I8600 blue screens with new video drivers for Radeon 9600

Hiya,

I'm running an I8600 (specs below) with Windows XP w/ SP1. For the past few months, I have had intermittent problems when the computer fails to turn on. I will press the power button and the three "lock" lights (num, scroll and caps lock) turn on briefly before the lights turn back off. The screen fails to turn on and it doesn't attempt to POST. After a few minutes / tries, the computer will finally boot.

The only reason I mention this is because I'm not sure if it's related to this new problem.

I recently installed the newest released drivers from Dell for the Mobility Radeon 9600. (Version A06) When I try to run Everquest 2, it locks up my machine and bluescreens. Sometimes after I shut it off, I have the non-boot problems described above. When I am finally able to log in, Windows tells me there was a hardware issue with the video card.

I tried one version back, Version A05. Everquest ran a little longer, but I ultimately had another crash during the course of the game.

I've finally rolled it back to Version A04, which is what I had originally, and so far i've had no problems. However, I've only messed around for a few hours.

I think tonight I'm going to wipe the computer and re-install Windows and bring it up to SP2 and try the new drivers. I just wanted to see if anyone else has had any similar problems?

Thanks for your help!

Thanks Machina!

I was thinking of switching to the omega drivers, since they seem to be so popular.

I went to ATI's website and downloaded a program that verified that their Catalyst Mobility 5.9 driver was compatible with my card. For some reason, my card failed. (Dell was also not listed in their supported notebook manufacturers.) So for some reason or another, I can't use ATI's drivers.

I appreciate the help!

Hi Machina,

Thanks again for the suggestions. I was out for a bit as I went to the doctors and was told to go home and rest, so I haven't been able to log in.

Soooo ... this is what I did.

Wiped the hard drive (it's been over a year anyway) and reinstalled Windows XP and SP2. Loaded the most current Omega drivers via install shield. For some reason, it crashed on very specific and repeatable occurances in Everquest 2.

Re-tried (for kicks) the A06 and A05 drivers. Both had the same symptoms. I went back to A04 and they seem to work fine.

Keep in mind that I've only seen this problem with Everquest 2. The Omega and Dell drivers seem to work fine with a different game. I only played it for about 20 minutes, but it seemed ok. So it's possible this is a problem with Everquest 2 only.

I'm leaning towards driver issues except for the weird "laptop not turning on" problem that's been cropping up recently. I know that there are sometimes weird, seemingly-unrelated problems that can be traced to one item (PSU, motherboard, etc), but it's hard to nail it down when you can just delve in and replace parts. =)

I'll try loading just the drivers through the device manager and see what that does. I should also (duh! just realized this) search EQ2 forums to see if others have had this problem, too.

Thanks!

Hey Para,

Thanks for keeping me updated with this. Sorry I didn't get a chance to write back. Work went into overdrive and I've been busy. I will contact Dell regarding this issue and see what happens!

I appreciate it!

Update: Whew. Ok, the holidays got real busy. I contacted Dell and they had me run all sorts of diagnostics on the machine. Everything seemed to check out ok.

Ultimately they shipped me a new motherboard and hard drive. The tech had no clue why they sent me a hard drive, but he replaced the motherboard. Unfortunately, since this is a periodic problem I really won't know if it's fixed unless it doesn't occur for a few months. So we'll see what happens.

I'm still using my old hard drive. The tech said I have 10 days to return it. I'm not sure whether I should change out the hard drive or keep my old one. Neither he nor I believe the hard drive was the culprit. He said that he has seen this problem before and it is typically the motherboard or the video card.

Thanks to everyone that helped me with all of this.