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gnarlycranium
11-27-2003, 02:36 AM
Yet another question on video card issues! Yay!

I just now plugged a GeForce FX 5800 Ultra into my computer, a 1ghz PIII machine with an old motherboard and 256 megs of RAM, running on Win2k. (I'll try to dig up better details on the machine if needed, but offhand I don't know them, the computer was not originally mine and many of its components are a mystery to me-- I just need a ballpark kind of response to this question, to know where to start looking for a solution)

The video card was given to me by a friend with no driver disks, so I downloaded the drivers from the nVidia website. Overall it seems to be working fine-- but when I turn on MAX (v4.2), issues start to happen.

When the viewport driver settings are on OpenGL or Software HEIDI, the viewports run like heck. The framerate is even slower than what I'm used to with my old cruddy TNT2 video card. Then when I set it to Direct3D, the thing finally started to really rocket like it's supposed to.

I was up and out of my chair making high pitched noises of glee... for about 15 seconds, till I tried to array and then Zoom Extents around the high-poly sphere I was using as a test, MAX crashed. The BLINK-I'mgone kind of crash where it just vanishes right off the screen and the computer acts like nothing happened.

It starts back up again fine, I can make objects alright, zoom in and out, but when I try to load scenes, MAX goes down. I can merge the objects in from these scenes, but if I hit too many buttons in a row, or sometimes when I switch to subobject mode, and things of that sort, it goes down. It hasn't stayed running for more than about a minute and a half at a stretch.

I've tried messing with the video settings in various random ways, nothing seemed to have any effect... except once the crash turned the whole screen blue and froze the computer.

Anybody got any clue where among these oodles of new settings I've got I should start hunting for a way to fix this? The beastly creature is just doing this to tease me, I know it... :p
JDex
11-27-2003, 02:50 AM
Try to download one of the older detonator drivers and see if that helps things... perhaps the newest driver is flaky in MAX.

That's a pretty good card you were given, it's a shame that your system won't use it effectively, the card is nearly faster than the machine.
gnarlycranium
11-27-2003, 03:12 AM
Alrighty, I'll go in search of 'detonator' drivers! Maybe along the way I can find some website that'll give me more info on configuring this stuff-- wondering if I can get OpenGL to kick in and get around the problem that way, or if there's some D3D setting I need to change.

Originally posted by JDex
That's a pretty good card you were given, it's a shame that your system won't use it effectively, the card is nearly faster than the machine.

No kidding! I could barely cram the thing IN there, I had to shut one of the empty RAM clips to let it squeeze by-- the card runs the whole width of the motherboard, and just about bumps into all kinds of stuff along the way, including the other cards. I had to bend the prongs on the end of the cover to get the thing in-- I could just about hear it muttering to itself 'I can't believe you're actually plugging me into this POS...'

The guy who gave it to me couldn't get it to work at all-- I'm not sure why. He said something about the fact that it's a Gainward somehow giving him problems... he runs on ME, too, which can't have helped. All I know is, it wasn't compatible with something, and in the end he got disgusted with it and tossed it my way. I ain't complaining. :D

At any rate, soon I ought to have a new motherboard and a new case, then maybe my new darling pet won't be so sullen with me.
gnarlycranium
11-27-2003, 05:58 AM
Well.... somehow it got worse.

The occasionally crashing MAX suddenly went to... making the entire computer restart quite randomly... and then five minutes later, to not letting it boot up at all, period!

I called the guy I got the thing from, and he said that's what it had been doing to him-- the computer just falls on its face in the video card initialization stage, and never boots up.

So now I've put my old card back in, and I've no clue what to do-- apparently this here FX works some small smidgen of the time, and the rest of the time makes the whole system wig out. Go figure.

And it's so shiny, too! :cry:
stephen2002
11-27-2003, 12:16 PM
You might be running into heat and/or power issues since you are putting a newer component into your old system.

See if you can find out what the wattage on your PSU is. The card that you just plugged in is probably sucking more power than your CPU. If your case is as poorly ventalted as most of the older cases are (and at that time there was no reason for crazy ventillation as the chips were not running nearly as hot) then the card might be overheating.
My Fault
11-27-2003, 06:54 PM
Originally posted by Gnarly Cranium
Alrighty, I'll go in search of 'detonator' drivers! Maybe along the way I can find some website that'll give me more info on configuring this stuff-- wondering if I can get OpenGL to kick in and get around the problem that way, or if there's some D3D setting I need to change.

Try Driver Heaven, they have a ton of old drivers you can download.
http://www.driverheaven.net/
gnarlycranium
11-27-2003, 08:22 PM
Originally posted by stephen2002
You might be running into heat and/or power issues since you are putting a newer component into your old system.

See if you can find out what the wattage on your PSU is. The card that you just plugged in is probably sucking more power than your CPU. If your case is as poorly ventalted as most of the older cases are (and at that time there was no reason for crazy ventillation as the chips were not running nearly as hot) then the card might be overheating.

Since it's an Ultra, the card takes up two slots in the back due to its massive fan assembly-- the extra slot is its very own air intake. Most of the time it runs at a low idle, but when that fan kicks in, it makes at least as much noise as the rest of the computer. Plus among the driver settings is a handy temperature gauge-- I didn't have it running long enough for it to overheat, the big fan never really kicked in while I was using it, and it never got up past about 70 degrees (as far as I know... it's possible it may have been higher during that period where the comp wasn't booting, no way to check then).

Power issues, on the other hand.... that I would definitely buy. This comp is old, and... just a sec *leans over and squiiiints for a while* ah, the PSU is only 300 watts.. pooh! :hmm: Guess I oughtta go check just how much juice this baby pulls. While I'm downloading drivers. :D
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