New PC not compatible with old Monitor?

Hello everyone,

I'm hoping someone can help me with a problem I'm having with my new PC. I'll detail the specs below and then explain the problem. Apologies if this the the wrong forum but at the moment I'm not sure if it's a Hardware or Software issue!

X-Blade Deluxe case with 450W PSU (x-case.co.uk)
A-Bit AV8 3rd Eye Motherboard (K8T800 Pro chipset)
AMD Athlon 64 Winchester 3000+ (Socket 939)
1GB (2 x 512mb) Corsair Value Select DDR400 RAM 2.5 CAS
Maxtor DiamondMax 200Gb 7200rpm Hard Drive
48x DVD Rw Drive
XFX Nvidia 6600GT 128mb Dual DVI Graphics Card (with VGA adaptor)
Windows XP Professional. Version 2002. Service Pack 2

As of yet I have not got round to buying a new TFT monitor so I'm stuck with my old 17" VGA from Time Computers.

The problem I'm having is that when playing certain games (namely Half Life 2 and Delta Force: Black Hawk Down) I can load and possibly play the game for a minute or two, then all of a sudden my screen goes blank. 2 seconds later, the standby light on my monitor comes on. 5 seconds after that my PC tends to reset itself. I can run Windows fine and do anything on my PC, like watch a movie, but it's when I play these two certain games, things go weird. The same did happen with Warhammer: Dawn Of War, but mysteriously, this has started to work after a bit of tweaking, yet the other two still do not.

The strangest part is that I can play Doom 3 (possibly the most graphically demanding game to date) and Call of Duty absolutely perfectly. Neither of these games have caused my monitor/system to crash once.

I first thought it was down to my refresh rate but in 1024 x 768 I can get a refresh rate of 75hz. The graphics card is working well with the latest drivers and Direct x9.0b installed. The card and my entire system are well ventilated and run at a comfortable 30-50 C.

I'm not a complete PC retard but this has got me stumped! Apparently it may help if I update my BIOS but I'll have to get an I.T friend to do that because it looks pretty complicated.

Does anyone have any ideas what the problem could be? Hardware issue? PSU? Monitor? Graphics Card?

Software Issue? Graphics Drivers?

I have already sought help from XFX and they're replies are quoted below.

[your initial question...] Hello XFX. Yesterday my friend and I put together my new PC which has an XFX 6600GT 128Mb
AGP Graphics Card. I thought it was working fine until I attempted to play some games. When I start up a game
(Warhammer: Dawn Of War, Half Life 2, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down) I have approximately 2 minutes of playing time
and then my computer resets itself. The monitor (17 inch VGA) goes blank, the standby light comes on and a few seconds
later, the system decides to re-boot itself. Any ideas what`s going wrong? I am not overclocking the card and according
to the nVidia tool, the card is running at no more than 55 degrees celsius. I have installed the latest drivers and
Microsoft Direct X 9 so can`t figure out the problem. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards, Matthew

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Matt

 

OK, firstly, welcome to MajorGeeks

My first incline is drivers, but you've mentioned that you've updated etc.

So it does look like either the games not installed quite right or the monitor as you mentioned could have had it, it sometimes randomly happens.
Have you tried reinstalling the games, and setting a screen rate, where possible?
And is it possible to try a new monitor? If you lived near me, I could easily give you a spare 15" CRT to try but....yeh!

Hope that's of some help!

 

"We recommend setting BIOS optimal defaults but disable AGP fast-writes, set the AGP speed
to 4x and frequency to 66MHz (if these options are available)."

Did you try these? Worked for my old GeForce4800 when I had a similar problem, except that I didn't have to set AGP to 4x.

Refresh rate shouldn't be a problem except when you have "force refresh rate" option enabled in your drivers. I haven't tested this myself but I've heard it can cause trouble with some games.

This doesn't sound like a monitor problem to me...