Problems with ati 9100

[thebruce]

Hi , Just got a 9100 the other day , as an upgrade to my old geforce 2 32meg , and another stick of 256MB Ram (pc133). After some probelms with it ealry on due to a problem with the power supply being too weak i finally got up and running . I had uninstalled the drievrs from my Nvidia card through add/remove programs before installing , and installled my new card and the 3.4 catalyst drivers . After i had installed everything I went to play warcraft 3 , I got about 10 minutes into a game when I crash to desktop with this Error (not exact but almost) :
Fatal Error!
Program: C:\Programfiles\Warcraft3\war3.exe
Exception 0xC000005(access violation) at 001B:6F008863
The Instruction at 0xF08B83 referenced memory at 0x9A6DFCb0
The memory could not be 'read'

I kinda brushed it off , figuring it could be just a fluke or something , so I started it up again and got the same message after about 20 mins .
After that I decided to play some planetside beta , also this time crashed to desk as game was loading(this could be because its beta) no error message .Played a few other games , all of which crashed to desk or bluescreened with the message :

The Problem has been caused by the file : Ati3d2ag.dll
Page Fault in nonpaged area

So I was kinda irritated and went to a different sight and saw a post about "foolproof uninstall/install guide" and I followed the directions there (deleting stuff in registry and some other files aftyer uninstall . Installed the drivers that came with the disk this time (cat 3.2) , played WC3 for about an hour without any crashes . Then Logged onto Everquest , after about 2 hours , I got dropped to desktop with no error message , logged back on , got dropped immediately . Played WC3 again today for about 2 hours , got a blue screen with the error :

The Problem has been caused by the file : Ati3d2ag.dll
Page Fault in nonpaged area

Again , played another hour with no errors , but came here to make this post .
Ive been told it sounds like a memory problem from a person or 2 , another said i should reformat , another said reinstall the drivers (ive done this several times now) , any ideas what to do?

System Specs are :

Athlon 1.1 ghz processor
Kt133 Motherboard
Maxtor 30 gig HD
768 MB SDRAM (pc133)
9100 Radeon card
SBlive xgamer soundcard

Also , ive been running DX 9.0 , and then 9.0a

P.S. Im sorry if this is the wrong forum for this question . if so just tell me .

[thebruce]

Oops , forgot , also im using windowsxp sp1 , and up to date BIOS .

[homeworld1031tx]

Um, if you are running in "aggressive" memory settings in BIOS for the sytem RAM set those down to standard. Also, try lowering the AGP appature size, and also lower all the other AGP/system RAM related things down to defualt. If this does not work, try reinstalling the card and drivers. Try deleting the DLL file for the card, or, better yet, do this. Try downloading the driver, unzipping it, and then you can find the .dll that says ati3d2ag.dll in the newly unziped downloaded one, and put it in the place where the bad corrupt version is, not keeping the bad one.

[thebruce]

I have all my stuff at default ( except a few settings but nothing to do with RAM) , I just reinstalled drivers again ( a different version) so im gonna try that nw , thanks for the reply it is greatly apreciated , this problem has me about ready to toss the computer out of the window ;)

[thebruce]

well , that didnt work =/ still error with the same file after reinstall ( i made sure that file was deleted too) . Trying some older drivers I guess , wish me luck ;p

[homeworld1031tx]

If you just bought the Video card, you should return it, because i've heard there going to have another price drop, and it will save you lot of trouble, and your computer won't get thrown out the window(i'm pretty sure it won't apreciate that ;) ) Try going for a 9500 card, and its probably the cards fault, not urs. and thatnk u for the thank u for the help. :cheers: :cheers:

[thebruce]

gonna reformat (im due anyhow its been almost 6 months) , if it doesnt work still i guess i will just return it like you said hehe .

[Anti]

I don't think you need to reformat. (Edit: You are using DX9) Try reinstalling the drivers. This time after you uninstall.
Go to your registry Hk_LM\software and delete the ATI folders. Then to HK_LM\system\CCS\CONtrol\Video delete the ones that have references to ATI. Then go to your Windows folder>system32 and delete the ati* files. That's where the one your geting the error message about is. Do the same in the drivers folder in system32. Then reboot and reinstall. P.I. has a guide to installing drivers around here some where. If I find it I'll post a link. I have a 9000 card myself and have had trouble with that file all so. Make sure you edit your registry. On reboot cancel the windows found new hardware then run the EXE. Hope this helps.

[maximus7001]

I had a similar message a few months ago when a stick of ram toasted. it was a 256 pc133 single sided hynyx i think. after removing the faulty ram, the problem went away.

[thebruce]

Well it seems to be working now , really apreciate the advice guys . took out the ram and switched it around and made sure to clean out the slots , and totally erased anything to do with ati oon my computer , and DLed the omega modded ati drivers . Have played C&C generals and freelancer so far for about an hour each (these were the 2 that would crash the fastest , within 1-5 mins) without any probs so i think im in the clear . Thanks again for the help its greatly apreciated .

[thebruce]

Well , I spoke too soon =( . Since that time my computer has been restarted and now its back to its old ways , i took out the peice of ram I thought was bad and still probs..gaaaaaaaaaah . heh .

[maximus7001]

well have u tested the memory, u have to test it to make sure its not the problem. goto www.search.com and search for gold memory and download it and use it on 1 stick at a time. It is hard to find but it works good. I have found 4 sticks of mem in customers machines that have errors with that program.
Just download it and double click the install.bat(make sure u have a bootable dos floppy in drive a).
To make 1 u go to format a floppy and choose the bootable dos in the format options.

Then shut down and set the bios to boot from floppy and youre happening.

[thebruce]

Well , I ended up formatting and that didnt help . So I tested the memory , the new peice was corupt ( wouldnt even boot up with JUST that one in it) . Brought it in and got a new one , and a new vid card ==P (same one , but even exchanged incase its defective ..) , Still getting errors....gonna try an older version of the driver , and then see if my old card works ok and go from there =/ geh .

[thebruce]

screw it , I looked on another site and it seems alot of people ( the thread had over 200 responses) have problems running this (cant run it at all in most cases) video card with my motherboard , time for a ti4200! heh . thanks everyone for the help , though .