I have had similar issues with a few cards when first getting and testing them. For me it was a Voodoo 3 and Ti4200. Both were issues with capacitors on the video cards needing to be replaced with new low ESR capacitors. After replacement everything worked great and no more crashes or random reboots.

Guld wrote on 2025-11-09, 17:38:

I have had similar issues with a few cards when first getting and testing them. For me it was a Voodoo 3 and Ti4200. Both were issues with capacitors on the video cards needing to be replaced with new low ESR capacitors. After replacement everything worked great and no more crashes or random reboots.

I excluded GPU problems exactly because replacing the CPU does resolve the issue. I know, it appears and sounds like a GPU problem, but replacing the CPU fixes the issue. I didn't experience any random reboots, just 3dMark not loading textures and just closing.

I would love to try another GPU, but I only have PCI slots on this MOBO, and the IGP is a crappy Trident Blade3D. PCI cards are hella expensive, I was lucky to get this GPU for relatively cheap, NOS in the box with all capacitors looking great.
I could try putting the GPU into another system with an Athlon XP and see if it causes the same issue, afterall I just need to prioritize PCI video over AGP.

Mondodimotori wrote on 2025-11-09, 18:09:

I excluded GPU problems exactly because replacing the CPU does resolve the issue.

My AGP Radeon HD2600 Pro is perfectly stable at GPU frequencies from the XT version.
With a 1.6 GHz Sempron.
With a 2.0 GHz Athlon, the frequencies are 50-70 MHz lower.
This is because a more perfomance processor generates more draw calls to the graphics card.

I would start by checking the graphics card.
I see you've decided to start with that too.

shevalier wrote on 2025-11-09, 19:29:

My AGP Radeon HD2600 Pro is perfectly stable at GPU frequencies from the XT version. With a 1.6 GHz Sempron. With a 2.0 GHz Athl […]
Show full quote

My AGP Radeon HD2600 Pro is perfectly stable at GPU frequencies from the XT version.
With a 1.6 GHz Sempron.
With a 2.0 GHz Athlon, the frequencies are 50-70 MHz lower.
This is because a more perfomance processor generates more draw calls to the graphics card.

I would start by checking the graphics card.
I see you've decided to start with that too.

How would I procede? Unfortunately I don't have any other PCI card around, and buying a new one isn't an option, considering prices on ebay. The mobo doesn't have an AGP slot, just an IGP Tridend Blade 3D, wich isn't at all comparable to the 9250, I even doubt it could run 3dMark 2000 with Hardware T&L.
Also weird that the issue doesn't appear in all more recent games, even Max Payne 1 (that uses the same tech as 3dMark 2000) works fine.

It's also weird that with an Athlon 1400C, that it isn't that much slower than a 1600+, the issue doesn't appear.

I may try to simply pull the GPU out and putting it back in, or replace the HDD and try installing a new OS (like Windows XP).

You need to test the GPU on another board. Sometimes these old GPUs do not work with certain boards but work with others. I have 2 GeForce 7600 GT that behave like that. They were useless due to crashing on one board but work fine on another.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-11-09, 21:54:

You need to test the GPU on another board. Sometimes these old GPUs do not work with certain boards but work with others. I have 2 GeForce 7600 GT that behave like that. They were useless due to crashing on one board but work fine on another.

This I can do. It's weird that it's unstable only with the athlon XP, considering it's not that faster than the 1400c and it uses less power.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Mondodimotori wrote on 2025-11-10, 07:23:

AlexZ wrote on 2025-11-09, 21:54:

You need to test the GPU on another board. Sometimes these old GPUs do not work with certain boards but work with others. I have 2 GeForce 7600 GT that behave like that. They were useless due to crashing on one board but work fine on another.

This I can do. It's weird that it's unstable only with the athlon XP, considering it's not that faster than the 1400c and it uses less power.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thoroughbred has SSE instruction set, Thunderbird C is mmx support only.

shevalier wrote on 2025-11-10, 08:49:

Thoroughbred has SSE instruction set, Thunderbird C is mmx support only.

That's good to know.
If the GPU is unstable because of that, It'll show the issue with the Barton 2600+ I have in the other system.
But, at this point, may it be an issue just with gaming? Because since I don't plan to make this build a gaming focus one, I could simply not care about games instabilities.

shevalier wrote on 2025-11-09, 19:29:

My AGP Radeon HD2600 Pro is perfectly stable at GPU frequencies from the XT version. With a 1.6 GHz Sempron. With a 2.0 GHz Athl […]
Show full quote

My AGP Radeon HD2600 Pro is perfectly stable at GPU frequencies from the XT version.
With a 1.6 GHz Sempron.
With a 2.0 GHz Athlon, the frequencies are 50-70 MHz lower.
This is because a more perfomance processor generates more draw calls to the graphics card.

I would start by checking the graphics card.
I see you've decided to start with that too.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-11-09, 21:54:

You need to test the GPU on another board. Sometimes these old GPUs do not work with certain boards but work with others. I have 2 GeForce 7600 GT that behave like that. They were useless due to crashing on one board but work fine on another.

Ok, tested the card in another system.
It works.
Both 3dMark 2000 and 2001 went on without issues, both completing a run and, since the system has a 2600+, they were also higher scores than the other system.

Now, it was very hard, and I probably borked the WinXP installation on that system by trying to uninstall the nvidia drivers of the previous card/installing the drivers of the 9250 from it's original CD, but after an hour of bashing my head at Display Driver Uninstaller throwing me errors, mistakenly uninstalling the nforce chipset drivers (smooth move brainiac) ,the system hanging during the damn ATI Parental Control installation and, in the end, even being unable to reboot itself from windows... I was able to test the card and confirm that, in here, it works fine.

After all, it was a new card in an open box. Capacitors looks new and the card is nice and clean. Yes, the passive cooler means it runs a tad warm, but it shouldn't be a problem and I can always put a fan in the front socket to move some air, I think the CPU header can support another fan connected to it.

Now I'll re-install XP on that machine, and tomorrow I'll test what I should've tested in the first place on the WinME machine: UPDATED DRIVERS.

Yes. My smooth brain didn't thought about checking if the video drivers were up to date.

If even those won't make the trick... I'll install XP on it and test it with that OS. If also that won't do the trick... I'll either keep using the system with the 1600+ or get a 1200C. Either way, I'm done with that space heater that AMD called "1400C"-

In my case updating drivers didn't help. I used the same drivers on another board and it worked. 1st 7600 GT had weird graphical glitches and froze (has 2 bloated capacitors), the 2nd just froze (all capacitors look fine). 3rd 7600 GT worked fine on all boards. Archer also saw similar issues with ATI.

Athlon 1400C is really only for KT133A to use for DOS/Windows 98 with ISA. I have a couple of 1200B as those work on KT133.

Lucky Star K7MKLE should work great with ESS Solo 1 in DOS. I have a KLE133 board with integrated Trident VGA and it has Sound Blaster emulation settings in BIOS.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-11-10, 21:17:

In my case updating drivers didn't help. I used the same drivers on another board and it worked. 1st 7600 GT had weird graphical glitches and froze (has 2 bloated capacitors), the 2nd just froze (all capacitors look fine). 3rd 7600 GT worked fine on all boards. The problematic ones were both MSI. Archer also saw similar issues with ATI.

Athlon 1400C is really only for KT133A to use for DOS/Windows 98 with ISA. I have a couple of 1200B as those work on KT133.

Lucky Star K7MKLE should work great with ESS Solo 1 in DOS. I have a KLE133 board with integrated Trident VGA and it has Sound Blaster emulation settings in BIOS.

Yeah, a shame I alredy have a QDI Advance 10E with ISA slot ready for a possible 98SE/DOS build. It has a P3 1000 and an MX 440 SE in it and it works like a charm with it's original Win2k OS. I Just need a compatible ISA sound card for a nice late DOS machine, but that's for another thread next year.

This one? The Trident IGP is just barely decent for DOS gaming, and being almost 25 years old it measn the video output is not exactly "clean and stable". And about sound blaster emulation? I don't know, the manual doens't say anything about it. Do I need to put a compatible card in before being able to enable it? Consider that this MOBO is a cheap 462 board, we basically got it for free in 2002. While it can make for a faster desktop PC, the older QDI has much more features and connectors.

And the Athlon 1400C... Even with a Titan cooler and case fans (it's one of those gray P2 cases, still has the WinME license sticker) I can keep temps barely below 50° in a 20° something room, which is the limit suggested by the mobo manual:"you should begin to think about improved cooling if your CPU temperature is 50 degrees C or higher". From May to September I refused to boot this machine, since summers here are very hot, and I don't have AC.

That's why I gambled on a 1600+. I was actually ready for it not to POST, since the latest BIOS update was released just three weeks after that CPU launched.
But when it posted, I was just happy. Runs 10° cooler, clocks the same as the 1400C and it's a bit faster.

I never expected to encounter graphical glitches in some benchmarks and games.

Guess I'll really have to test a new OS at this point, probably 2000, since it is the OS I was planning to use once my other 462 system is finished and ready for ME. Shame DIMM 1 is unstable, because I wanted to push 768mb of ram on that system by using its original 256mb stick.

Noctua fans have lower airflow, that's why the CPU runs so hot. The original fan is quiet, no need to change it.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:11:

Noctua fans have lower airflow, that's why the CPU runs so hot. The original fan is quiet, no need to change it.

Yeah, I know noctua fans have lower airflow than the original Titan one.

But it wasn't quiet. At all. The only way to make it bearable was putting it at minimum speed. Which game me temps worse than the noctua fan. That's why I changed it with the noctua fan, and added a couple of case fans to the front. Mind you, it's still tops out at 49° under heavy load (so well below danger), but it's still too close for comfort for me. Also, I don't have a P4 power connector on this board, so having to use an old 30A PSS is also not ideal. Maybe a low power CPU would be good with a modern 25A PSU:

I remember my Athlon XP started freezing once the temperature reached 57'C. It was running at 2.3Ghz. You don't have a lot of headroom for summer in Italy.

There are some Noctua fans that have high RPM like Noctua NF-A8 FLX. I always try to buy high RPM ones. They are still quiet.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:19:

I remember my Athlon XP started freezing once the temperature reached 57'C. It was running at 2.3Ghz. You don't have a lot of headroom for summer in Italy.

There are some Noctua fans that have high RPM like Noctua NF-A8 FLX. I always try to buy high RPM ones. They are still quiet.

Yeah, that's the one I got, the highest static pressure fan they had for that size. It's really quiet. Even adding two more (slower) noctua fans to the case is less noisier than the titan's fan at medium speed.

Mind you, the Athlon XP runs at maximun 40° with that fan. It's the 1400C that reaches almost 50° under load. No OC. The manual of the MOBO sais that you should really worry at 60°, and not trust AMD "max 90°" rating.
That's why I wanted a low power CPU than that. And also the PSU thing... A 1600+ would be perfect if it wasn't for those benchmark/game issues.
A 1200C would give me similar temps, but lower performances.

But no worries, tomorrow I'll test different drivers/OS on it and check if the issue changes. Because it's weird that it doesn't show up with a 2600+.

You could try underclocking your 1400 to 1200 speed; IIRC many of the later Thunderbirds were multiplier unlocked, and the ones that weren't could easily be unlocked with a pencil.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-11-10, 23:01:

You could try underclocking your 1400 to 1200 speed; IIRC many of the later Thunderbirds were multiplier unlocked, and the ones that weren't could easily be unlocked with a pencil.

Unfortunately this mobo doesn't have a multiplier option in BIOS. Unless you can change it in Windows ME, I can only change FSB with a jumper on the board itself.

So pencil unlock the CPU and then change multiplier on the board.

AlexZ wrote on 2025-11-11, 07:53:

So pencil unlock the CPU and then change multiplier on the board.

The board doesn't support changing CPU multiplier, unfortunately. Even with an unlocked CPU.
It's not like 1200C CPUs are hard and expensive to find. If I really get fed up by the system being unstable with the 1600+, I'll just get one of those.

But since this system has decided to drive me mad, yesterday evening, after putting the GPU back in it, the ram started acting up again and throwing temper tantrums. This time it's doing it only when launching Everest, and only the first time. After closing the program with a bunch of errors ("divided by zero" is something I never seen in an error message), launching it again goes smooth. No memory problems in games (even those I was able to consistently replicate) and the system always sees the full amount of ram (minus those 8mb dedicated to IGP).
The 512mb stick has just 8 chips on one side and, based on the manual, problems should arise if a stick has more than 18 chips, not the other way around. This is weird. Either the system is going, or I finally borked the Windows ME installation by messing with CPUs and drivers this much.

Oh yeah, I appear to have the latest radeon drivers, 3dMark2000 still crashes with the 1600+. It didn't crash on a system with WinXP + 2600+