I will have to throw that theory about the "Priority Control" tweak having caused those strange black-screen crashes out the window, because I just had another one a couple of hours ago - _without_ that entry being active in the Registry. Specs, once again:

Athlon T-Bird 1.4Ghz
ABit Siluro GF4 MX AGP, 64 MB DDR, GeForce 4 MX440 CPU, nVidia Detonators 28.32
512MB PC133 SDRAM
ECS K7VZA mainboard w/VIA chipset, VIA 4-in-1's 4.35 / AGP drivers 4.20
Gateway EV700 17" monitor

Right now, I'm leaning toward the possibility that the video card might have overheated, because of the specific characteristics of this crash (the video abruptly went out, the computer locked up, and then the monitor self-test box saying "Your computer is working correctly, check the power or the monitor cable) appeared - same as the two previous incidents.) I mention heat because when I reset the system, I went first to BIOS and saw that the CPU was at 125 degrees F and the system was at 113 degrees F, somewhat hotter than normal. I _think_ part of this can be accounted for by the ambient temperature; my air conditioning is having problems (in a Washington summer yet - yeesh! :rolleyes: ) and I was also cooking tonight in the kitchen which, in my small condo, is only about fifteen feet away from where I have the computer, which does its bit to raise the temperature.

Therefore, I'm wondering if the GPU might not have gotten heated up beyond the ability of the heatsink/fan to handle and locked up. I don't _think_ that the card is loose in its slot, but I'll check - my experience is that if the card is loose, I won't get any video at all. It's also possible that there might be a random short somewhere in the system. Then again, the problem might simply be the power supply. As some of you may remember from the "Core Hardware" forum, I yanked the 350W supply I'd had in there previously because it was making the system unstable and also was from a manufacturer with a poor reputation. I replaced it with the 300W AMD-certified supply I'd bought in May to cure underpower/heat problems when my system was situated in the old case. However....I wonder, after all, if 300W is _really_ enough to handle all the stuff I've got in my system, particularly the combo of an Athlon and a GeForce 4. I'm now considering going to an AMD-cert 400W or higher, preferably one of the new dual-fan jobs (you know - with a fan in the bottom of the case as well as the rear). The _big_ problem is, I'm out of money for the time being. :(

In the meantime, I suppose I could try moving the turbine/exhaust fan up a couple of slots so that it blows directly onto the video card; right now, it's positioned in the bottom expansion slot and the airflow pattern may not be optimum.

Anyone got any ideas?

-Joe-

Hello joea64

I'm getting a similar problem though not so badly.

It started with the POST not completing properly. I didn't get the single "beep" at successful completion of POST and the video didn't display. If I kept re-trying it would eventually boot and now I never switch off unless necessary. Sometimes it re-boots without trouble and sometimes not.

Now sometimes I return to the PC to find the display has gone but it re-boots ok.

I deliberately switched off a couple of nights back to see if the problem had gone and it just would not boot. I lifted the cover off and fiddled with some connections and switched on and noticed that the fan tried and failed to spin and the POST failed. At the next try I gave the fan a helpful spin and it kept going and the PC booted.

Could this mean the CPU is overheating and that is preventing successful POST? Or does the PC detect that the fan is not spinning and fail the POST?

Our problems seem similar.

It certainly could be, Sylvander - but then again, it might just be a case of the wrong AGP driver. You see, I had the VIA AGP driver version 4.20 installed (the most recent version of that driver, most of the files are dated 3/15/02). According to the scuttlebutt on the VIA Forums discussion boards, the most recent versions of VIA's 4-in-1 mainboard drivers (including the AGP drivers) have serious problems working well with Windows 9x, especially in conjunction with recent nVidia drivers/hardware, because the VIA drivers were (1) optimized for Windows XP and (2) not formally certified for Windows 9x because Microsoft is no longer certifying drivers for Win9x. Accordingly, the solution is to use VIA 4-in-1 package version 4.35, which is certified for Win9x and includes AGP driver version 4.05, which is relatively old (mostly dating back to 2000) but is certified for Win9x. I also installed the nVidia Detonator drivers version 28.32, which, again, are not the most _recent_, WinXP-ready version, but are solid with Windows 9x (incidentially, I'm running Win98SE). Those drivers have all been installed now, and we'll see how that goes. If further problems occur, we probably will have to go back and look at underpower or heat.

-Joe-

Originally posted by Sylvander
Hello joea64

I'm getting a similar problem though not so badly.

It started with the POST not completing properly. I didn't get the single "beep" at successful completion of POST and the video didn't display. If I kept re-trying it would eventually boot and now I never switch off unless necessary. Sometimes it re-boots without trouble and sometimes not.

Now sometimes I return to the PC to find the display has gone but it re-boots ok.

I deliberately switched off a couple of nights back to see if the problem had gone and it just would not boot. I lifted the cover off and fiddled with some connections and switched on and noticed that the fan tried and failed to spin and the POST failed. At the next try I gave the fan a helpful spin and it kept going and the PC booted.

Could this mean the CPU is overheating and that is preventing successful POST? Or does the PC detect that the fan is not spinning and fail the POST?

Our problems seem similar.

Sylvander - You should consider promptly replacing the faulty fan before things get worse.

joea64 - Sounds like a heat issue maybe. If possible swap out the video card to an old spare.

Originally posted by Gallaeglagh
joea64 - Sounds like a heat issue maybe. If possible swap out the video card to an old spare.

I do have a Powercolor Sniper 2 (nVidia TNT2 Riva M64) card still around, but before I experiment with swapping out video cards, I'm going to try something else. I have one of those turbine/exhaust fan jobs installed in my system; it's currently placed in the bottom expansion slot, but I'm going to see about swapping the fan around with the other PCI expansion cards (my video capture card and my modem, which as far as I know don't produce that much heat) so that the cool air from the turbine blows directly onto the video card and the CPU instead of having to go all the way up from the bottom of the case. As those are the two components that seem to produce the most heat, that might actually help. Also, I am continuing to monitor the system with the version 4.05 AGP drivers installed; if I continue running stable, that probably means that the problem was after all localized in the AGP driver.

-Joe-

I just now yanked the vaunted ABit Siluro GF4 MX GeForce 4 MX440 (64MB) video card that I bought with so much fanfare last month, and replaced it with my old, tried and true Powercolor Sniper 2 TNT2 Riva M64 (32MB). Why? I had two black-screen crashes tonight - the second one after I yanked out the 300W PS I'd previously had in there and replaced it with the 350W PS that had originally graced the case when I bought it (if you can follow this, I replaced it with that 300W because I thought the 300W was a better-quality PS!) The TNT2 isn't quite such a high-powered card, and doesn't require a fan (though it does have a heatsink); more to the point, it served me faithfully from September up until June, and I hope it'll forgive me for jilting it. :) In the meantime, though, I have a GeForce 4 MX440 that I'm pretty much fed up with - I've come to the conclusion, perhaps unjustified (but then you haven't experienced five black-screen system freezes in less than a week, as I have!!) that that card is at the root of all my troubles. If I have {U]another[/U] black-screen crash, I'll probably roll on the floor in a frenzy chewing the carpet. :mad Then I'll have to look at either the CPU, or getting an even more powerful PS. *sigh* Anyone got any comments? Anyone want to buy a slightly used (one month) GeForce 4 MX 440? Anyone got any suggestions on a better video card in the same price range (I might try to trade it in somewhere, because I don't want $80 to go completely up the spout)?

-Joe-

P.S. I just looked at SiSoft Sandra. With the TNT2 installed, my Athlon T-Bird actually now runs about 3 degrees F COOLER than with the GeForce 4! Right now it's at 114.6 degrees F, whereas, before the last crash, it was running somewhere around 117 - 118 degrees F.

Given some time you'll see what happens but if you don't get any crashes maybe warranty will cover it.

Originally posted by Gallaeglagh
Given some time you'll see what happens but if you don't get any crashes maybe warranty will cover it.

We'll see. I need to find the manual and see what it says about warranties, or maybe I can take it back to the store/vendor tomorrow and see if they'll give me some kind of exchange even though the receipt says the refund/exchange period is only 14 days. So far, I haven't had any problems (knock on wood). The TNT2 is relatively old by graphics-card standards - I know the GeForce 3 crowd would turn up their nose at it :) - but it competently handled everything I threw at it from last September up until June (and one needs to keep in mind that I don't play the latest first-person shooter games, the ones that _really_ demand high-end video). About the only thing I ever had problems with was DVD playback, (in the last month or so before I changed cards - before that, 100% OK), but that was probably, in the end, due to driver conflicts with the DVD software (which I think I've fixed now).

-Joe-

I took the GeForce 4 back to the vendor today, who was quite accommodating and let me exchange it for an ATI Radeon 7200 - I even got a bit of cash back on the deal. :) It's been in my computer since before noon, and so far nothing untoward has happened; in fact, the Radeon has handled a level of activity that likely would have made the GeForce choke the past week. (Which leads to the conclusion that perhaps GeForce 4 cards should not be used with mainboards with VIA chipsets, at least not until the compatibility problems are solved.) I also put in an extra dual-fan system cooler today (having installed an Antec TruePower 430W last night, I've got the volts to spare), so I hope I've got everything working properly now.

-Joe-