ATI x700 256mb GDDR3 AGP Help.

[alerque]

Hi, I'm brand new to the forums here and already I have a problem that I need some help with. I recieved, for Christmas, the ATI Radeon x700 Pro 256mb GDDR3 AGP graphics card to replace my Radeon 9600 256mb AGP. I knew I was getting the card so I upgraded my PSU from an Antec 300w to a Suntec 450w. I also upgraded my ram from 1024mb to 2048mb.

My problem is this: I install the card into the computer (I've been taking computers apart and putting them back together for years), connect the PSU to the card, restart the computer and install the drivers (a clean install after uninstalling all previous drivers and wiping it with drivercleaner), then restart again. Everything works fine until I get to the windows login screen where I'll have a sort of checkerboard of vertical and horizontal lines that are pixelated and squashed together. When I click on the login button I have about thirty seconds to 2 minutes before the computer locks up and reboots or drops me to a blue screen windows 'stop' event. Then, when the computer restarts again I'm usually treated to a display of 640x480 in 4bit color depth which I cannot change until I restart in VGA mode or uninstall the cards drivers again. The stop message I get sometimes is as follows:
STOP: 0x0000008E (0xc0000005, 0xBFA1D2D3, 0xA85E37C4, 0x0000000)

ati2cqag.dll - Address BFA1D2D3 base at BFA18000, DateSamp 4563bb45

Like I said I've tried fresh installs of all the drivers, I've tried it with and without the catalyst control center, I've tried it with the Omega drivers. I've even uninstalled all of the Symantec programs on the computer because I read somewhere that that might have been the problem. I'm kinda at my wits end because all of ATI's phone lines are busy all day long and their ticket system has yielded nothing more than generic information.

My system information is thus:
Intel D865PERL Motherboard
1g DDR266 (2x512mb)
1g DDR400 (2x512mb)
450w Suntec PSU
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with SP2
Microsoft .NET 3.0

I'm not sure what else might be necessary but any help I can get one way or the other would be greatly appreciated. Thanks alot.

[mjolnir1134]

The "STOP" 0x0000008E error is mentioned in Microsoft's website:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315335

Originally Posted by Micro$oft

CAUSE
This behavior may occur if one of the following conditions is true:
• One or more of the random access memory (RAM) modules that are installed on your computer are faulty.
• The RAM configuration is incompatible with Windows XP.

Seems to me that the new RAM you bought could be the culprit to this problem. Remove that newer stick(s) of RAM you added in the computer and see what happens when you run it with just 1GB of RAM.

[alerque]

thanks I'll give that a try and see if there's any difference.

[alerque]

nope that didn't work, tried both sets seperately and no luck. Any other suggestions?