SQL SERVER 7.0 Group by Problem w/ +1000 records

I have an application tool that has sql server 7.0 on the back end. the tool creates reports after querying the db. Right now It is having problems with a group by sql query that is selecting 4 fields, then grouping by those 4 fields along with a count of the number of items relevant to each field. When I restrict the number of row's returned by adding an extra where clause it runs and sorts fine. However when I remove this additional cluase and the row count exceeds about 1000 records, the group by is failing. Does anyone know if there are any timeouts or adjustments that can be made to allow this to sort properly? I have added a select and order by in Query analyzer to test if that helps in sorting properly and it does, however because this sql statement is run thru a different application I can not modify it there so I am hoping for a db setting of some sort?

thank you..

You would have to modify the sql statement.