Does anyone know anything about video/3D cards? I need help!

First of all, I want to start out by asking you not to laugh at my system, or the video card itself; damaging the card\'s feelings will not help here.

Second, if you have the urge to reply, "DoOd, jez get a new \'puter," I\'d rather you not reply!  

That said, here is my problem.

My 3D card is a Voodoo Banshee 16MB.  It is a combined 3D/2D card.  When used for 2D applications, all is well.  Surfing the \'net, writing e-mails, Word documents, all is fine.  As soon as I start an application that makes use of the 3D aspect of the card, BOOM... it freezes, and I need to reboot the system with a hard reset.

I downloaded the very latest drivers, versions of DX, EVERYTHING!!  I wouldn\'t come to you people without trying everything else first.

This is driving me crazy, please help.

System specs:

Cyrix M2 300MHz
128MB RAM
30GB HD
above-mentioned vid card

Thanks, guys.  I appreciate it.

Although i never had a Voodoo Banshee i did have
V1-V3 cards in my collection, and as i recall you can over-clock the cards cpu/memory, did you overclock your video-card? And somehow your card can\'t handle the new settings???

I tried to, but it immediately malfunctioned and I reset the settings.

I only tried to as a RESULT of the lockups, though, so now I know that won\'t help.

did you overclock your Cyrix M2 300MHz CPU?
Did you upgrade your memory recently?

nope

nope

Did you upgrade windoze?

[nO-One]

What kind of 3d applications?
If they are very intense,it may be your CPU,it\'s far from a powerful one and it may not be able to handle the latest and greatest.

Some games just don\'t work right with certain vid cards. The same thing happens to me with my vid card and Counter-Strike.

Oh and if you think your gfx card is bad...well lets just say I wish I had your one.

These are games that I have been playing for literally years.

WWII Fighters,
Myth II
EverQuest

We ain\'t talking about overly-taxing applications here, especially with all of the frills turned down.

Tox- no...

WHY GOD?!?!  WHY ME?!?!

damn, that is weird, when did it start? and do you remember doing something recently that could have caused this? Did you let anyone alone with your computer? Did you do a virus scan?

It started out of the blue a week ago or so.  I have a virus scan, but it isn\'t on the tool bar like McAfee.  I don\'t know if its off or on all the time.  The system never lets me know, and my wife was here when the cable guy hooked it up.

Guess I should call them about that problem, huh?

Anyway, I never did anything differently than I always did.  It happened last year but mysteriously corrected itself.  Besides, last year it only did it when the system was running for a looooong time.  Could it be a fan problem on the card?

Originally posted by JerginsSoft
It started out of the blue a week ago or so.  I have a virus scan, but it isn\'t on the tool bar like McAfee.  I don\'t know if its off or on all the time.  The system never lets me know, and my wife was here when the cable guy hooked it up.

cable guy? You let someone do something with your computer? did he install a network card for your new Cable Modem?  


I used to have a V3 problem, all i did was replace V3 drivers with banshee drivers

Cable Modem was put in a looong time ago.  Has nothign to do with this prob, I hope.

God, I hope I don\'t have to get a new card.  I think with the system I have, a better card would just go to waste.

Could be a BIOS problem. try to change (if you can) the AGP Aparture size in your bios and see what happens,
also you could try running a 3d app immediately once you have started windows. If it then runs & freezes then
it\'s likeley that you have a cooling problem but make sure that you try this with a \'cold\' machine.

Stan, my sys is PCI bus, no AGP.  That\'s waay too advanced for me .  I think its more of an overheating problem.  When I go home today, I\'ll check the fan on the card and see if its all clogged up.

That\'s Baby AT for ya!  Dusty motherboards abound.