X1950PRO AGP Upgrade - Code 12 on WinXP

I recently purchased a HIS X1950PRO IceQ3 AGP card and I'm trying to get it installed on a Windows XP SP2 machine which is currently running an X800XT with no issue. The problem I'm having is when I install the X1950PRO I receive a Windows 'Code 12' error, which indicates a resource allocation issue. I've tried disabling components in the BIOS (motherboard is an Abit IC7-MAX3), but nothing has worked. I've also upgraded the BIOS from v14 to v18 and that didn't help either. I'm trying to use the Catalyst 7.2 drivers as well.

Here are a few questions:
1. Does the X1950PRO actually require more system resources than the X800XT?
2. Is there a problem with this BIOS where it won't allocate enough resources?
3. How do you reset the MPS table if/when it has become corrupted?
4. Anyone else have this card running with the IC7-MAX3 motherboard?
5. Any suggestions or ideas on how to fix this?

Thanks for your help!
-John

whats your power supply rated? think its 30amps is needed on the 12volt line... do a search theres threads about it.

The PSU is an Enermax EG465AX-VE(W)FMA. Total power is 460 watts and it lists 33A on +12V. I just picked up a Thermaltake PowerExpress 250, so I'm going to try and power the x1950pro with that and see what happens.

Ok... I'm now using the Thermaltake PowerExpress 250 to power the x1950pro, and I still have the Code 12 error. Even after loading the ATI drivers, the only resolution that it allows is 640x480 with 4-bit color (16 colors - wow!), and that looks impressive on a 24" LCD.

Anyone else have any ideas? Should I start removing other hardware (PCI cards) to see if that will free up the resources that this card is looking for? I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi and Adaptec 29320 card in this system as well, and the on-board SATA & Audio are disabled. I'd be amazed if I was at the limit as far as add-in cards go, but I suppose there are a finite number of resouces.

JohnB said:

Ok... I'm now using the Thermaltake PowerExpress 250 to power the x1950pro, and I still have the Code 12 error. Even after loading the ATI drivers, the only resolution that it allows is 640x480 with 4-bit color (16 colors - wow!), and that looks impressive on a 24" LCD.

Anyone else have any ideas? Should I start removing other hardware (PCI cards) to see if that will free up the resources that this card is looking for? I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi and Adaptec 29320 card in this system as well, and the on-board SATA & Audio are disabled. I'd be amazed if I was at the limit as far as add-in cards go, but I suppose there are a finite number of resouces.

Click to expand...

Bizarre, I just installed my HIS ICEQ2 x1950pro AGP XP sp2 (also upgraded from x800xtpe) and it wouldn't work until the next day when my Thermaltake 250w power express showed up, but I did experience those settings at boot when 7.2's were not loaded, standard VGA display driver was enabled at that point....maybe your card is defaulting to VGA display drivers without you knowing it? ? Sorry I can't be of more help, if I can think of something I'll let you know, in the mean time make sure your card is actually being used and your connections with the booster are all in working order.

JohnB said:

Ok... I'm now using the Thermaltake PowerExpress 250 to power the x1950pro, and I still have the Code 12 error. Even after loading the ATI drivers, the only resolution that it allows is 640x480 with 4-bit color (16 colors - wow!), and that looks impressive on a 24" LCD.

Anyone else have any ideas? Should I start removing other hardware (PCI cards) to see if that will free up the resources that this card is looking for? I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi and Adaptec 29320 card in this system as well, and the on-board SATA & Audio are disabled. I'd be amazed if I was at the limit as far as add-in cards go, but I suppose there are a finite number of resouces.

Click to expand...

I would first un-install any video card drivers you have installed and running driver cleaner pro to get rid of leftovers then re-install the 7.2 cat drivers.

If that dont work try reformatting and starting with a fresh install of windows.

Katotonic said:

Bizarre, I just installed my HIS ICEQ2 x1950pro AGP XP sp2 (also upgraded from x800xtpe) and it wouldn't work until the next day when my Thermaltake 250w power express showed up, but I did experience those settings at boot when 7.2's were not loaded, standard VGA display driver was enabled at that point....maybe your card is defaulting to VGA display drivers without you knowing it?

Click to expand...

Katatonic - Did you actually see the 'Code 12' before you upgraded? The VGA driver that's being loaded is VGASave (vga.dll & vga.sys) since no other driver will load, otherwise, I guess there would be no display at all. Are you using a motherboard with the i975 chipset? Mine is an Abit IC7-MAX3.

pfunkman said:

I would first un-install any video card drivers you have installed and running driver cleaner pro to get rid of leftovers then re-install the 7.2 cat drivers.

If that dont work try reformatting and starting with a fresh install of windows.

Click to expand...

pfunkman - I actually have run DriverCleaner (I think I have an older version) multiple-times, and it got rid of a bunch of files, but doesn't seem to help. I have not tried a fresh copy of Windows yet, but I think that would be a last resort... I'd rather not reinstall/reconfigure all the software on this system. I may find another HDD and try a fresh XP install that way.

FWIW, I can switch back to the x800xt with no problem, and this machine originally had a 9800Pro, so there has been a chain of ATI cards: 9800Pro --> x800xt --> x1950pro.

I just found that there is a Rev.2 version of the card: http://www.hisdigital.com/html/product_ov.php?id=296&view=yes
I'm fairly certain I have Rev.1 -- Could the problems I'm having be due to the fact that I have the Rev.1 and not the Rev.2 version?

Edit:

Rev.1:
Powered by ATI Radeon X1950Pro - 620MHz (Turbo)
512/256MB-256bit 8 channel GDDR3 memory - 1.48GHz (Turbo)

Rev.2
Powered by ATI Radeon X1950 PRO GPU - 590MHz (Turbo)
-1.2ns 512/256MB-256bit GDDR3 memory - 1.54GHz (Turbo)

JohnB said:

Could the problems I'm having be due to the fact that I have the Rev.1 and not the Rev.2 version?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't think so. I have had 2 bad HIS cards and the main problem has been a core which could not take the 620 Mhz. HIS Rev.1 overclock. Other issues common with the HIS are rattling fans and artifacting. So for the last few months I've been tracking multiple X1950 Pro threads on multiple forums looking for a resolution to my problem and there has been none other than to RMA. I have not seen your issue mentioned in any of my travels.

Have you gone into Device Manager and looked for IRQ or DMA conflicts yet? In Device you should also disable all serial ports, com ports, and parallel ports not in use. You could also re-arrange your PCI cards if you have any. Such as Modem, Sound Card, LAN Card. This may mean reloading drivers for these devices.

I'm actually on an Intel i865 mobo, as hilarious is that is, and I don't recall the "code 12" error popping up but I did get teh load standard VGA display driver before installing the 7.2's message as well as something about directx 8 which blew my mind, can't understand this at all.

After 7.2 install and reboot my monitor would go into forced hibernation right before windows came up and then I'd have to safe mode, uninstall the drivers and use the VGA drivers. I received a new monitor and PSU at the same time, but I'm almost positive it was the lack of amps on the 12v that was causing my problem. I also used driver cleaner and it didn't help.

With sufficient power, the only other thing I can think of atm is to make sure your mobo isn't causing some sort of incompatibility with the card (Call abit if you have to), make sure you have the most recent updates and check the power and voltage specs of your AGP slot .

First, I discovered that I actually do have a Rev.2 card. Second, I figured out where the problem was in my system. Apparently, there was some kind of contention for resources between my SoundBlaster X-Fi and the x1950Pro.

I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP on a spare hard drive, and that did not fix the problem. So, I proceeded to remove all the PCI cards (Adaptec 29320 & X-Fi). After I removed the X-Fi card, the drivers loaded and the system ran just fine. I went ahead and tried the X-Fi in all of the PCI slots in the system, but nothing worked. So, I got out my older Audigy 2 ZS card and had no problems with that audio card in the system.

I took a quick look in Creative's forums, but couldn't find anything on this particular issue. I'll run with the Audigy 2 for now, but I'll keep searching for an answer to why the X-Fi and x1950Pro don't get along with each other in my system.

So, to summarize for those out there who may be having a similar issue:
Abit IC7-MAX3 (BIOS v14 or v18) + x1950Pro + X-Fi = No go.
Abit IC7-MAX3 (BIOS v14 or v18) + x1950Pro + Audigy 2 ZS = Worked fine.

JohnB said:

First, I discovered that I actually do have a Rev.2 card. Second, I figured out where the problem was in my system. Apparently, there was some kind of contention for resources between my SoundBlaster X-Fi and the x1950Pro.

I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP on a spare hard drive, and that did not fix the problem. So, I proceeded to remove all the PCI cards (Adaptec 29320 & X-Fi). After I removed the X-Fi card, the drivers loaded and the system ran just fine. I went ahead and tried the X-Fi in all of the PCI slots in the system, but nothing worked. So, I got out my older Audigy 2 ZS card and had no problems with that audio card in the system.

I took a quick look in Creative's forums, but couldn't find anything on this particular issue. I'll run with the Audigy 2 for now, but I'll keep searching for an answer to why the X-Fi and x1950Pro don't get along with each other in my system.

So, to summarize for those out there who may be having a similar issue:
Abit IC7-MAX3 (BIOS v14 or v18) + x1950Pro + X-Fi = No go.
Abit IC7-MAX3 (BIOS v14 or v18) + x1950Pro + Audigy 2 ZS = Worked fine.

Click to expand...

If I come up with anything I'll let you know. I'm also using an X-Fi without issue.

FWIW you could try uninstalling the X-fi drivers and running DC pro then swapping the X-fi to a different PCI slot and re-installing. Souns like a possible IRQ issue.

pfunkman said:

FWIW you could try uninstalling the X-fi drivers and running DC pro then swapping the X-fi to a different PCI slot and re-installing. Souns like a possible IRQ issue.

Click to expand...

Yeah, we already established that since that and in the post above he said he already moved the card around to different slots.

Thanks for the replies and advice on the 'Code 12' problem. I still haven't found an answer for the X-Fi issue in my system, and the Audigy 2 is working fine, but I've encountered another problem. I'm beginning to think this machine is possessed or something! Check this out...

I'm not sure if I should start another thread, but here's the situation... Since things have been working fine with a single monitor, I decided to connect my secondary monitor once again. I have a Dell 24" LCD as the primary and a 22" NEC CRT as the secondary monitor. When the system first boots and the login prompt is displayed on the primary monitor, the secondary monitor will "flash" from blue-to-black, over and over again like the driver is initializing the secondary display. Once you actually login to the system, the flashing on the secondary monitor stops and everything seems to work fine. If you logoff, and return to the login screen, the flashing does not occur. It only happens at the first login prompt when the system boots!!! So far, I've removed all ATI software using driver cleaner, and reinstalled just the 7.2 Catalyst display drivers (no CCC), and still have the issue.

Has anyone seen this before or have any ideas?

Thanks, John.

I think I may have the fix. I recently installed an X-Fi in my Abit IS-7 and encountered the same error you've run into (Code 12 - Resource Allocation). What I did to get my machine to run successfully was to increase the AGP Aperature Size in Bios. I had mine previously set to 128 MB, but increasing it to 256 MB seemed to correct the problem. Hopefully this helps.

GreekWonder2 said:

I think I may have the fix. I recently installed an X-Fi in my Abit IS-7 and encountered the same error you've run into (Code 12 - Resource Allocation). What I did to get my machine to run successfully was to increase the AGP Aperature Size in Bios. I had mine previously set to 128 MB, but increasing it to 256 MB seemed to correct the problem. Hopefully this helps.

Click to expand...

That's the weirdist fix I've ever heard of for a "resource error" from a sound card? What on earth made you try it in the first place? I've grasped at straws before while trying to figure things out, but I never would have grasped at that one.

A guy in this thread said that worked for him too ......

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/674908.html

and another here .....

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&c=23&t=265

Nice work Greek, that looks like it's the fix, but I guess will wait to see what John says. I'm definitely storing this one in the old gray matter for future reference.

I did a bit of googling and found a creative forum thread about the issue. Something I just stumbled upon after quite a bit of frustration.

GreekWonder2 said:

I think I may have the fix. I recently installed an X-Fi in my Abit IS-7 and encountered the same error you've run into (Code 12 - Resource Allocation). What I did to get my machine to run successfully was to increase the AGP Aperature Size in Bios. I had mine previously set to 128 MB, but increasing it to 256 MB seemed to correct the problem. Hopefully this helps.

Click to expand...

honestjohn said:

Nice work Greek, that looks like it's the fix, but I guess will wait to see what John says. I'm definitely storing this one in the old gray matter for future reference.

Click to expand...

Success!!! Thanks Greek! Switching the AGP Aperture setting from the default of 128MB to 256MB did fix the 'Code 12' issue I was having. The X-Fi and x1950Pro seem to be getting along just fine in my system now.

Thanks to everyone for their help!
-John

PS: I mentioned another issue where my secondary monitor would "flash" from blue-to-black over and over while the WInXP login prompt was displayed. Apparently, there was some kind of issue with the DDC (Display Data Channel) when the display driver was first initializing. To fix this problem, I used ATI Tray Tools to disable "Use DDC Information" for my NEC CRT, and rebooted the system. It took only one reboot with this setting off to fix whatever the problem was, because I turned the setting back on and everything is still working fine.