Bewildering computer problems

[Bladefury]

Ok, so I bought a new hard drive.
I figure, hey, I'll put a fresh install of Windows on it.
So I load up windows, everything is going great.
Then, I install the newest ATI Radeon 9600 XT drivers. (Catalyst 6.2)
Now, every once in a while, the computer will stop responding and just restart itself.
I've tried older drivers, and the same problem happens.
If I turn hardware acceleration in the Display Settings to NONE, then the computer stops restarting itself. However, I can't play WoW or anything else with zero hardware acceleration.
I've tried reinstalling the drivers, I've tried using Driver Cleaner Pro and then reinstalling, and nothing is working.
I recall having this same problem with the first hard drive I had with this video card too, but I don't remember how I fixed it.

Any suggestions?

[makist]

Sounds like the heat capacitors in your video card are kicking it off. Or something like that

[Bladefury]

I thought about heat, but both the video card and the heatsink on it are cool to the touch. The restarts can occur at lots of different times. Sometimes I'll be browsing the internet, other times looking through My Computer files.

Come to think of it, it only happens when I'm using explorer in some way or another... hmm...

[Rune]

This happened to me a while ago. Turns out the video card was bad.


sooo..uhh. Dunno what your deal is.

[Cathan]

My first guess is still a cooling issue. Hands don't make for good temp gauges either. If your hardware has a temp sensor look for a program that will tell you what the real temp is on your gear. I can't say if a 9600xt has a temp gauge or not though honestly. I would certainly take a look at the fans to see if their laden with dust and barely working, or anything else obvious like that.

Every now and then I get a bad install of windows for whatever reason. You might wanna format just to try that as well. Odds are you don't have any real important data on there yet if it's a fresh install anyway.

[Bladefury]

Catalyst drivers tell me its 39 degrees C, with overdrive turned on.

[Scorpvenom]

I used to have this problem with an old ati card. It's probably a driver issue. I know this sounds shitty but try rolling back to a really early driver version, something in the catalyst 5.x range. It will have the majority of the new tweaks for your card and probably allow it to run stable.

[foddon]

I'd take a look in event viewer and see if any errors are being logged when the computer restarts. Usually, if it just reboots out of the blue, that means there was a crash of some sort that will be logged. Once you find the error, check the manufacturers support site (assuming it's video card related) and search the web for solutions with the error information. You can also go to Control Panel\System\Advanced\Startup and Recovery and turn off the automatic restart to see the crash information (and find the location of the memory dump in case you need it for support).

[Bladefury]

Well I finally fixed it, not to much satisfaction though.

In the SMARTGART section of Catalyst, I turned AGP from 8x to Off. Zero problems at all now.

I'm guessing there is something wrong with the card itself, so I'm planning on replacing it anyway.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130256

Any opinions on this card? eVGA a good company? Decent price? Anything better for the same price?

Edit: and yes, I'd be buying a new motherboard to use the pci express, since mine only supports agp.

[Bralkan]

Card works well in my uncles box.

Think its the best price you can get on a 7800gt last time I checked.

[Chamsie]

I had a problem once that sounds a lot like what your experiencing. I found out that in my case I didn't have a power supply that was able to support the graphics card I bought and had to get a new one to make it keep from rebooting.