GeForce4 and Windows XP - goddamit
 

well, i got ANOTHER brand of GF4, hoping that the "random freezing in xp" bug would leave my system; this attempt has failed.

everytime i enter XP it freezes after a random amount of minutes. i have the newest nVidia drivers from their website.....

does anyone have a good solution to this?

basically every gf4 has probs with winxp, try reinstalling winxp while haveing your gf4 installe :p you wont get far at all, it freezes and blacks out system right when it gets to setup menu. Leave it to nvidia to make a good product bad. You are just shit out of luck, i kinda suspect its a hardware problem, because even in 16 dos, problems are present. Get a new vid card, gf4's are piles of shit.

ain't dat a bitch!?! :(

does anyone else know anything about this?

Maybe you can try doing a system restore to an earlier point, I use to have that same problem and I fixxxed it like that.

I've never heard about this problem. I'd recommend that you try upgrading your BIOS firmware, as well as all of your drivers (particularly the chipset drivers).

I have a Gainward GF4 Ti4200 and XP... never had any problems with it at all! Though I hate XP and am going back to 2000 soon :p

I don't think that's right. I don't have a gf4, but I know tons of people that have gf4's and winxp. If there was a big problem like that, I'm sure it would have been reported.


So, liquid, here is what I would do. Take out every component that is not nessessary. So, just have you mobo, prosessor, ram, video card, and hard drive. Install WinXP off that. Then slowly add the rest of your parts one by one, testing to make sure that that is not the cause of the problem. I think that is the standard troubleshooting procedure when something doesn't work.

the frontside bus of your machine adversly effects the pci and agp slots, the faster your machine is, the more power it saps, geforce 4's sap power like a hungry nympho, its time to buy a 400watt power suppy, 250 and 300 no longer cut it, that SHOULD resolve the problem, if it isnt that, make sure all your ran is the same speed (2100, 2700, or .. ugh, SD, but then, if you can afford a geforce 4, you can afford a pc with ddr.

make sure your chipset drivers are up to date, there are brand new drivers for VIA out right now, and some ALi ones comming soon, make sure your machine isnt overclocked, and make sure it isnt overheating, all of that taken into account, it should work okay.

also, if your motherboard has an AMD chipset, you will REQUIRE the AGP patch for WinNT, as most AMD based motherboard chipsets seem to dislike winnt+agp.

This article may be of some help, but like Neko said, the chief suspect here is probably the PSU.

ooh, that's right. The Gf4 draws a ton of power. I forgot. Liquid, what kind of power supply do you have? You might want to look at a namebrand (like Enermax) 400 watt or something.

Sure, the GF4 may need lots of power, but there's some other things here...

Please answer these questions liquid: (I don't know what kind of computer you have though)

1. What processor are you using? (athlon, P4, and also the power of the processor)
2. What is your bus speed?
3. How much RAM?

this is a widespread problem, as i have been told on irc. supposedly SP1 for XP will be fixing it, but dammit, i want it now!

amd duron 750mhz
512mb ram.

How do I find out how powerful my power supply is? I`m thinking about getting a GF4, and I definitely don`t want anything to be messed up about it. :rolleyes:

It seems more like a driver problem because with my original ATI Radeon DDR 64MB Vivo card, XP will freeze and crash all the time with WinXP Pro. Trust me, I just spent 4 hours fixing it. :(

Get the new all-in-one pack of drivers from nVidia located here and install that. I have a new Intel board and I know ATI is notorious for crappy drivers, but with the driver update, everything runs smoothly...comparable to a baby's bottom... ;)

well, i did get the newest drivers, and still it freezes....damn the luck!

Bullseye. There's your problem. You're trying to hold fifty gallons in a ten gallon bowl. Make a turtle run a mile in 30 minutes. Shoot seven bullets at a time with a six-shooter. However you look at it, you're trying to make something do something it wasn't designed for. Upgrade your processor and you'll be better. Check your GF4 box and see the requirements, it's probobally "1Ghz or higher" or something of the like.

no, the box just says AMD athlon...so i assume mine will work.

Still, you're trying to make 20 gallons of water fit in a five-gallon jug. Just upgrade the processor or downgrade the graphics card. You can get a P4 1.6 Ghz processor for around 300 bucks.

dont bother with that crap, simply set the AGP transfer rate to 1x and disable features such as sidebanding and direct write buffer, having a slow processor doesnt effect how a card crashes, it effects how fast it runs, true running a card at 2x on a slow proc will cause lockups, but not death as youve mentioned.
its still my personal beleif that its your power unit

No the processor is definitely not the problem. You do not need a 1+ Ghz processor for a GF4. I 200 Mhz processor should work just fine.

perhaps i'll take a deeper look into this issue. i thought i had at least a 300w.

i had a 300 watt psu, and the combination of my optic mouse and gefroce 4 still caused problems, im, on a 450 watt psu now, and it hasnt messed up once

damn. thing is, i'm getting my new machine in november, so i dont really want to spend any more money on upgrades....dammit.

dont have to, buy a case now with a 400 watt power supply, and just buy the contents later when you upgrade, a new case with psu is only around £40 / $65

not really an option, neko, but thanks! :) i'm kinda buying a whole package that includes a nice case, so i can just wait.

unless this other guy's way works, then i'll be set :P

I have a 300W psu in my new box now, but until yesterday, I thought I lost everything. :( In an attempt to 'clean' up the house, I was forced to remove everything from my computer desks, including everything electronic, so that we could lay down a new desk carpet. So I put everything on the floor and my case on the table because the floor was take. But, as my dad was ready to start working again after talking a little with my mom, he turned around and my case fell. :( I heard a loud crash, but luckily everything works fine. :) And it was a pretty high fall for a computer, 2 feet.

But, getting back to the topic, if XP SP1 is supposed to fix it, I'd just use a different computer until then, or I'd boot into safe mode all the time. Another thing you may consider doing, is installing Windows ME onto your computer in the meantime.

back when i had a lowly amd k6-2 400, i had a big argument with my current gf (this was a few years ago), and i threw my comp out of the second floor window

sufice to say all that broke was the case and the power unit fan, other then a loose ide cable it was fine.

but then again, back in the day pc cases were built like brick sh@*.. outhouses..

Just a suggestion.

You currently have a pc, so i suggest the following
Make a list of things you would like (you already have a geforce 4)
eg.. (if you went amd)

Amd KT333 based motherboard, 512Mb ddr
Athlon XP 2000+ +heavy duty fan
Ibm 60gb ata133 hard drive
a 32x cdrw drive
dvd drive
Audigy sound card
Nice new case
Floppy drive
Cables for stuff
new monitor (?)
New keyobard and mouse.

now, if you went to a place and bought a package pc, you would have little options as to what contents go inside your pc, all they'd tell you is the basic specs, however, they often use dated hardware that can barely run the other component, such as motherboards that are a year old and can barely handle a athlon xp 2000+, instead of one that can handle it easilly, also,. they will say "512 mb ddr!" however, they wont say if its 2100 or 2700, if you take the time to buy the components yourself from varous places, comparing prices, in the longrun you will have a fast, upgradable computer, for a much much less pricetag.

and if you need assistance building the machine, use your current pc to come online and ask any of us.

ewwww.

Neko: I was able to custom build the computer. Below is a list of the components.

There have been problems reported with XP/geforce/via chips causing random lockups in both 2d and 3d.

Atmo is correct.

Actually, I think I forgot to mention this, but the random lockups I've encountered were with Windows XP (duh!) and the drivers packed with it's release and the vid card was a nVidia GeForce 4 420 Go, and that still freezes/locks up with drawing things in 3D, so I'd just wait till XP SP1 comes out and it should fix both ATI's and nVidia's issues...

Now I know why I'm still useing 98SE.

Stable like a rock.

However, I am enjoying my 512MB of DDR RAM, and will shortly be upgrading to probably an XP1700 or so as processor prices drop.

I have a GF4 MX440, sure it doesn't have all the UberFeatures of the Ti cards, but it does the job.

Liquid are you using strictly IDE or are you using a SCSI hookup? a SCSI may clear up the problem...unsure though.

It's nothing but the processor. Just Upgrade the processor and it will fix it!

perhaps i will.

anyone suggest a good place to buy like a 1.2ghz duron?

http://www.pricewatch.com/1/3/4382-1.htm

32 bucks.

if your in the US, get all of your hardware from Infotech (a local store for those of us that live around Seattle), or newegg (THE best internet reseller ever).

well, i updated my agp drivers, and got the newest build of the nvidia drivers...also updated the bios.

i hate to jinx myself, but it seems to be working :)

and dammit, i ordered a 1.2ghz already :P

well, it was working for a while, then i tried to post in here because it froze again, and now it seems to be working fine.

nagga nooch!

*collapses laughing* really? that must be one hell of a special edition! the last time i used 98SE evrything died, the memory and registry clogged up and program fragments were left hidden all over the hard drive. 2k pro is clearly the way forward.

*cough*does anybody know if the problems also affect 2k? it's a very similar OS*cough*

From the article I posted a link to above:

I solved my infinite loop problems by ditching my old Compaq and building my own system :)