cleaner and tried to install the driver from the installation CD. For some reason, it hated that. Not being too knowledgable, I took the card out, dumped all the ATI stuff, and turned on my onboard graphics. Then I reinstalled the card like it was brand new, ran the Installation CD and turned off onboard graphics. Since then everything has been smooth... no crashes and some days I'll be on for like 12 hours nonstop (pity me).

Anyhow, the driver version I have is 6.14.10.6458 from July of 2004 apparently. It plays all my games flawlessly.

I thought I was being all high tech by installing the latest drivers, but if i had just read the small print in the card manual, I would have noticed where ATI recommends you never update the driver unless you experience problems. Maybe that's just for the 9250.

Dirkiess · Jun 03, 2005, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Thanks for the update Edge.

I think the latest drivers are only really for the high end cards such as the X800 series and all those around that level.
With regards to the 9xxx series, i think anything in the Cat v5 series of drivers may well cause the odd problem with newer games.
I have installed Cat 5 drivers before on these cards and never had a problem, but if i do hit a snag then i always move the drivers back various levels until it stabilises again.

Ok, so people are running new games such as Doom 3 and Hl2 etc, but that could mean they have betting coding regarding these new drivers working on older cards, or it could be the way in which GW works that is causing problems for the older cards. That is what we are trying to work out here.

If it is to do with coding, then this needs to be looked at by ANet.

SO far it would appear to be a driver issue for most, but others may well have faulty hardware. Check on the "Machine Lockups" thread. There i am trying to pool all the info i can on this problem.

Asrial · Jun 03, 2005, 08:03 PM // 20:03

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm -- Prime 95

It's a program used to find Mersenne Prime numbers. Distributed Computing, that's the term I was looking for earlier.

You can use old computer or your idle computer time to help advance science and math and a bunch of things.

mthegreatone · Jun 04, 2005, 12:49 AM // 00:49

i have a feeling it's a power issue. the power-hungry athlon 64 itself will consume your power supply, especially if it is of generic quality. not all power supplies are created equal. if you compared a high quality PS with a generic PS of the same wattage, the high quality PS will most likely be better. give it a shot by buying a quality PSU...if that doesn't work...i'm sorry

PrimeHealer · Jun 04, 2005, 05:47 AM // 05:47

yep sounds like PS, youve gota pretty good system, its gonna need more juice. Same kinda thing happened to me a while back until I upgraded my 400watt to 550watt Maddog ps now it runs smooth and clean

Intel P4 3.4 HT
Intel mobo 1g fsb
2 gigs RAM
dual pci 6800 ultras 512mb
300 gb hd
550watt Maddog PS

Dirkiess · Jun 04, 2005, 10:41 AM // 10:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by mthegreatone

i have a feeling it's a power issue. the power-hungry athlon 64 itself will consume your power supply, especially if it is of generic quality. not all power supplies are created equal. if you compared a high quality PS with a generic PS of the same wattage, the high quality PS will most likely be better. give it a shot by buying a quality PSU...if that doesn't work...i'm sorry

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrimeHealer

yep sounds like PS, youve gota pretty good system, its gonna need more juice. Same kinda thing happened to me a while back until I upgraded my 400watt to 550watt Maddog ps now it runs smooth and clean

Intel P4 3.4 HT
Intel mobo 1g fsb
2 gigs RAM
dual pci 6800 ultras 512mb
300 gb hd
550watt Maddog PS

Sorry to burst your bubbles guys, but if you cared to actually read the whole thread you would find out that he has already changed the PSU and it didn't work.

As such, I'm still thinking it's a driver issue of some kind due to the issues being very similar to others as well as my friends machine, and PSU's have made no difference.

Please, before you add info, read up first.