possible driver conflicts? plus other

Capt. Insane · 04-26-2007, 12:12 PM

OK, so after much deliberation between myself and two of my friends (one of whom is a comp eng major), we've determined that my video card has the be the root of my problems. So at some point I'm going to get a Radeon X1950XT, which was recommended by Chem. However, my friend the comp eng major brought up a point that I thought I'd question about. My mobo has nvidia drivers on it, but the card will be ATI. Is that going to cause conflicts with drivers or whatnot? He thought it might, but said that those issues happened a few years ago so it was possible everything is fixed now. For reference, my mobo is a Gigabyte Pro SLI.
And for those wondering, I finally managed to snag the blue screen and got the message. The short form isi 0x0000008E, plus nv4_disp.dll, and then it dumped the phyiscal memory. The latter makes us think that it's possible one of my hdds is failing.

Edit: Newegg now has an XFX 8600 on sale for $164. Is the X1950XT still going to be the better buy?

Soul · 04-26-2007, 02:24 PM

The 1950 is the better buy - Chem will back this up.

ATI on a nvidia chip set isn't an issue.

I am not sure why you think your HDD is failing though.

Have you tried a fresh install?

Capt. Insane · 04-26-2007, 02:41 PM

Fresh install of what? I think I'm haveing hdd issues because A. my SATA is making a high-pitched constant whining noise (like white noise), though I'm changing that back to an IDE soon, B. my whole computer is slowing down, but that could be a result of the gfx card effing up (this idea came from my comp eng buddy)

ChemicalWarrior · 04-26-2007, 03:12 PM

The X1950XT is considerably faster than a 8600GT, the 8600 series is not a good buy, at least it won't be till it reaches around $100 for the GT and $140 for GTS. Till then its over priced.

Like Soul said driver conflicts are a non problem.

Your blue screen is a reference to the display driver of your current video card. nv4_disp, Nvidia display basically. It would be unrelated to the hard drive. The noise could be a number of issues, I would expect you to get getting hard drive related errors and such if it was the HD. Google Ultimate Boot CD and burn it as an ISO to a CD, boot it up and under Hard Drive tools run Salvation. It will take an hour give or take and should give you an idea if its your hard drive that's going bad, but I am doubtful.

{OF}Blong · 04-26-2007, 04:57 PM

what chem said

. besides with driver cleaner why would driver conflicts even be a thought?

dudio · 04-26-2007, 05:08 PM

Based on the errors you're seeing, my first bet would be
uninstall/reinstall the video card drivers .. maybe even try a newer or older release.
I would also download the latest version of DirectX9.0c and reinstall that.

As for the squeeling, if it didn't use to behave like that, it certainly could
be an issue.

Capt. Insane · 04-26-2007, 06:31 PM

Yeah, the noise just randomly started one day; I forget when. And as for what you said Dudio abotu the card, I've done all that already, except for DX9

Capt. Insane · 04-28-2007, 12:14 PM

Instead of making yet another topic, I figure I'll ask this here, even though it's not mobo related (but it's related to the thread since it moved to gfx cards). So I was looking at reviews on Newegg about the x1950xt from Sapphire that Chem recommended to me, and I'm wondering how true some complaints are. Granted, the majority of reviews were 5/5, the lower ones are making me think twice. People were saying things like the card runs super hot or drivers don't work right, if at all. Also that Sapphire is a bad company to buy from. While I realize that it's possible some people don't know what they're talking about or don't have good enough systems, is there really and ground to these issues that should make me choose something else, at least one from a different company?
One guy I know had no clue what he was talking about because he said he was going to go for the 8600, saying it was a better card after you all said that it's not.
Edit: Also, is my 500 watt Antec PSU going to be able to handle it?

ChemicalWarrior · 04-28-2007, 12:33 PM

1.) Yes they run warm, but they are designed to handle temperatures up to 120C, you'll rarely see it hit 90C (even then its still rather safe). These cards push the limits, an 8800GTX for instance is higher yet you don't see mass panic over its heat.

2.) The drivers will work fine, the reasons for this are number 3.

3.) The Sapphire is a bad company one is a rather big joke on people there. It just shows the ignorance on the customer reviews at Newegg. Sapphire is a very large company that actually manufacturers near 90% of the ATi based graphics cards. Even those branded for other company (ATi themselves even) are typically made by Sapphire and simply have a different cooling unit placed on at the branded companies site or very rarely made by another company (TUL I believe). Anyway, Sapphire makes a great card, I've owned three myself and all have been great.

Capt. Insane · 04-28-2007, 12:34 PM

Awesome. Thanks for the reassurance Chem.