New video card causes my machine to freeze

D

Djuice

Geek Trainee
Hi folks,

I'm having a hell of a time with this. I just got a Radeon HD 2600 Pro to replace my old Radeon 9600 Pro. Note: this is an AGP card. After uninstalling the old card's drivers completely (using ATI's uninstallAll utility and verifying in Add/Remove), I shut down the PC and installed the new card. After making sure everything was plugged in correctly, I fired up the PC and was pleased to see the welcome screen appear. Unfortunately, it never moved from the welcome screen. My mouse cursor wouldn't even respond - indicating that the machine had indeed locked up. Confused, I put the old card back in, and the system booted up normally. So I put the new card back in and tried Safe Mode with Networking. It booted up to the point just before it would ask you if you want to use Recovery Mode, and froze. Hmmm. So out of curiosity, I booted the machine in Safe Mode (without networking). Perfect. Wt..f..? My next step was to boot it normally, but with the ethernet cable unplugged. Boots with no problem. However, the SECOND I plug that ethernet cable back in, it freezes. I am baffled by this. And to make things worse, while the computer is running, the performance is TERRIBLE. explorer.exe has CPU usage of close to 80% when I right-click the desktop, and so does csrss.exe. I found a KB article on Microsoft about csrss.exe, which said that my user profile is corrupted. Thinking I was onto something, I followed the directions, backed up my info and deleted the profile (after making new ones of course). Same issue. Does anyone have any clue what this might be from??

Help! :(
 
Hi Wildcard,

Unfortunately due to my issues with the ethernet cable being plugged in, I cannot post a Dxdiag dump or anything, but here's some specs you might find helpful:

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1.1GHz
Motherboard: MSI MS-6712
OS: WindowsXP Pro SP2
Video: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro (AGP) (512MB RAM [DDR2])
RAM: 1GB
Sound: Onboard (Realtek AC '97)
DirectX: 0.9c

The video card has the drivers installed from the CD that came with it, which say they were released 10/2007. I should also note that in Safe Mode (without Networking), Windows still runs very extremely slow. Also, when XP boots up normally (i.e. not in Safe Mode), you can see the "painting" done as the welcome screen fades in. Very choppy. This would lead me to believe that the drivers are the cause of the problems, but that would have nothing to do with the ethernet cable being plugged in. I thought maybe the ethernet card and video card were sharing the same IRQ, but the video card is using IRQ 16 while the ethernet card is using IRQ 19. If you need any further information please let me know, and thank you for your quick reply!!
 
Hi,

What kind of power supply do you have in the computer(brand/watt)? Also, when you installed the new card, did you connect it to the powersource with the 4 pin connector?
 
Well I just took a peek inside the case to look at the PSU, and I couldn't find anything written on it from the back, side or bottom. My next move was obviously to remove it, but out of curiosity, I turned the power on and took a look at the vents. Ack! The fan inside the PSU wasn't even spinning! I'm hoping this is the cause of the problems, and that the ethernet card simply draws too much voltage or something. In regards to the card, yes I made sure the 4-pin connector was connected before I started the computer. It actually will not let you run the machine without connecting it -- at least ATI cards anyway ;) I'm going to run to the store to grab a 500-watt PSU (no chances!) and I'll update when I return. Thanks Wildcard!
 
Ok, my card's box says it recommends a 450-watt or greater power supply. The price on the 450's were retarded, so I grabbed an Antec Trio 430-watt. I still have the same issues unfortunately. The fan on the new PSU is indeed spinning away, however the performance is still terrible on my machine, whether in safe mode or not, and plugging in an ethernet cable freezes it entirely. Back to square 1, except now I'm $90 poorer ;\
 
Hmm, well now a new symptom has developed. Upon booting (with the new card), the computer hangs during POST at "Checking NVRAM...".

<update>
I cleared the CMOS and the computer posted past that point, but froze while trying to initialize the ZIP drive. Rebooting takes me back to being frozen at the "Checking NVRAM..." prompt. Also, after tinkering with the BIOS settings and rebooting, the display managed to become nothing but multi-color blocks. Even on a black & white screen there are blocks. For your reference, I have posted some screenshots of 3 different screens I am getting. Note in the 2nd screenshot that the IRQs of the video card and ethernet are both at 11. That's the reason I was tinkering in the BIOS (manually settings IRQs) but no good seemed to come from it. I really need some help, so please gurus.. school me!

ss1.jpg

ss2.jpg

ss3.jpg

</update>
 
If you put in your old video card again and clear the cmos, will it post and boot normally? Also, where the box on the video card said 450W or higher, I would take back the 430W purchased yesterday for a refund. I'm not 100% sure but if the card is not getting enough power, maybe that is why it keeps failing with the nvram. You should be able to find a decent 450-500W online for the same price it sounds like you paid for the one yesterday. I just bought this one from tigerdirect ThermalTake PurePower W0100RU 500-Watt ATX 2.0 120mm Fan 2024-Pin SATA-Ready PCI-E Ready Power Supply at TigerDirect.com. Its my second thermaltake powersupply and it works well. This one is powering an ati firegl v7100 card with no problems. :)
 
Hi Wild,

Thanks for the ideas, however I am sure it isn't the new PSU. I put the old video card back in, and although the system boots normally, the performance is still extremely bad. However, at this point I am sure it is a software problem and not a hardware problem, because in Safe Mode it runs very well with no lag. With my normal bootup, the system is extremely laggy and csrss.exe continues to skip up to 80 or so percent even after I deleted my profile per Microsoft's KB article. I don't have system restore turned on (doh!) so I can't restore back to a previous version, and reinstalling Windows is not an option because I don't want to lose my registry settings and applications. I guess I'll keep plugging away.. thanks for your time!
 
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