acer ferrari 3400

hi all
first time here
maybe some here can help or shed some light
i have above sinse jan 2005
it has a at 9700g-card
beentold to different storys by acer
one is it dedecated g-card and not part of mobo and by some one else in acer support it is
that not why im posting her
have a little prob with gaming over last 7 mths
acer not good with keeping up drivers with this 3400,last update was nov 2004
prob im having been suing latest with ati and have tryed others as well as modded
when i install new drivers,only the mobility ones will pickup the 9700,if i install other with driveres and control panel only,gives me that famous ati error message and doesnt install,that one problem
second is if playing a game,everything ok,if for any reason the games goes back to windows,a dn game gone off,so start game again and all i see is black screena nd canhear the game
only way to play game again is to reinstal ati drivers again
have install latest drivers for via,sound and etc,doesnt sort it
me thinking there something up with the ati 9700 ,would a bios sort it or is there some thing else i can do
also have formated hardrive and install xp fresh,same thing
cheers

 

Welcome to NBR!

Weird that the problem still continues, even after formatting your notebook. The 9700 is a good card, it shouldnt give these problems. How are your temperatures? Any temperatures above 70 degrees? Check your temperatures with Mobmeter, just google it.

Have you tried Omega drivers. Some ATI drivers are not ment for notebooks, Omega gives a good solution tough. Link: www.omegadrivers.net

Good luck,

Charlie

 

cheers charles
it is a weird problem
it started when my hardrive fail and had to replace it
have tryed every thing ,including ever drive rout thete for ati
omega,driverheavens,all
it has something to do with 9700,what i dont know

 

just something i want to add
temp with 9700 is cool as i use one of those cooler you put under the laptop,never had a graphics prob only this
i feel it has something to do with the bios,could be wrong,someone said ,could be dust on the card,maybe
if it is a bios prob,is there a way to find bios for it as its not on acer website,
open to ideas
cheers

 

Hmm if you use a notebook cooler the temps should be ok. Do you hear any fan running of the notebook, or is the notebook completely silent?

You must not do a BIOS update which is not from the manifacturer itself. It can cause some serious problems, I mean very serious problems. Always update your own BIOS from Acer's site.

You can try to open the notebook and clean it, but I do not know if that will solve the problem. Hopefully another member here can help you, it seems you have already done all the steps that I would do.

Good luck,

Charlie

 

That's an odd problem indeed. If you have not done so already, look for patches/updates for the game itself. Also do a manual Windows Update and see if that finds any driver updates.

Since you have owned the laptop for a while, you should clean the dust out of the vents. Get some canned air and blow it all out. Dust can cause heat build-up and overheating. Getting a cooling pad as Charlie said is not a bad idea at all.

 

hi all
chaz,being using a cooling pad for 7 months,antec one,its quiet and has 2 speeds
specially in gaming for like of bf2 and cod2,even played bf2142 ,no problem
have done all the updates windows as you said and always looks for new patches for any games i have
fheres no bios update for ati 9700
what i find wierd also is the drivers on acer for the ati 9700 in 3400 are nov 2004,if i try to install,it either gives me inf error ot cant finf my 9700,very weird
will buy a can of air and clean vent,put dont think it wii helpo tecky to look at,at moment only way for fixing it when playing to reinstall ati drivers every time
wonder if the ati 9700 can be replaced??
will have to ask acer again
i find acer very bad at keeping it ferrari notebooks drivers up to date

 

Did you try following this guide for updating your drivers? That should work. The regular ATI Catalyst drivers will not install on a laptop.

 

cheers chaz
if i use ati driver other than the acer ones,they install ok
at moment using the omega ones as been using them for yrs on my destop rig
would like to figure out why the only way to play a game is reinstall the drivers,dont think it driver prob,something else
does seem to upload when game is on,only way you know game is playing you can hear the game with black screen and so reinstall ati's and all ok till next time you want to play
its a puzzle