Radeon 9250 problem - Game crashes and restarts

jeshu · Post by **jeshu** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 9:46 am

Hi all, i have a crappy problem. Yesterday I bought a Radeon 9250 128mb (AGP) to play Project-Entropia. The game requires 64mb of video. I have an Intel P4, 2.8ghz, 512 ram. The problem is that i can play for like 30 seconds, then the screen freezes and the PC collapses and restarts

. Sometimes I can still listen to the music in the game but looks like the screen is disconnected, like it gets no signal from the pc. I installed the card and changed the bios from PCI to AGP.
Also downloaded the latest drivers from the ATI page, but I get a cli.exe error and the catalyst can't start. Something like "exeption error (0x000...135)". Even without the drivers I get the same crash error with the game.
I have tried all the available drivers and still nothing... I really want to play!!

Could someone help me please? I'm not a pc expert, just know the basics.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 10:33 am

Welcome to LR forums!!!

What are your pc specs?
What type of GFX card did you have B4?

ATI have a little utility you can use to make sure you have ALL ati drivers removed...I can't remember it's name, but you can get it on ATI's site

Are you sure you removed ALL of the old GFX card drivers!!!
You can use Driver cleaner to do this.....

jeshu · Post by **jeshu** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 10:59 am

My specs:
Motherboard is a PC-Chips
Intel processor, P4 2.8Ghz
512 ram
128 video (Radeon 9250 - AGP) - It has no fan??
XP service pack 2
DirectX 9.0c

I didnt have any old card, the mainboard has a 64mb "integrated" video card. Do I have to uninstall those drivers too?

Post by **Illuminati** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:00 am

Did you have this game installed before you upgraded graphics?

If so, I would try reinstalling the game. It is possible the game installed something specific for the video solution you had before the 9250. (don't forget to back up your saved games before uninstalling

)

jeshu · Post by **jeshu** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:20 am

Hehe I couldnt play the game b4, it required ATI or NV video cards, I tried with the integrated 64mb but just couldnt run it.
Now I can play.... for 5 seconds!!

I knew i had to get NV...aarrggggg

jeshu · Post by **jeshu** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 2:12 pm

Ok I tried the driver cleaner. I got rid of all the ATI drivers and the S3G drivers too (those from the motherboard video), then reboot and installed the latest ATI drivers.
I still have that cli.exe problem from the drivers and the catalyst doesnt start.
I tried the game again and could play for 1 minute! (wooohooo) then the screen froze again and had to reboot

When u use the driver cleaner... do I have to uninstall all the drivers that appear on the list?

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:14 pm

you said there is no fan on the card's cooler? isn't the card overheating? try opening the side panel and put a desktop fan blowing on the card directly. if that helps, it means the card is overheating. simply get a little fan and instal it on top of the cooler.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:31 pm

Make sure the on-board GFX is disabled in your Bios!

If it is, then i'd guess it's a driver issue since it gives you the cli.exe error etc.....

jeshu wrote:When u use the driver cleaner... do I have to uninstall all the drivers that appear on the list?

No..Just the drivers which are to do with your GFX cards...

I doubt heat is an issue as that card runs cool, but you can do "the finger test" to see if the heatsink gets very hot, if it does when in 2D, then mayby the heatsink hasn't proper contact with the core.....(the card will run fine without any fan)

Post by **Illuminati** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 4:19 pm

jeshu wrote:Hehe I couldnt play the game b4, it required ATI or NV video cards, I tried with the integrated 64mb but just couldnt run it.
Now I can play.... for 5 seconds!!

I knew i had to get NV...aarrggggg

I'm not sure if you understood my question... did you install the game after you installed the new video card? or did you have it already installed on your computer from the last time you tried running it with the integrated graphics?

have you tried playing any other games?

jeshu · Post by **jeshu** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:45 pm

Thanks 4 ur replies
I installed the game b4 installing the card. Its just that i dont wanna wait 3 hours to download it again

but it I might do it tonight.
I think im halfway into the solution. I didnt read on the ati page that i had to install the .net 1.1 to get the latest drivers running. So i did and i dont get the cli.exe error anymore.
About the game: well... still not working, it freezes and doesnt automatically reboot (now i have to reboot it myself)
Any clues why is this happening?

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 10:28 pm

kenc51 wrote:
I doubt heat is an issue as that card runs cool, but you can do "the finger test" to see if the heatsink gets very hot, if it does when in 2D, then mayby the heatsink hasn't proper contact with the core.....(the card will run fine without any fan)

actually if the heatsink is warm to the touch that means that the core does have good contact with the heatsink. if it's cool to the touch that might mean eighter that it dissipates heat efficiently even without a fan or that it doesn't have proper contact thus not conducting heat to the cooler. it's rare but at one time I saw a video card where there was no heat conductive material (thermal compound) whatsoever and the GPU was overheating like hell. they just simply forgot to put any between the GPU and heatsink.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 4:25 am

I suspect it's either the on-board GFX card is NOT disabled in the Bios or Illuminati is correct and the game just needs to be reinstalled....

jeshu · Post by **jeshu** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:52 am

Ok guys got good news. I got the game running!
After I cleaned the drivers, installed the latest drivers, downloaded the .Net 1.1, the game was still not working.
I started messing around with the card configurations and something came to my mind: since the monitor looked like it got no signal, it could be the refresh rate.
So I changed from 85hz to 65hz and guess what... works PERFECTLY. I put the game in its maximum resolution, best ground effects, wind, light control, all at max and looks awesome. No lagging, its just great!

You guys were right, it could have been all those things you said. I thought about reinstalling the game and even windows, buying an NV card, but forgot about the simple things. Refresh rate! LOL
Thank you all for your replies.

CASE CLOSED

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:56 am

NP
Glad to hear it's up and running!
Enjoy ;)

Post by **Illuminati** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:57 am

Good job! Glad to hear its working.

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Radeon 9250 problem - Game crashes and restarts

Radeon 9250 problem - Game crashes and restarts

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