Right, I've always had trouble with this shitty graphics card but now I really want to know why....

Basically, when i first built the PC it was running fine, until I tried to play GTA: San Andreas, my PC shat itself after about 10 mins of playing.

I can't remember how I decided to do this but I turned the AGP transfer speed down to 4x instead of the 8x, this solved the problem but completely fucked up the graphics making them look like shit.

I've just bought Test Drive Unlimited and installed it and it doesn't play too well, so I decided to try it at 8x again, rebooted the PC and it crashed and restarted itself (got stuck in a cycle), I couldn't even get as far as turning the AGP speed down in windows (changing it in BIOS didn't help) I had to boot in safe mode and do a system restore.

So does anyone have any ideas as to why it likes to shit itself at 8x?

I have an Athlon 3000+ 1.8Ghz running at 2.1Ghz
1GB PC3200 DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 Graphics Card

Thanks for any input

 

what temp is your processor before it shuts down... game playing increases system temps dramatically, if your overclocked processor is running on a standard cooler you may be hitting the bios shut down temperatures pretty quickly.
Other than that I would check your voltages... that radeon will like a lot of juice as will an overclocked processor some even require voltage hikes in the bios to achieve stability.... more current produces more heat.

Although it could be a stability issue just with the processor as it may require a voltage hike to remain stable in these situations

Im obviously making these assumptions with the belief that you actually have decent air flow through your case.

Ive got clocked systems that are 100% stable until you play games on them for the above reasons

Take the sides of the case and blow a fan at it... if it remains stable you know its heat related if it still crashes I would examine your voltages... I would expect to see a low 5v line to your system if this is an issue

 

Yeah my processor is only running at 30C, and I think the shutdown temp is set to about 70C by default so it won't be that.

I did try upping the voltage supplied to my GFX but it still shat itself

 

The difference between 30c at idle and 70c when pushed is not that far as the GFX temp increases massively when rendering 3D graphics, run a probe on it and see how much and as such overall system tempratures should not be discounted... the motherboard probes also do NOT measure the temperature of the processor they measure the temperature of the air under the processor as the probes are located in the CPU socket.. If this is registering 30c it would be fair to suggest that your actual processor temps are a little higher than indicated.. These are not accurate

a GFX card never requires voltage hikes for stability as these have greater bandwidth available than the motherboard.... what's the voltage going to your processor......If its not heat.... I bet you have a low 5v line even when on idle

 

have you also tried another GFX to see if thats a issue ?

I would doubt that it was, but you never know

 

No I haven't tried another GFX

and using Everest its showing 1.25V CPU Core, AUX 2.62V if that helps

What do you mean by running a probe on it? putting some load on the processor and having a look in Everest?

 

i had a problem with a cheap psu .. if i increased the power consuption on the 12v line it drained the 3.3v down to 2.6v