Monitor Displaying Out of Range error

[BluMunk]

Hey all.

I'm running a Radeon 9600 Pro on an AMD Athlon 3200+, and am having a bit of a problem.

It's actually a problem that's grown a bit.

Basically, when I play some graphics-intensive games (Half Life 2, for example), I periodically have the graphic card crash on me. I get an error message, my monitor resolution changes to whatever resolution the game was running in, and either the system will lock up, or I can tab back into the game and keep playing.

Sometimes, while playing, I'll get an "Out of Range 14.9Hz/154kHz" (maybe the Hz/kHz are the other way, I can't remember).

Anyway, I've just installed a new hard drive as my master, so I'm re-installing all my drivers and such. Now when I try to even install the drivers that came with the card I get the "Out of Range" error. It also happened to me about 15 minutes ago while just browsing the web and downloading a file (updated drivers for the video card, actually).

Any clue? I really have no idea what could be causing this. I put up with it when it was intermittent, but now I can't even load my drivers.

System is:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1 Gig Ram
Radeon 9600 Pro
Seagate Ultra/ATA 120 Gig drive master
Seagate SATA 250 Gig drive
etc
etc
etc

[saphalline]

Well...

You can try testing your monitor on another computer to make sure it's not the problem. Play a game and whatnot to test it.

But...

It sounds like your vid card bit the dust. You will most likely have to replace it.

[BluMunk]

Ugh... that's what I'm affraid of. But, assuming that turns out to be the case, got any suggestions for a new video card in the $150 and under range? :)

[saphalline]

A 9600 Pro means you've got an AGP system. About time to replace it, don't you think? ;) Catch up to the year 2004 and go PCIe? :p

In any case, you can keep that old thing moving along for another year or two by buying an AGP version of the GeForce 7600 GS. That would be the best vid card for that price range. Other than that, I would recommend the Radeon X1300 XT and the X1600 Pro/XT. Whatever you can find in your price range.

[BluMunk]

Heh. You know, I built this system in... spring of 2005, to replace my AMD K6-2 300Mhz system running Windows 98 that I'd had since 1998.

I'm very content to have my 6-7 year upgrade phase for my computers, as long as they continue to work well.

Of course, now that I've discovered the joys of building my own, changing a little bit here and a little bit there might leave me with a very different system two years from now. We'll see.

So, I bought the ATI X1300Pro, and so far things seem to be running perfectly. Thanks for the suggestion!

[saphalline]

You are welcome.