GF2 Ultra keeps making my OS crash....

**Tekk** · December 28th, 2001, 06:45 PM

I have a GF2 Ultra (hercules) and I have just purchased a P4 1.5 with the D850 Intel Mobo. I was planning on using Win2k so when I started the installation, it was ok but when it got to the point right before installing, it froze. It just kept doing it. I took out every peripheral card and just had the bare minimum and still it froze. Finally I just put in an old PCI vid card and bam it works. I remembered hearing about a possible problem when installing Win with the GF2U so I just said whatever.

Unfortunately it didn't stop....it just kept crashing at totally random times. ESPECIALLY when it would be a somewhat graphical application (IE games or even the screen saver).

So I had a copy of XP and decided to try that. Same installation problem as before. Put in the PCI vid and it worked fine. After replacing the PCI with the GF2U once the OS was installed...again with the damn random crashes!!!

Even in Win98 it is unstable for some reason.

I have the newest BIOS for the mobo and again..heres the setup:

Some OS (98SE, 2k, XP)
P4 1.5ghz
D850 Intel Mobo
2 256MB RDRAM RIMMs (with the other 2 RIMMs filled with those blank ones)
Hercules GF2 U running newest XP drivers from nVidia
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum

Its strange.....any help???????/

**Philip1952** · December 28th, 2001, 07:53 PM

There is a problem with the 23.00 and up drivers. Have you tried a set of 21.00 or 22.00 series.
I noticed some problems with the 23.00's when I used them on my GTS in a 850 chipset.
I am on 98 first edition.

**Tekk** · December 29th, 2001, 04:00 AM

Ok thats an idea but what about the whole crashin during the install??? No drivers are really installed for it then yet it still occurs. To me it sounds like a possible faulty mobo.

Something occured again today...after I was finally able to install XP (using my OLD PCI vid card) I left it in and tried to install my audigy platinum drivers for the sound card. The damn computer crashed at the install-sheild progress bar. I left if for a while and it just didn't do anything (cause I know that sometimes it takes a little while for the sheild to load and stuff). I rebooted....then I shutdown and reinstalled my GF2U. I installed the latest drivers for the GF2U and then I tried to install the drivers for the audigy again. NO LUCK!!! At least this time I was able to get to about 35% of the installation before it crapped out on me AGAIN. Everything just seems to pointing to the damn motherboard...no matter what I do it just keeps locking up. These devices worked fine with my pentium 3.

**Philip1952** · December 29th, 2001, 10:05 AM

A bad stick of ram can cause the lock up also. I had a bad stick from Kingston when I put this comuter together. Try swaping the memory around in the same slots you are useing now. #1 stick to #2 position.
Intel makes good boards. I would look at memory first. I am on an 850 chipset also. But I have a Abit TH7-11 board.
On the sound card. Do you have the XP drivers or are you using the drivers from the cd for the card? That is a drivers problem sounds like for the sound card.
Is this clean install of OS? Are you using upgrade cd's or full install disks?

**KenKun** · December 29th, 2001, 11:34 AM

During setup the system become so sensitive with RAM (as i had many problems because of them

) ..

I will suggest to do your installation with one stick of RAM only coz that did the trick for me .. after setup and everything is well, replace the other stick in..

Try it coz it might work there .. though not sure

Regards

**Philip1952** · December 29th, 2001, 11:55 AM

850 chipset is Rdram. You must use two sticks at all times.

**Tekk** · December 30th, 2001, 04:32 PM

Philip is right....but maybe it is bad ram...I'll try and ask my friend to use his so that I can borrow it and test. And it is a clean install of the OS. I'll try the newest drivers from the Sound Blaster Website.

Thanks..I'll keep you updated.

**Syntax404** · December 31st, 2001, 03:46 AM

Well I tried the same setup but in a different motherboard/cpu setup. I tried it on my P3 cpu with the VC820 intel mobo. Worked great. So I guess it actually is the motherboard. the RAM seems to work just dandy. Weird....this is about the 3rd mobo Ive been thru. The first two were screwed up on delivery....this one is just screwed up.....

This is Tekka BTW