Issues with the GeForce 9600 GT card

[Maritas]

Hi there,
I'm having issues with my card and Nvidia tech support is clueless as to what and why this is happening.

The Card will just shut down my PC - I can hear the fan spinning and that's about it. I have to hard boot the system to get it to power back up.

I have a 430 psu, 2 gigs of ram and running XP
It only does this when I'm gaming - World of Warcraft. I can hear the fan kick start and then my screen goes blank and the amber light of the monitor will light.

I updated the Bios and the chipset - removed and used drive sweeper to clean out the old drivers and then re-installed everything and this keeps happening. I also used PC Wizard and nothing is running hot - everything's normal.

I even checked the event viewer and there's nothing - so it's shutting down before anything can even be written.

I don't want to have to get another type of card - and oh, this is the 2nd card because the person from their tech support told me last night that maybe the memory was bad so I returned it and got another one - the same thing is happening.

Any ideas would be much appreciated?

[Namslas90]

Please use the 'user cp' to fill out complete system specs. (Would help a lot)

Without complete system specs my first reaction is; the PSU not strong enough. Even though it may have enough watts, it may not have enough amps on the 12v rail for the card.

Granted the card does not have a high power requirement, but with no specs on the PSU and Mobo (complete specs)its just a guess.

Make and model of PSU?

[candle_86]

well my allied 400W powers my 8800GS fine which draws more juice last time i checked

[GLD]

I also bet it is your psu.

[Solaris17]

psu...the 9600GT requires a 450w psu minimum with 26A on the +12v

[Paulieg]

We need to know the make and model. Some 430w would power this card just fine, others...not so much.

[Paulieg]

well my allied 400W powers my 8800GS fine which draws more juice last time i checked

wow, you're playing with fire here. The PSU is the most important component in your system. I had a 380w Allied in the first PC I built years ago, and it fried my board. Generally very unstable rails, not to mention you're under spec I believe.

[Maritas]

Yeah, sorry this would help...

Brand Thermaltake
Model W0070RUC
Series TR2
Spec
Type ATX
Maximum Power 430W
Fans 2
PFC No
Main Connector 20+4Pin
+12V Rails Single
PCI-E Connectors 1 x 6Pin
NVIDIA SLI Support No
Modular Cabling Support No
Hold-up Time 16ms min.
Efficiency > = 65%
Over Voltage Protection +5V trip point < +7.0V, +3.3V trip point < +4.5V, +12V trip point < +15.6V
Input Voltage 115/ 230 V
Input Frequency Range 47 - 63 Hz
Input Current 9A @ 115V, 5A @ 230V
Output +3.3V@20A, +5V@30A, +12V@18A, -5V@0.5A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@2A

After checking the Nvidia forums as well...
I am not alone. I also would bet that it's the PSU - even if the specs say 400 - I think they're lying.

[Black Panther]

psu...the 9600GT requires a 450w psu minimum with 26A on the +12v

And if I read the OP's PSU specs well, he has only 18AMPS on the +12V... and it's a single +12V rail.

[InnocentCriminal]

There you have it, it's your PSU. I recommend any from Corsair's excellent range, if you're on a budget, the 450W is excellent, absolutely excellent value for money.

^^

[Shurakai]

I'll have to agree with InnocentCriminal, i recently purchased a Corsair HX620, solid as a rock, quiet as one too ;)

[InnocentCriminal]

\m/

[Maritas]

Thanks
Now I'm not sure if I want to go through all the trouble of pulling, sending it back and ordering a new PSU or just get a different card.

I thought I would be safe with the extra 30 being the specs say 400

I'm going from a GeForce 7900 256 so I think just about anything with 512 would be better.

[InnocentCriminal]

I'd definitely get a new PSU, as it's already been said, it's the most important factor of your system.

[Solaris17]

dont get a new card dude major waste...just grab a 500w psu...with some decent amps...it will be like idk 70/80 roughly just grab one...of course ppl in this thread will tell you get a $200 OCZ powerstream or something but honestly....though it IS a good idea if your not running alot and your not stressing your rig alot 70/80 $$ for a 500w PSU with some decent rails..

[3870x2]

Remember that the psu is probably actually something like 380 Watt +/- 50, or 330-430, 430watt being the maximum burst potential of the PSU, some companies do that. You can get a good 700W PSU for 50-70 dollars, but remember that you get what you pay for. If its cheap, it will be cheap, if you get my drift.

[Maritas]

Hmm trouble is, I just bought and installed the PSU *Tuesday* I even had to buy a few more SATA connectors for the DVD/CD drives and I'm still waiting for them in the mail.

It's going to be more trouble exchanging everything to Newegg than to just replace the card - tho I really want to keep the card. >.<

And I don't have any decent computer stores close by and BestCrap just doesn't cut it so I have to get everything online.

[Maritas]

I decided that I'm going to suck it up and get:

Brand Antec
Model EA500
Series earthwatts
Spec
Type ATX12V v2.0
Maximum Power 500W
Fans 80mm low noise cooling fan
PFC Active
Main Connector 20+4Pin
+12V Rails 2
PCI-E Connectors 2 x 6Pin
NVIDIA SLI Support Yes
Modular Cabling Support No
Efficiency > 80%
Energy-Efficient 80 PLUS Certified
Input Voltage 100 - 240 V
Input Frequency Range 50/60 Hz
Input Current 9A
Output +3.3V@24A,+5V@24A,+12V1@17A,+12V2@17A,-12V@0.8A, +5VSB@2.5A
Approvals UL, CUL, FCC, TUV, CE, CB, C-tick, CCC
Features
Features Dual 12V outputs: 12V2 for Motherboard and peripherals; 12V1 for processor
Industrial-grade protection circuitry prevents damage resulting from short circuits, power overloads, over voltage, and under voltage
80 Plus Certified is the newest standard in power supply efficiency.
At least 80% high efficiency at any load, will save you money on your electrical bill.
Reduce heat in your computer's system.
4 SATA connectors
2 PCI-E connector
Universal input
PF value up to 99%

Does this look like it can do the job? I just need to check my motherboard and make sure it'll take it. The fact that has 4 SATA connectors is already a bonus.
thanks!

[Black Panther]

2x17A on your +12V rail should suffice well for the 9600.

I run my 8800GT perfectly on a PSU with 2x rails as well, one at 16A and one at 18A.

With that PSU you'd probably even have room to slightly upgrade in the future.

[Paulieg]

I decided that I'm going to suck it up and get:

Brand Antec
Model EA500
Series earthwatts
Spec
Type ATX12V v2.0
Maximum Power 500W
Fans 80mm low noise cooling fan
PFC Active
Main Connector 20+4Pin
+12V Rails 2
PCI-E Connectors 2 x 6Pin
NVIDIA SLI Support Yes
Modular Cabling Support No
Efficiency > 80%
Energy-Efficient 80 PLUS Certified
Input Voltage 100 - 240 V
Input Frequency Range 50/60 Hz
Input Current 9A
Output +3.3V@24A,+5V@24A,+12V1@17A,+12V2@17A,-12V@0.8A, +5VSB@2.5A
Approvals UL, CUL, FCC, TUV, CE, CB, C-tick, CCC
Features
Features Dual 12V outputs: 12V2 for Motherboard and peripherals; 12V1 for processor
Industrial-grade protection circuitry prevents damage resulting from short circuits, power overloads, over voltage, and under voltage
80 Plus Certified is the newest standard in power supply efficiency.
At least 80% high efficiency at any load, will save you money on your electrical bill.
Reduce heat in your computer's system.
4 SATA connectors
2 PCI-E connector
Universal input
PF value up to 99%

Does this look like it can do the job? I just need to check my motherboard and make sure it'll take it. The fact that has 4 SATA connectors is already a bonus.
thanks!

Yeah, 2 17A 12v rails should do the job just fine. Wise choice getting a new psu instead of downgrading your card. My 9600gt is showing some very good results so far. :D

[Maritas]

Cool
I use the PC mainly for gaming so yeah, it makes sense that I would beed more umph for the video card. That's what I get and not trusting my gut and going for more power.

[Paulieg]

Just remember that good psu's are all about stable rails and continous power. Peak power is more of a marketing scheme aimed toward noobs.

[Maritas]

The only thing that I keep seeing, at the nVidia forums, it seems a lot of people are having the same issues. What worries me, some of these people are having the same issues and they're running a 500 psu and up - someone with a 630 was having the same issues.

Maybe the card is just crap?
I can't think of anything else it could be other than the PSU or the card itself.

[Maritas]

I just got off the phone with BFG tech support and the guy told me that it's a firmware issue. They're aware of the issues and "should" be issuing an update within the next few weeks.

K...that doesn't really help me now.

I think I'm just going to return the card and go with something else - I don't want to wait a couple of weeks.

[divinebaboon]

Antec Earthwatts 500W are awsome. I'm using mine lol. you can grab one for around 50 on ebay.
ebay link (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&dfsp=32&from=R10&_trksid=m37&satitle=antec+earthwatts&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D2&sadis=200&fpos=18505&sabfmts=1&saobfmts=insif&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=32%26fsoo%3D2)

[Maritas]

I said screw it, took the 9600 back and exchanged it for a 8800 CT.

[Paulieg]

I said screw it, took the 9600 back and exchanged it for a 8800 CT.

Not a bad decision. However, you still want to get a better psu asap, or you will end up with problems, I promise..

[uionyx]

I purchased a GeForece 9600 GT OC from bestbuy and i have this setup.

Antec 500W PSU 2x 17A 12v rails.
AMD 9600 Phenom
bio star ta770 Board
9600 GT OC
3 GB DDR2 RAM


I can play for about 1 hour then i get a black screen and the system shuts down.
I had a XTX 1950 in this setup and it ran fine, this card either sux or there is some problem i am overlooking. I have the same issues your machine has.

:(

[Maritas]

I purchased a GeForece 9600 GT OC from bestbuy and i have this setup.

Antec 500W PSU 2x 17A 12v rails.
AMD 9600 Phenom
bio star ta770 Board
9600 GT OC
3 GB DDR2 RAM


I can play for about 1 hour then i get a black screen and the system shuts down.
I had a XTX 1950 in this setup and it ran fine, this card either sux or there is some problem i am overlooking. I have the same issues your machine has.

:(

Well you can either wait for them to issue a driver/firmware update or take the card back and exchange it for something else. BFG's tech support said something will be out in a couple of weeks - how long ya willing to wait?

I'm not. I took the card back, sucked it up and bought the GeForce 8800 GT - installed it and never had a problem running World of Warcraft last night - not once did it power off or do anything weird.

Although I will eventually get a better PSU - I just dropped a wad of cash between the new card, new PSU and having then to order 2 more SATA connectors on line because I thought I'd have enough connectors on the PSU.

[EastCoasthandle]

what was your PCIe Frequency when you used that card?

[bencze]

Hey All,

I have found this thread using google (one of many hits for '9600 gt problem' or '9600gt black screen'). I just had to reg and tell you no to bug the poor guy about his PSU (might still be crap tho, not saying :) ). I am browsing the net since a few days with my broken 9600gt and some other people have same problem, too.
I'll be just very brief since I already have a post going on ocforums (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=555084), latest development is (I disconnected a few things):

Enermax Noisetaker EG425AX-VE
Gigabyte P35-DS3 rev 2.1
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz (E8200), factory cooling
Kingston KHX8500D2K2/2G (only 1 stick running atm)
Gigabyte NX96T512H-B (Nvidia 9600GT)
M/B sound
Samsung SATA 200GB 7200RPM

This is not working, it is crashing indeed in WoW after 5 minutes or 3 hours randomly, random places or moments. To save you the trouble (specs aren't easy to find for that PSU, got it 2-3 years back) it has 2 12v rails with 18A each for a total of 29-30A. Also supposedly a quality PSU, was at least back when I purchased it.
Tried Orthos / 3dmark06 / atitool artifact finder (these stress my machine much more than the game) for brief periods, also memtest86 for some odd 20 mins, would have expected teh issue to show immediately when I start the stress tests but nothing. Only crashed in WoW so far. Only playing Eve Online occasionally, last night it didn't crash my PC in 2 hours.

I'd just want to know if it is indeed my vga card or not, and how to reproduce it, the store won't take it back unless I give them a valid reason and they can test it. So please go ahead if any ideas. In the meanwhile, although I know many people run this card smoothly, it's something bad about it (or some cards at least) since people using it complain, and using different vendor stock/oc'ed versions even so it's not card but gpu related (if it's indeed the vga faulty).

Just wanna prove it's the card (or find out for sure what is it without wasting money) or just break the damn card so I can take it back ;)

PS: GPU @ 60 celsius while playing according to nTune monitor (went up to 69 with atitool w/o problem). Everything at stock speed. Tried driver from both Nvidia (latest stable) and Gigabyte. Fresh Windows XP SP2. CPU temps 40-50 celsius. PCIE freq. was auto by default later I set it to 100mhz manually, still same issue.

[Solaris17]

im so glad you got a new psu if you would have sold it and downgraded to a 7900 i would have broken down and cried and paul would have to come over and rub my shulder and zek would have to try and spring some jokes to get me to stop sobbing

[Paulieg]

im so glad you got a new psu if you would have sold it and downgraded to a 7900 i would have broken down and cried and paul would have to come over and rub my shulder and zek would have to try and spring some jokes to get me to stop sobbing

LOL. We might still have to do this. If you read the post again, it appears the Allied psu IS his new psu, and that he may buy a better one later. I'll tell ya, some people never learn. Not until they kill a entire system with an unstable psu. Man, it's so sad.

[Solaris17]

Hey All,

I have found this thread using google (one of many hits for '9600 gt problem' or '9600gt black screen'). I just had to reg and tell you no to bug the poor guy about his PSU (might still be crap tho, not saying :) ). I am browsing the net since a few days with my broken 9600gt and some other people have same problem, too.
I'll be just very brief since I already have a post going on ocforums (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=555084), latest development is (I disconnected a few things):

Enermax Noisetaker EG425AX-VE
Gigabyte P35-DS3 rev 2.1
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz (E8200), factory cooling
Kingston KHX8500D2K2/2G (only 1 stick running atm)
Gigabyte NX96T512H-B (Nvidia 9600GT)
M/B sound
Samsung SATA 200GB 7200RPM

This is not working, it is crashing indeed in WoW after 5 minutes or 3 hours randomly, random places or moments. To save you the trouble (specs aren't easy to find for that PSU, got it 2-3 years back) it has 2 12v rails with 18A each for a total of 29-30A. Also supposedly a quality PSU, was at least back when I purchased it.
Tried Orthos / 3dmark06 / atitool artifact finder (these stress my machine much more than the game) for brief periods, also memtest86 for some odd 20 mins, would have expected teh issue to show immediately when I start the stress tests but nothing. Only crashed in WoW so far. Only playing Eve Online occasionally, last night it didn't crash my PC in 2 hours.

I'd just want to know if it is indeed my vga card or not, and how to reproduce it, the store won't take it back unless I give them a valid reason and they can test it. So please go ahead if any ideas. In the meanwhile, although I know many people run this card smoothly, it's something bad about it (or some cards at least) since people using it complain, and using different vendor stock/oc'ed versions even so it's not card but gpu related (if it's indeed the vga faulty).

Just wanna prove it's the card (or find out for sure what is it without wasting money) or just break the damn card so I can take it back ;)

PS: GPU @ 60 celsius while playing according to nTune monitor (went up to 69 with atitool w/o problem). Everything at stock speed. Tried driver from both Nvidia (latest stable) and Gigabyte. Fresh Windows XP SP2. CPU temps 40-50 celsius. PCIE freq. was auto by default later I set it to 100mhz manually, still same issue.

try updating wow?

[Solaris17]

LOL. We might still have to do this. If you read the post again, it appears the Allied psu IS his new psu, and that he may buy a better one later. I'll tell ya, some people never learn. Not until they kill a entire system with an unstable psu. Man, it's so sad.

:(

[bencze]

try updating wow?

Hehe, nothing to update, besides an application should not kill a PC. Not eve with windows (this happened in Linux, too). Stable since 7h10m of Orthos...

[King Wookie]

try updating wow?

WOW forces you to update, as when they issue updates, it won't allow to log on without updating.

I was considering grabbing a 9600GT, but this looks to be an interesting issue.:wtf:

To Maritas and bencze, is WOW the only program causing this problem, or does it happen with other games or programs?

[bencze]

Only WoW so far. Anywhere from 5 mins to 3 hours into the game, doesn't seem to matter where I am or what I do. Sometimes last sound stays in loop (seen this yesterday).
I played eve online for about 2 hours and nothing happened, maybe coincidence. I really don't play other games. Some people reported same with CS:S but I don't have it :(
I can't rule PSU problem out but I'm confident my PSU doesn't have too much load now (stripped down pc), also cpu/ram is very stable now, since I had Orthos running fine for 8 hours (that's probably good for most systems). Went to work, I'll let it run till I go home just to make sure. If my PSU was dying i would not give stable voltages which means Orthos would fail (or would have failed by now).
I'm still looking for a way to be able to reproduce this issue, will try running 3dmark06 in loop tonight for the full night (if it works) with logging the time so I can see how much it can run w/o crashing. I'll just set the fan manually to 100%, don't like dynamic at all, not lod but even gpu at 69 celsius it wasn't running at max.

[Solaris17]

have you over clocked? what are your speeds i may have an answer iv been doing alot of speed game tests and have come to a couple diff ideas.

[GSG-9]

I don't know about the PSU, Im running 3 harddrives and a 2900Pro + some decnet overclocks on my 450watt psu. It has 2 18v rails though. and I have no experiance with the brand previously listed

[bencze]

No overclock. Might give it a shot just a bit, but not until I have a 100% stable system, so didn't even try it for now.

See cpu-z and gpu-z outputs (made them jpg so they are small, readable, I hope):
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57/szb_endre/PC/cpu-mb-ram.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57/szb_endre/PC/gpu.jpg

Thanks!

Edit: No ideas atm, I would expect machine NOT to reboot if I set t so (in my computer -> properties -> advanced -> startup and recovery) but give a blue screen with error, still not getting it. Odd.
Fresh windows install but still, got a driver cleaner 1.5 pro free and I'll try to reinstall driver (latest, 174.74 whql from nvidia).

[bencze]

PC crashed in 5 minutes into WoW.
I did change my vga card's power connection from the 6 pin connector to the 2 molex to 6 pin supplied with the card (now it's probably sharing power with hard disks tho). Not sure if it helps anything.
Previously I ran Orthos succesfully for 16 hours. Now I ran 3dmark06 in loop for 6 hours (all tests), succesfully.
Damn if I know what's going on. If wouldn't know better I'd say it's just that piece of software, I just never thought a software can crash a PC like that (would expect it to give a Windows error, or worst case, a blue screen if it's the driver involved). Please someone correct me if you know I'm wrong with this. :(

What it's true tho, I never reinstalled world of warcraft, i usually place games on a 'data' partition so I never have to reinstall them in case of a system reinstall (they always work(ed) like this). This WoW install survived quite some hardware changes in my system already, like changing video cards, memory and whatnot. :)

Now I should do 1 more crash test with WoW till it crashes (or till I can play like 2 days without it). Just don't feel like it but feel kinda obligated to make sure my pc is ok. ;) If ti crashes I should reinstall it and see again. Nothing else I can think of. I would expect that 3dmark (or atitool for that matter, watched the spinning cube for 1 hour which seems to stress my vga card most) crashes my pc, well it didn't.

[King Wookie]

Has anybody checked any of the wow forums to see if others are having this issue.
I'll be doing so after this.

I find it odd that it's only crashing with wow, given that it's one game that doesn't require serious hardware to play.

[bencze]

Some posted, yes, so far not more than about any other video card. May be just usual complaints from people that really don't have a clue and just need to clean the dust fro their fans. Not sure.

[mrhuggles]

how is my PSU, in the grand scheme of things, i think its a little under spec for 2x 2900 XT, hmm it says its got multiple rails but in reality it has a single iirc 56A rail? even tho its under spec i wonder how well it would do with 2x 2900 XT 1gb gddr4's

[Solaris17]

650W is good im gonna get a 600w to power everything in my rig take a look



plus the extras ill get in a couple days

2x 9600
1 BFG physx ppu
1 dvd DL burner
1 lightscribe drive
4HDD's
sound card
proc mobo

ill be running all of this..and i expect it to work if i get a good psu..as long as i get one with high amps on several rails i should be fine.

[King Wookie]

Some posted, yes, so far not more than about any other video card. May be just usual complaints from people that really don't have a clue and just need to clean the dust fro their fans. Not sure.

All I could find was some complaints about low frame rates on the 9600. What drivers are you running on your card?

[bencze]

174.74 whql, also tried latest from card manufacturer 174.40, same result. Machine hangs with a black screen, 'No signal' on monitor.

[King Wookie]

Hmm, maybe try rolling back to a previous version.

Or maybe not. I don't know if previous versions support your card.

[bencze]

Driver error should give a blue screen with error message not crash like this stopping vga output. Tried 2 versions never the less.

You can correct me if you think I'm wrong of course, but I cam to the conclusion that something like this can only be because of 2 reasons:
1) hardware problem on vga card -> sux
2) PSU not enough or dying (instable voltages or ampers) -> I don't think either of these are true according to the tests I done.

Maybe there are other options but my research resulted in this conclusion. No more ideas.

[EastCoasthandle]

what was your PCIe Frequency when you used that card?

ANYONE having problems using PCIe frequency higher then 100?

[Solaris17]

actually with my 9600 after me and w1zz talked about the pci-e freq rasing the clock..i tried raising it and NOT oc'ing through riva and i artifacted got a black screen and had to reboot 10min into cryis.

[bencze]

No I left it Auto or manual 100mhz only, so it was always 100mhz.
Not application issue, I just crashed same way in Eve Online after like 2 hrs.

[naokiakira]

He might also be having the "9600GT Black screen of death" issue.

[bigtye]

Joined up to post in this thread, been a long time reader and appreciate the technical expertise in this forum, especially wizards reviews.

I swapped over from a 1950 pro to a 9600GT just recently and had heaps of problems. Initially I could play COD 4 but not 2142, it would start to load, go to black screen and crash back to windows. I did a search and found on the ATI site a technical support note (will find url) stating that 1950 driver don't fully uninstall al the time and there was no known solution. Sure enough I ran regedit, went through the registry and found heaps of left of ATI references. Deleted these but still couldn't play 2142. I figured that maybe something was still left somewhere.

So did a complete reformat. During reinstall of my software I got a message from the Nvidia driver that my 9600GT was not recieving enough power and was going to switch to safe mode, this was in a 2D windows environment, 10 seconds later my USB ports on my mobo died and I lost mouse and keyboard use. My PSU was a Thermaltake 430w. I had run my 1950 pro on this psu for 12 months fine. My USB ports are still dead by way, I now us other ports I have plugged in elsewhere on the mobo.

Have since swapped over to a corsair 620w xp and everything has been fine now for 2 weeks.

When runnning the 9600GT, please make sure your psu is up to the task, the card is not that power hungry, my system uses max about 200w when gaming (measured on zalman mfc2) but the amp rails are important. This is what I believe killed my psu, and in the process nearly killed my mobo. I got lucky and just lost USB ports.

To the person who went from a 1950XTX, please check that your old ATI drivers have all been removed from reg.

Hope this helps and adds more information about possible probs wioth your 9600GT.

Cheers

Tyrone

ATI quote
737-27466: Running through the un-install of the ATI display driver may result in the display driver failing to be completely removed



The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):
Radeon™ X1950 series
Radeon™ X1900 series
Windows Vista 32bit Edition
Windows Vista 64bit Edition
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Symptoms:
Running through the un-install of the ATI display driver may result in the display driver failing to be completely removed

Solution:
Currently there is no solution."

[naokiakira]

http://evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=272011&mpage=1&key=%F1%84%AF%BE

A lot of people are having this problem

[rangerone766]

when psu's are going bad they cause the strangest symptoms. things you would never think was a psu. when ever wierd things happen on a pc with a generic psu 90% of the time a new psu fixes the problem.

[bencze]

Yea, too bad it isn't 100%, would make things simpler. :)

[Mussels]

Joined up to post in this thread, been a long time reader and appreciate the technical expertise in this forum, especially wizards reviews.

I swapped over from a 1950 pro to a 9600GT just recently and had heaps of problems. Initially I could play COD 4 but not 2142, it would start to load, go to black screen and crash back to windows. I did a search and found on the ATI site a technical support note (will find url) stating that 1950 driver don't fully uninstall al the time and there was no known solution. Sure enough I ran regedit, went through the registry and found heaps of left of ATI references. Deleted these but still couldn't play 2142. I figured that maybe something was still left somewhere.

So did a complete reformat. During reinstall of my software I got a message from the Nvidia driver that my 9600GT was not recieving enough power and was going to switch to safe mode, this was in a 2D windows environment, 10 seconds later my USB ports on my mobo died and I lost mouse and keyboard use. My PSU was a Thermaltake 430w. I had run my 1950 pro on this psu for 12 months fine. My USB ports are still dead by way, I now us other ports I have plugged in elsewhere on the mobo.

Have since swapped over to a corsair 620w xp and everything has been fine now for 2 weeks.

When runnning the 9600GT, please make sure your psu is up to the task, the card is not that power hungry, my system uses max about 200w when gaming (measured on zalman mfc2) but the amp rails are important. This is what I believe killed my psu, and in the process nearly killed my mobo. I got lucky and just lost USB ports.

To the person who went from a 1950XTX, please check that your old ATI drivers have all been removed from reg.

Hope this helps and adds more information about possible probs wioth your 9600GT.

Cheers

Tyrone

ATI quote
737-27466: Running through the un-install of the ATI display driver may result in the display driver failing to be completely removed



The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):
Radeon™ X1950 series
Radeon™ X1900 series
Windows Vista 32bit Edition
Windows Vista 64bit Edition
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Symptoms:
Running through the un-install of the ATI display driver may result in the display driver failing to be completely removed

Solution:
Currently there is no solution."

Just as something i can say... the TT 430W was always a crap PSU. I've NEVER liked them.

If you get crashes with a new video card and have problems a new PSU is always a good idea!

(not aimed at anyone in particular)
With things like this everyones first argument is "but it ran FINE! it had NO PROBLEMS AT ALL for x months!" - of course it did. Doesnt mean it cant just break suddenly, no hardware ever sends me an email a week in advance of i dying - they do it when they feel like it, and new, power hungry components adding sudden stress is a great way to push older PSU's over the limit.

[bencze]

I think I'm kind of past testing my PSU. I would love to find out that it's the problematic component, would be easier to replace at least (well, half the price of a vga card).