Strange Radeon 9500np lockups...

[ScatMasterX]

I just got a Sapphire Radeon 9500np 128mb video card in the mail today. It is the softmoddable, but sadly, I cannot softmod it (softmod=artifacts).

While this is very, very sad :tears: , there is just nothing I can do about it.

Anyway, back to the point. I have the Catalyst 3.8 drivers installed right now. The weird thing is, whenever I play Neverwinter Nights or the Warcraft 3 demo, the games lock up after about 5 minutes of play. With Warcraft, the screen just freezes, but with Neverwinter, the screen goes into a "standby-ish" mode, meaning it turns off and the led light near it's "power-on-button" turns from green (on) into orange-ish (standby). When it does this, I can still hear the Neverwinter music playing, meaning it's not just the game.

Stranger still, when I play the Halo demo, I can play it fine (w/full effects and everything) all the way through (which takes nearly 45 minutes)!

:confused:

I have tried using the Catalyst 3.10 and 3.7, but neither help.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks!

-ScatMasterX

[tacos4me]

Is your card overclocked at all?

[Spongebob]

Anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks!

-ScatMasterX

If its not overclocked. Then I'd suggest in order.

(1). download the latest 3.10 drivers for the card. (ATI finally made good drivers for video games in this latest version).:D

(2). make sure all other drivers are up to date on your system and there are no conflicts.

(3). Trouble shoot your Cmos settings by first disabling everything affecting your video card and then test it to see if its a setting messing things up.

(4). Make sure your PSU (Power supply unit) is up to handling a power hungery card like that. I suggest a 400watt or better quality brand name PSU. Cheapies are garbage with that card!

(5). Check your Ram to see if its good. If you have more than one module, remove one of them at a time and place it in the slot closest to your CPU to test it or you could use memtest .

Thats about all I can think of for now.

[ScatMasterX]

Nope, it's not oc'd.

I tried the 3.10 drivers and they didn't help.

It can't be a PSU or RAM problem, or else the graphics-intense Halo would also lock up (and it doesn't).

I'm sure all the drivers are up-to-date...however, I don't think I've installed the latest patch for NWN (I have both the expansions, btw), which may be what is causing the problems there...

I am just about to restart my computer with the latest Omega drivers, so I'll see if that helps. If not, I'll update NWN, and see if that helps, and then post another reply.

Thanks for the suggestions!

-ScatMasterX