Radeon 9800 Pro reboot problems

Hello all, this is my 1st post here, and help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a Soyo 7VBA133U mobo, and recently got an ATI 9800 Pro. I reformatted the drive, freshly installed win2k, and upon reboot, I get to the initializing screen (blue task bar), and then followed up with a reboot. This is a continuous cycle.

The mobo is 1/2/4x , AGP 2.0 compliant. The video card requires (as far as I can tell) 4/8x or AGP 3.0, and 4x @ 1.5v or 8x @ .8v. My board used 4x at 1.5v, so that is a match. There are no jumpers on the board to set voltage levels. I am in the process of finding older drivers, as I've tried the newest one, which seem to be causing the problem.

In doing some searching, a user on here by the name of Pyrate, used to have this same set up. Of course, any help from anyone would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

try going into safe mode, using drivercleanerpro to remove all drivers for ati, and then go into normal mode...if you can...and install them over

 

I tried that, didn't work. Actually, I should list all the things I've tried so far, to eliminate false hope, here goes.

Booted Knoppix 3.9, video was fine
Installed new (non .net) drivers, caused reboots
Installed new (.net required) drivers, caused reboots
Installed older drivers, caused reboots
Checked BIOS, it reported 128mb aperture size and 4x, still reboots
Flashed BIOS, still reboots
Checked ATI website, nothing about win2k, my mobo and this card.

I haven't tried the drivers from windows update yet. It is strange because the drivers from windows update are only 5.5 mb, whereas the drivers from ATI are 29.6, or so. I appreciate the help so far, hopefully this will get fixed.

 

Are you sure the mobo is set to x4 in bios,even if it is try using auto.

 

Your mobo use VIA 694T and VGA at 2x or 4X only, check t* of VGA card is it hot? Because it use DDR2.

some drivers maybe help :

http://downloads.guru3d.com/

 

Again, thank you for the suggestions. This is also strange, I downloaded the drivers from the windows update, and rebooted. It came up fine (in 16 colors), but when I tried to change the desktop size to 1024x768, it flickered, then rebooted.

I tried using CPUz and it reports that the mobo is using AGP 2X. I dont' know if it is lying, or if the BIOS is. I'll mess with the BIOS some more, to see what I come up with. I'll also try the drivers from the other site (thanks for the suggestion).

 

I seem to remember having a bit of a problem because of fastwrites although I'm not sure it caused me to not boot ... I know I had them enabled because I scored higher in 3DMark .. anyway, in the BIOS goto Advanced Chipset Features> AGP Fast Write - Enabled

what did you upgrade from? How fast is your CPU?

 

oh .. And I wouldn't use the drivers from windowsupdate.com .. get them straight from ATI.com ... then run drivercleanerpro again ... also clean out whatever card you had installed previously

 

I have an intel P III 1.2 256, and had an fx 5200. I forgot to uninstall the previous drivers, and needed to format anyway, so I did. I tried to change some of the bios settings, and have tried fail safe settings, with the same outcome.

Do you think it's possible that the monitor may be the problem? I am borrowing a rather old GoldStar Studioworks 77i 17in, for the time being, and wonder if that could be it.

I'll try the drivers again, do you happen to remember which drivers you were using? I appreciate the help.

 

I had a reboot problem with my ATI 9800 pro, you already know its a 4x compatible, but prefers 8x yeah? also if your new bios allows it you need to have all the AGP enhancements enabled even if the 4X wont fully support the features of the 8X, and the only way I overcame the reboot problem was I increased the AGP votage from the standard 1.5 volts to 1.6V, the 9800 Pro is POWER GREEDY, your monitor wouldnt cause your pc to restart. Check your power supply is at least 350W + and try the 1.6V on AGP its perfectly safe as the 9800 is fan cooled anyway. Daft question - you did plug the extra power lead into the ATI card didnt you? hope this helps, also the very latest June Drivers dont work for me they cause problems so dropped back to the May 05 ones with no problems.

 

Yes, the card is plugged in, I found out that it gives a boot message problem if it isn't. I'll try enabling all the BIOS enhancements, I was only trying one at a time, and I'll try the voltage increase. Thanks for all the suggestions.

I'm trying not to have to buy a new board, but I would also like a decent vid card for BF2. I may give up the effort and just get a new system, and ebay all my old stuff.

 

when you enable fail safe defaults it undoes all the settings you change

I would set fail safe defaults or maybe better to reset the CMOS then make sure of the following:
advanced chipset> system and video BIOS cache - disabled
video RAM cache - disabled
memory hole - disabled
fastwrites - enabled
agp driving control - auto
agp 4x - enabled
dram timing by spd - enabled
integrated peripherals > Init Display First - AGP
advanced BIOS features > all shadowing - disabled
standard CMOS > video - VGA
soyo combo features> CPU freq. select - auto

those are all the ones that I can remember giving me a problem or just know that they should be set like that

 

Ok everyone, I am officially a dumbass. Here's why:

I was looking throught the pamphlet for the SOYO board. It mentioned something about installing drivers found on the CD. Hmmmmm, ok. Well, I installed the 4in1 drivers, and it installed the (holy shit) AGP2.0 drivers. I tried CPUz again (mobo information program), and it said the board was now AGP 4X, not the 2X max it reported before. I went a bit further and downloaded the newest VIA drivers, and (holy shit) AGP 3.0 compliant.

The card now works like a charm. I also input all the suggestions that you guys gave me. I'll assume they are working as well. I just dont' know why the FX5200 video card worked like a charm (perhaps not at full capacity), but this one wouldn't. Maybe it was 2X/4X. Anyway, long story longer, it works.

Now to find the proper Arctic cooling device.