Lots of us seem to have the same problem. Our video cards crash in 3d games. I've read through and haven't seen any solutions, which surprises me given the level of knowledge of this group.

Here's mine....3D games crash my computer, monitor seems to lose sinc and goes black with all the lights flashing then goes into sleep mode. I have to hit re-set to re-boot the pc. It can happen 5min in to a game or 1 + hour. Have tried new drivers, dissabling v-sync -fastwrites -agp 4x, etc... as many others have. Someone Has Got To Have A Solution! I hope.

Athlon 500, Appolo EP-7KXA mobo, Annihilator Pro DDR Geforce, 300 watt power supply, 256mb ram, DX 8.0a.

This is drivin me nuts!!!

If at first you don't succeed---Scream at it!

If you can get your hands on a drive I would install fresh on that drive and play with it.

Who's driver for the video? nVidia or MFG? I would try nVidia's.



96.3 % of Statistics are made up.

I had alot of problems with my games... locking up randomly...
turned out it was the crummy sb vibra 128 soundcard at fault
sb live = 0 problems
and my old p2-300 rig look good for another few months

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you have created"~Darth Vader, Star wars

I highly suggest that you go to the GeForce Faqs site and read the information that is available. The problem is not due to software for the majority of AMD/VIA users, including the VIA chipset drivers, the video card drivers, ACPI- compliance, and/or DirectX 8. The problem we have all experienced is due to inadequate power supplies, and the power leads on many of the VIA-based motherboards, which do a terrible job of supplying clean power to the AGP bus. It's really as simple as that ... although you may end up traveling a long, hard, frustrating road before coming to this conclusion. I spent 8 months researching the subject and beating my head against the wall before I finally managed to talk to the CEO of Alienware, a gaming system manufacturer, who has admitted to an entire host of problems when running the combination of an AMD processor, VIA chipset, and a GeForce card.

You can download and install new, updated drivers for as long as you wish ... but the problem is not going away. The only real solution is to replace your hardware, or just deal with the issue until you can't tolerate it anymore.

I must mention that this does not affect all VIA mainboards, (some people are running games and having no problems at all) but these people, whether they realize it or not, are in the minority. Consider yourself lucky, but be aware that this particular problem can sometimes take several months before occurring. And once it does, there is no real fix. You can replace your power supply, install new memory, buy a new video card. But it is likely that you are running on borrowed time ... especially if your motherboard is an early version that has the KT133 chipset released last year.

I bought three power supplies, four memory modules, formatted several times, and replaced the video card. It never did any good ... the longest I could continue to run 3D apps after the problem started was two weeks. My final decision was to replace the motherboard and processor in order to finally get some peace of mind, and to be able to run my games without frustration. Understand, I like AMD processors ... and I wanted to avoid Intel (and beat the higher prices) ... but in the end, I had no choice but to change platforms.

Here is the link to the GeForce Faqs page.

<A HREF="http://www.geforcefaq.com/" target="_new">http://www.geforcefaq.com/</A>

Here is another link to a page that describes the problems with the power leads. Unfortunately, the mainboard list is not complete ... but I can attest that MSI K7T Pro/KT133 mainboards are highly susceptible to this problem, from personal experience. ALL of the mainboards on the list are either VIA-based, or have the older version of the 440BX chipset. I checked ... but you are welcome to do so for yourself, if you wish to verify the information.

<A HREF="http://www.insanehardware.com/articles.php?i=0003" target="_new">http://www.insanehardware.com/articles.php?i=0003</A>

Feel free to contact me if you wish to have more detailed information. This is not just an opinion ... I have compiled enough information on this subject to choke a horse. I am not the type of person who submits without a fight, and I did everything physically possible to fix my system and keep it running. Unfortunately, the only solution when dealing with badly designed, faulty hardware is to replace it with something stable that actually works.

<A HREF="mailto:jtfoote@hotmail.com">jtfoote@hotmail.com</A>

Note: I have been flamed about this before, sometimes from people who really seem to hate Intel, occasionally from people who seem to really love VIA, and twice from people who appear to have no problems with their systems, and like to gloat about it. That's your business, and I don't have a problem with it ... (if the email is just plain dumb, or written by someone who appears to be illiterate, I just delete it. I don't mistake inexperience for stupidity, but I know dumb when I see it.) But this forum is not really meant for that purpose, and the information I post here is for real people, with real problems. I'm not "political", and I don't give a damn who makes the hardware ... all I care about is if it runs correctly in my can without giving me headaches or costs me money I can ill-afford to spend.

And that IS my opinion, for whatever it's worth.

Toejam31

<font color=purple>If there was a reason for everything, having faith would be redundant.</font color=purple>

I'm afraid that there is any "fits-all" answer. Sometimes, problems are not clearly explained too. We answer the best we can with the information we get.

It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick!