ATI Graphics Crashing

[Drugwash]

Does my tool return the display to the same garbled screen as per your screenshot or does it show a clean desktop? Just trying to set things as clear as possible.

 

I have my share of display driver crashes with certain applications (most notably Firefox 9 and usually when scrolling down/up a page fast), but I'm using an nVidia card with a very old manufacturer driver that I can't update without losing AGP Texture completely.

 

In my case all bitmaps used by Revolutions Pack for skinning become garbled, everything is slow and the system eventually freezes so I need to reboot as soon as possible. Haven't found a reason, let alone a cure, in years so I'm afraid there's little to nothing I can help here with, except for that tool and maybe some new ideas if they come my way.

 

I don't have Registry Workshop anywhere on my system and neither is it in my CD/DVD software collection, unless it bears a cryptic name. Seeing it's a commercial product, I'm gonna pass on installing it.

I also never use Explorer. Ever.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Drugwash

[Dave-H]

No, sadly your tool restores exactly the same garbled desktop.

I'd certainly be using it if it didn't!

 

I think once the "damage" has been done, the desktop cannot return to normal except by a reboot.

When it's come back in the garbled state, whether it's restored by your tool, the ATI Control Panel, or by putting the machine to sleep and waking it again, it never looks right again, even though it is apparently back at its normal settings.

The differences are the mouse cursor display (which may be a clue!) and the box of rubbish at the top left, which stays there, although proportionately larger, even if you go to DOS. Only a restart will clear it.

That looks like some sort of corruption in the RAM of the graphics card.

[Drugwash]

Ok, thank you for elaborating. It seems in both our cases the driver becomes nonfunctional once it crashes and cannot be loaded again. The system probably uses the standard VGA driver instead, until the next reboot.

This one is tough.

 

Here's one other thing for you to try, just for the sake of it. Won't fix the crashes or anything, just wanna see if the video memory gets cleaned or not. if it works as I hope, the garble should dissapear. Driver won't be reloaded though, so don't get high hopes.

 

First of all, run Quick Switcher so you can have the hotkeys at hand; you might need to switch a couple resolutions/color depths if the desktop comes back misaligned.

Then grab WLL_bundle.7z from my repository, unpack it, go to WLLall > SvgaCom, rename startupOK.bmp to startup.bmp and launch SVGACOM.COM.

If everything's right you'll see a fullscreen animated logo (was part of the WLL project started by Tihiy years ago).

Hit ESC to end the animation and return to desktop. If the desktop is now clean it means there was rubbish in the video memory, otherwise there may be other issues (possibly bad memory pointers). Use Quick Switcher a couple times if desktop appears shifted to one side.

 

Of course I could be awfully wrong about this all since it's not my expertise. But at least you'll have some fun.

[Dave-H]

Running SVGACOM doesn't clear the display corruption I'm afraid.

 

 

As you can see, the square of rubbish is still there in the top left corner.

 

I have now decided that I need to eliminate the card itself being the source of the problem.

Although it does work fine in Windows XP and Windows 8.1, I did read somewhere that they run hotter under Windows 98, and if the hardware is more stressed that could be the issue.

 

I found another used card on eBay for a very cheap price, so I have ordered that.

It's an X800 card rather than an X850, but I'm hoping it's close enough to just directly substitute it without any driver complications, as the driver is for both.

That will hopefully eliminate whether it is actually a hardware issue.

[Drugwash]

That's quite odd! SVGACOM works directly with BIOS interrupts and manipulates video memory. It means the driver crash affects communication between the PCIe slot and the chipset and/or other system components.

 

I'm out of my league here, maybe Mr. Loew would know more about this issue. But since you decided to replace the video card, we'd better wait and see how the new one performs. If I was you I would've gotten an nVidia card though, they tend to be more resiliant IMHO. Or maybe I'm just biased due to past experience...

 

Fingers crossed!

[Dave-H]

Yes, I'll wait and see now what happens with the other card.

Hopefully I will get it at the beginning of next week.

If it's OK I think we'll have to assume that the first card just had a hardware problem.

 

Incidentally, I meant to say in my last post that I'm pretty sure that it's not coming back with the standard VGA driver, as it still looks perfectly normal, in 1920x1080 with full colour depth. The square at the top left and the strange mouse cursors are the only sign that there's anything still wrong.

 

I already have an NVidia card installed in the other PCIe slot, so I can't really add another one as there would surely be a clash of driver files on Windows XP and Windows 8.1, even if I had no NVidia drivers installed on Windows 98.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Dave-H

[Drugwash]

Maybe XP and 8.1 would know how to deal with two nVidia cards. I'd try that first if I had the hardware. Few days ago I had to dismantle an assumingly defective videocard to get the cooling fan for the videocard on this machine, which got destroyed. Funny how I now have PCIe cards that I can't use and miss AGP cards that I so much need.

[submix8c]

Wait a minute! Are you saying you "already" had an nVidia card installed and was trying to install an ATI one along with it? (must have missed that?).

 

Theoretically, as long as the Drivers (files, etc) are exactly the same, you should be able to use any *pair* of any given make of Video (e.g. 2 nVidia -or- 2 ATI) for (ex.) Dual Monitors.

 

AFAICR (could be wrong, may be for "older" drivers + older OS), nVidia and ATI don't play well together.

 

(And I *did* note "even if I had no NVidia drivers installed on Windows 98"...)

[Dave-H]

The actual history is that I had a single AGP ATI X850 card on my old motherboard, and when I updated the motherboard to a PCIe one with no AGP of course I had to change my video card.

I bought a cheap AMD card and that worked fine on XP (and later also on 8.1) but of course there were absolutely no drivers for Windows 98.

 

After messing around with modified VGA drivers for 98, which gave me the resolution setting I wanted but with very slow screen refresh rates, i decided to try and find the PCIe version of my old X850. This I did, and I used that for a while, but I wasn't very happy with its performance, especially on 8.1 doing HD video editing.

 

I then realised that it was possible to run two different cards in the two PCIe slots on my board, and as I wanted to keep the X850 for Windows 98, I went out and bought a cheap NVidia card, which I fitted in the 16x slot for best performance, and put the X850 in the remaining 4x slot.

 

I didn't believe that it was possible to use two cards of the same brand with very differing ages, as they would surely use different driver files with the same name, which would inevitably cause a lot of problems to say the least!

As it is, I can now use either card in Windows XP or 8.1, but only the X850 in Windows 98, as there are no 98 drivers for the NVidia card of course.

The NVidia card has the standard MS VGA driver loaded in Windows 98, and is disabled.

 

As I said earlier, the crashing on the X850 driver was I'm pretty sure occurring even when it was the only card fitted (in the 16x PCIe slot) so I don't think that the presence of the NVidia card has any bearing on the problem.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Dave-H

[Drugwash]

In XP/8.1 you could leave the default system driver for an older nVidia card and keep it disabled in Device Manager, just as you do with the newer one under 98. If you can afford it it wouldn't hurt trying.

I agree with submix8c that the two "giants" don't play well together (usually).

[Dave-H]

My "new" X800 card arrived today, and I put it in in place of the X850.

It found the drivers and seemed to work fine, but it's still crashing exactly the same!

I then did some more experimenting.

I put the X850 back in, and removed the Nvidia card.

Still crashing.

I then moved the X850 into the 16x PCIe slot where the Nvidia card normally lives.

Still crashing.

 

So -

1/ It isn't a hardware fault in the card.

2/ The presence of the Nvidia card doesn't seem to affect things.

3/ It doesn't matter which PCIe slot it's plugged onto.

 

I still suspect a memory issue.

Not main RAM of course, some other low level memory issue that didn't happen with my previous motherboard, but does with this one.

I am using the RAM limitation patch from @rloew, which may have an effect, but Windows 98 wouldn't work at all without it I suspect!

[submix8c]

Really off-the wall...

Seem to remember an "AGP Aperture Size" problem. I had to half mine to get it to even boot.

May or may not be relevant.

Also, not looking back at the posts in the thread, I'm assuming the Video Card RAM is within limits of what 98 handles (unless rloew pacth "cures that?).

[Dave-H]

Yes, I remember AGP aperture settings being critical as well, but that was with my old motherboard.

My present one isn't AGP, it's PCI, PCI-X, and PCIe.

I certainly had the AGP version of the X850 working very happily with my old motherboard for several years, and the 256 MB of memory didn't seem to be a problem.

I even for a while had an AGP Nvidia card installed on the old motherboard until the fan died, and that had 512 MB of memory!

All made possible by the RAM limitation patch of course.

[Drugwash]

Well, you may try to fiddle with whatever settings the BIOS offers - IRQs, memory range etc. - or get a 9x-compatible nVidia card and get rid of the X800 (unless you wanna keep it as spare).

Dunno if setting 'Plug and Play OS' in the BIOS (if available) to 'No' would help, but that may create problems in XP/8.1. It's worth a try, just for your peace of mind.

There may also be a slight chance of altering the memory and IRQ configuration for the videocard in Device Manager, if the card allows it. I had a Dell machine with a test 98SE installation which wouldn't take an ATI card under any circumstances. I've tried all possible tricks (BIOS, Device Manager) but still yielded conflicts. After pulling the card out and fiddling with memory ranges in Device Manager, the on-board graphics (Intel or something) was accepted and worked fine. So it may just be that your motherboard hates ATI (as much as I do ).

Edited March 3, 2015 by Drugwash

[pangoomis]

No one mentioned capacitors on the mobo? See if they are in any way bulging.