Help Needed Badly

[markibanez]

I can't play any 3d game on my computer. Anything that has to do with 3d graphics crashes.

Some games exit right away when the gameplay starts. Others generate an error. Others cause

my PC to reboot. After Windows loads, it reports that it has recovered from a serious

error. When i submit my error to Microsoft, it responds that the crash was caused by a

driver. But it couldn't tell which exact driver caused the crash.

Here are the specs of my computer:

Windows XP Pro Operating System
AMD Athlon XP 1.6 Ghz
ECS K7VMM+ Motherboard with VIA Chipset
512MB Ram (2 256MB DDR)
NVIDIA Riva TNT2 M64 video card
*nothing is overclocked

I already ran memory tests using microsoft's memory diagnostics. All memory chips passed

each and every test. I tried using different versions of VIA IDE and VGA drivers to no

avail.I tried swapping video cards and still crashes occur. I tried turning off virtual

memory and still 3d games crash. I tried updating my BIOS, it didn't work. I tried

different settings and the computer still crashes.

I ran Windows XP driver verifier and these are the unsigned drivers:

cdac15ba.sys MacroVision Security Driver
pqntdrv.sys Powerquest Boot Mode Driver
secdrv.sys MacroVision Security Driver
viapfd.sys VIA PFD Driver
vvbbeth.sys VVB Ethernet Driver
vvbususb.sys Virata USB VVB Bus Driver

Any help would be deeply appreciated.

Mark Ibañez

[solraun]

damned, i got the same thing,

specs:
amd 2.6 +
via kt 400 mainboard
1gb ram (2 512mb)
ati radeon 9700 pro

but my problem is a bit different:
some games cause a crash with some amazing visaul effects, means my whole display is full of different colors, but the computer still runs, i can work further, but is dont see anything, this makes me think about my gpu, which could be overheated (this ocurs for example in maya 5.0 and in painkiller demo)

but, i can play max payne 2 for about 8 hours with no problems,

the second type of crash is much less intressting:
i start a game, for example ut2004 demo, and it causes a crash after playing some time (30 min), after that when i reboot it crashes again but at the begining, after 5min. seconds before it crashes i can hear a loud *crack* from my computer, it sounds like a hdd, but louder. just like you would think it sounds when your hdd is beeing destroyed by himself.
but im not sure if it is hdd which causes the sounds

[solraun]

and then, sometimes i can play all the games for hours, without a crash.
i saw that it depends on the resolution, how lang i can play, the higher the shorter,

could it be the north bridge? it hasnt got a fan, and it gets rather hot

PLEASE help me, i wanna play without fear again :P

PS: the doublepost is cause of the maximum length of 1000 chars :P

[Play_The_0dds]

i have a new board now with a different chipset, when i had the via chipset and a nvidia geforce card i had the same problem(on xp or 2k only) worked fine on 9x. i ended up disabling the nvidia driver helper, and all the startup items for nvidia, which helped greatly. i still had problems with intense games. i ended up setting the bios to 2x instead of 4x and it worked flawless, after several updates and just tweaking everything i was able to get it going in 4x. i was not real happy with the via chipset so had to upgrade, was going to get a nforce2 like i put in my dad's but got a sis and am very impressed with it. the cost is why i went with sis, it offered much more features for less money and i am very happy. i wont use via again in my own systems unless they do something astounding.

[solraun]

lol, via really sux
now, after i took out my dvd and my cd burner, my systems works almost great, only the crash with the funny colors occurs

i think that the via northbridge is stresed too much with al these things
agp 8x for example doesnt work at all, on my system at least
maybe i'll gona buy a nforce2 next week or so.

buts its kinda funny that my cd drives cause such an error, it must be the via chipset, fuck via!!!^^

[Play_The_0dds]

they try to make one chipset and chipset driver package support to much, i noticed if you install the system utility that comes with say maxtor drives, then the via 4in1 it will crap up the drives , happens with some burning software too, but intel does the same thing with the application accelerator.