Radeon 8500 freeze/crash in WinXP

[Slashco]

I've had this problem for quite a while and am not sure what to do. I have a Pentium 833 with an ATI Radeon 8500 video card, which has given me many headaches. It would constantly cause Windows to completely freeze and force me to restart the computer (this happened every 10 minutes or so). Downloading new drivers didn't help, in fact some versions seemed to make the problem worse.

The only solution I found was to completely disable the AGP aperture (set the slider which goes from 1x to 4x, to 'off'). If I did this, there were no more problems, but it also means some games and applications ran slower than they normally could.

I wrote to ATI twice and never received an answer. Does anybody have any ideas and/or suggestions to help me? Thanks in advance.

[ski]

Make sure that the video card is fully inserted, and its fan is running.

If they're ok, then try the latest drivers.

If that does not work, then remove the computer's cover, and run an external fan.
If that fixes things, then install an additional case fan or two.
Recommended locations are upper rear and lower front of the case.

If nothing works, then the card may be defective.

[amory76]

i have the same problem with same video card exactly, i have done all these things but didn't help, i even formated my computer more than 5 times, changed fan to 360 watt. nothing changed. the problem is with the file ATI2VAG. i forgot the type of this file i think sys or soemthing. so if there is anyone who experienced this problem or has suggestion please speak up. thanx.


athlon 1400 TB
512 ddr
SB live gamer

[Slashco]

I've got the same soundcard (SB Live 5.1 Gamer), could there be a connection? What type of motherboard do you have?

[amory76]

at this point i am not sure of anything, but that could be possible.
i really can't remember the motherboard type but it's an athlon thunderbird with 1.4 cpu. i first thought it wasn't totaly compatible with athlon but it's not that i guess.