I Am Probably An Idiot

LibrarianThorne

So, yesterday I got some new parts to upgrade my 4 year old machine to play Warhammer Online. I've been experiencing problems off and on with my video card (an 8xAGP X800XT All in Wonder) so I got a new one, a GeForce 7300GT. I also purchased some RAM, so that I went from 1024 to 1536MB. Now, however, I can't get WAR to run at all, nor will other games I own run properly. They'll run for a variable length of time before either freezing up the system or booting me back to the desktop with no explanation. I have the latest drivers for my card, and I'm fearing that something might be screwed on my motherboard (which is an altogether more expensive replacement).

So, Here's my DxDiag stats:

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-6702
Processor: AMD Athlon64 3000+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.0Ghz
Memory: 1536MB RAM
Page File: 207MB used, 2714MB available
DirectX version: 9.0c

Monitor: Philips 107S

Does anyone have any idea what's up or should I be shopping for a new mobo?

exoplasm

Did you remove the ATI drivers (fully) before installing nvidia?

LibrarianThorne

exoplasm wrote: »

Did you remove the ATI drivers (fully) before installing nvidia?

No, I removed them after. Should I uninstall the Nvidia drivers and reinstall them?

Pet theory from my friends is that my mobo is shot (or at least the AGP port on it is) and I need to get a new one.

ImDrawingABlank

I'm going to suggest running memtest fully for atleast a couple runs through, if possible fire it up before bed and check it again in the morning. RAM is VERY finicky, and mismatched sizes/types can cause all sorts of issues, not always, but it can. Run memtest, and go from there.

wunderbar

I'd remove the ram you added and see if it happens again.

Also, you realize that the 7300GT is actually a downgrade from an X800 right?

1ddqd

He probably didn't bother with the benchmarks. Higher number means faster right? However, the X800 doesn't have required tech like Shader 3.0 and the memory bandwidth is less (depending on the core of that 7300GT). COMPARE!

Doubtful that it's the motherboard - if it boots windows, your AGP slot has a 99% chance of being OK - unless it looks fucked up.

Look, here's the proper steps for a hardware install (ymmv) of that nature:

Shut down. Install RAM. Boot machine. Fine? Ok, uninstall video drivers. Turn off, swap cards, boot. Fine? Install new drivers. Done.

This way you know *which* parts screwed up first. As it is, you now have to troubleshoot one at a time before you can be sure. Why would you not uninstall ATI drivers when installing a Nvidia card?

You need to spend some time on some hardware sites like Toms Hardware and Anandtech before you do anything else.

Karrmer

Almost guarantee it is the ram.

Take out the extra ram and try it again. I would bet money that it'll all work fine.

halkun

I had a customer who had a 3Ghz P4 and "upgraded" his graphic card from a 6800 AGP to a 7200, and bought an extra 2GB of ram so he could play Crysis. He called my store after investing a few hundred dollars wondering why his computer was running exactly the same. I told him he was most likely maxing out the CPU power, his card was too slow, or the AGP aperture was too small. He asked how much a dual core would cost and I told him that he most likely didn't have a 775 socket and he was SOL on the CPU upgrade. He was pissed because 1) He thought 3Ghz hyperthreaded P4 was better than a 2.8 dual core. 2) That if you just put in more ram, the computer magically became faster. 3) That because 7200 was more than 6800, he was getting a better card. In fact it was a downgrade.

1ddqd

halkun wrote: »

I had a customer who had a 3Ghz P4 and "upgraded" his graphic card from a 6800 AGP to a 7200, and bought an extra 2GB of ram so he could play Crysis. He called my store after investing a few hundred dollars wondering why his computer was running exactly the same. I told him he was most likely maxing out the CPU power, his card was too slow, or the AGP aperture was too small. He asked how much a dual core would cost and I told him that he most likely didn't have a 775 socket and he was SOL on the CPU upgrade. He was pissed because 1) He thought 3Ghz hyperthreaded P4 was better than a 2.8 dual core. 2) That if you just put in more ram, the computer magically became faster. 3) That because 7200 was more than 6800, he was getting a better card. In fact it was a downgrade.

But he gets kudos for doing it himself. Now, it's readin' time!

wunderbar

halkun wrote: »

I had a customer who had a 3Ghz P4 and "upgraded" his graphic card from a 6800 AGP to a 7200, and bought an extra 2GB of ram so he could play Crysis. He called my store after investing a few hundred dollars wondering why his computer was running exactly the same. I told him he was most likely maxing out the CPU power, his card was too slow, or the AGP aperture was too small. He asked how much a dual core would cost and I told him that he most likely didn't have a 775 socket and he was SOL on the CPU upgrade. He was pissed because 1) He thought 3Ghz hyperthreaded P4 was better than a 2.8 dual core. 2) That if you just put in more ram, the computer magically became faster. 3) That because 7200 was more than 6800, he was getting a better card. In fact it was a downgrade.

To be fair, performance does usually go up with more ram, just not the way he was thinking.

It's just like my dad who is *convinced* that watching DVD's on a 7800GT delivers a significantly better than on an All in wonder 9800 on the same monitor. It's because it's new and shiny, it must be better.

Rook

wunderbar wrote: »

halkun wrote: »

I had a customer who had a 3Ghz P4 and "upgraded" his graphic card from a 6800 AGP to a 7200, and bought an extra 2GB of ram so he could play Crysis. He called my store after investing a few hundred dollars wondering why his computer was running exactly the same. I told him he was most likely maxing out the CPU power, his card was too slow, or the AGP aperture was too small. He asked how much a dual core would cost and I told him that he most likely didn't have a 775 socket and he was SOL on the CPU upgrade. He was pissed because 1) He thought 3Ghz hyperthreaded P4 was better than a 2.8 dual core. 2) That if you just put in more ram, the computer magically became faster. 3) That because 7200 was more than 6800, he was getting a better card. In fact it was a downgrade.

To be fair, performance does usually go up with more ram, just not the way he was thinking.

It's just like my dad who is *convinced* that watching DVD's on a 7800GT delivers a significantly better than on an All in wonder 9800 on the same monitor. It's because it's new and shiny, it must be better.

That sounds about right though, the 7800 series would have had all the purevideo enhancements whilst ATi didn't start with AVIVO until the X1X series I think. Not all DVD decoding is equal.

Ego

ATI's had DVD acceleration features since the original Radeon (though I'm pretty sure only one DVD-playback program actually used it at the time,) AVIVO is just a more feature-full expansion on the concept of GPU-supported video decoding.