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Old January 26th 05, 12:09 PM
Paul
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In article ddzJd.6348$IJ5.267@okepread02, "Richard Higgins"
wrote:

If you are going to use an Athlon 64 and use Microsoft Word, don't get a
Radeon 9800. I don't know about any other Radeons. Their driver (Catalyst)
and MS Word do not play together well. Running MS Word will cause your
system to automatically reboot, usually within 2 minutes after MS Word has
started.

If you are having this problem already, uninstall the Radeon driver and see
if MS Word works. You'll see that it does. Reinstall the drivers and MS
Word won't work.

There are some that have installed old versions of the Radeon drivers and
even Radeon 9600 drivers for their Radeon 9800 and got MS Word to work with
it.

Radeon's fix is to dummy down the board to where you might as well have
gotten a cheap generic graphics card.

My solution was to get an nVidia 6800. Works like a charm.

-------------
Richard A. Higgins


Based on other threads of yours, it seems you are making an assumption
that since you managed to install an OS on your new computer, and
it doesn't crash right away, that all the hardware is well adjusted
and fault free.

There are a couple of test programs you should be aware of.

Memtest86 is a free test program from memtest.org . It is available
in two versions - one version formats a bootable floppy for you,
while the other version is used to prepare a bootable ISO CD.
Memtest86 is unique, in that it tests all of the memory on the
computer - it even "moves" the executable out of the way and
tests the memory underneath.

Memtest86 should be error free in an extended testing period
(like at least a couple of hours). If memtest86 is finding errors,
you need to look into adjusting the BIOS on your computer. One
quick fix, is to bump up Vdimm to a level suitable for high
performance memory. (2.75V shouldn't hurt anything.)

The second program you should get a copy of, is Prime95 from
mersenne.org . Prime95 contains a built-in test function, called
the "torture test". When the "torture test" is run, Prime95
carries out a calculation with a known result. If Prime95
detects an error in this calculation, it will print the
error to the screen. I find Prime95 can find speed related
errors that don't happen in memtest86, so running both programs
has value.

If you cannot run both of these programs error free, solve the
underlying problem first, before proceeding further.

In another thread I found in Google from you:

"I'm using an ASUS A8V deluxe with 2GB RAM and no overclocking."

If you are using 4 x 512MB of memory, the BIOS should have set
the command rate to 2T. That setting is used to help the memory
controller work with the heavy loading caused by four sticks of
memory. You may also find that some adjustments to the other
memory timings are required to get the computer to work properly.

We haven't even gotten to the video card yet. The above two tests
don't have much of any interaction with the video card. Once the
CPU and memory are tuned up, you can accelerate testing on your
video card, with a benchmark like 3DMark2001SE or equivalent.
Benchmarks pass a lot of data through the video card hardware,
and this could help identify if the actual GPU or memory on the
video card has a problem. Accelerating the testing is important,
since one hour of running 3DMark2001SE in demo mode, without
crashing, is the equivalent of running for hundreds of hours
with Microsoft word on the screen. Pumping a lot of data
through the video card will prove that the card can be used
for more mundane purposes.

Powerstrip from entechtaiwan.com , can be used to check the
configuration of the AGP interface. The Options item in the
popup menu, will display how the hardware is set up, and will
identify if you've installed chipset drivers, video card
drivers, and DirectX properly. If something registers as
being "disabled" in the Options screen, figure out why.

There is a lot of testing you have to do, before you can make a
blanket statement like the one you've just dropped on us.

Hope that helps,
Paul