• New video card causing computer crashes?
    9 replies, posted
Oh look, I crossposted from another tech support forum. Any help is welcome, I'd like to play some games again :D I've had this computer for a year or so now, and some of the old problems I had with the video are reappearing. Specs: Intel Core i7 920 (2.66 ghz) Intel DX58SO Mobo Megabyte Radeon 5870 GPU Ultra X3 1000 Watt ATX PSU Seagate 500GB ATA 7200RPM HD Windows 7 64 Bit So, for Christmas I got a new video card (The Radeon 5870) but I've started getting some strange problems with crashes from doing most video-based tasks, such as playing a game or watching a youtube video. After a couple minutes of playing the game or watching the video, the computer screen goes black, the sound cuts out after about a second of said blackness, and the video card's fan turns up to its maximum setting. It then just sits there, the monitor says no signal and goes into standby, and the fan keeps blowing until the computer is reset. Now, probably the most important part of this is that this isn't exactly a new problem. Before this card, I had an Evga/Nvidia 9800GTX+ in here. With that card, I would enter certain games, and at certain points, the entire computer would crash and restart. This tended to happen when the card was put under stresses. A friend helped me with this problem, and after his advice, I unplugged two of the auxiliary power connectors from the motherboard. This helped the problem a lot, and the crashes in the games became much less common. However, they still happened on occasion and I finally eliminated the problem by underclocking the video card on those games. It is possible that the two problems are unrelated. However, I thought that this was somewhat unlikely, hence why I mentioned it. I performed a memtest when I had my last problem, and I disabled DEP as well. Neither of those were the problem. After getting the card, I did the following 1. Ensured that the card is seated properly, and the two pci-e power connectors are plugged into the card. 2. Installed the default drivers from the video card. 3. Didn't get the problem for a while, then got it the first time and updated drivers. 4. Got it again, plugged in those auxiliary power connectors that were still unplugged from the last video card. 5. Tried to use some overclocking tools to modify voltages, but ended up just using the one that came with the card. Fully underclocked, it seemed to last longer, but still crashed in the end. 6. Updated motherboard's BIOS, and the device drivers. 7. Called ati tech support, cleaned all drivers. Tested the card with only the default windows drivers. It worked without crashes on videos, but games couldn't even start, and everything was a slideshow. 8. Reinstalled drivers, somehow the catalyst control center was still installed, despite me uninstalling it repeatedly. 9. Posted here. The only noteworthy thing I have seen in the BIOS are the PCI-e ASPM L0s and L1 being disabled (Not really sure what they do, no descriptor, Active State Power Management?) and the pci-e 1.1 compliance being disabled as well. My personal not-so-technical suggestion would be the motherboard, but I'm not really sure where to start. I used to think I was fairly tech-savvy, but this has all really taught me just how little I know :P ANY help is MORE than welcome. I'm sure I forgot something in my haste to post this without a crash, so feel free to ask any obvious questions.
Well your power supply is a single rail so that rules out problems with load balancing. Have you tried a clean install of windows 7? Try disabling the advanced halt states, that caused crashes for me on my last motherboard. It doesn't sound like a temperature problem but see if anything is running overly warm. Also your power supply is modular so you could have a loose connection, try the other PCI-E power cables, and other plugin spots on the power supply.
Not a temperature problem, but I unplugged those auxiliary power connectors again, and the problem is nearly gone... Haven't done a clean install of 7, been trying to avoid that. Tried the other plugin spots on the last card, and after unplugging those and the problem receeding again... There's one more plug into the mobo that I can unplug (An 8-pin), although there's a nice wall of warnings against that in the mobo's manual.
Still no dice. Left 4 dead 2 runs fine, but I crash almost instantly in GMod. That'd be exactly why my old card did. I'll contact Intel tomorrow about said motherboard.
Have you tried putting the BIOS to default setting? Are your temps ok?
[QUOTE=Teddypimm;19308670]Have you tried putting the BIOS to default setting? Are your temps ok?[/QUOTE] I've been talking to PJB, and I reset the bios, and the temps are ok. I put every fan up to 100%, nothing is overclocked, still failed. Temps are also well within range. [editline]08:03PM[/editline] Whoa, underclocked the core speed on the GPU, and bang, problem solved. PJ was right, it seems to have been a memory problem. Presumably the older games don't handle memory as well. Fascinating. Not really an ideal solution, underclocking my card, but it works.
[QUOTE=Morcam;19309900]I've been talking to PJB, and I reset the bios, and the temps are ok. I put every fan up to 100%, nothing is overclocked, still failed. Temps are also well within range. [editline]08:03PM[/editline] Whoa, underclocked the core speed on the GPU, and bang, problem solved. PJ was right, it seems to have been a memory problem. Presumably the older games don't handle memory as well. Fascinating. Not really an ideal solution, underclocking my card, but it works.[/QUOTE] WHich kind if memory, VRAM? or just normal RAM?
Presumably the VRAM. I underclocked the core speed on the GPU, but left the memory speed alone. Now the real question becomes... Why the hell did unplugging an auxiliary power connector help this, and why has this problem appeared on two different cards?
I currently have a 9800gtx+ in my computer. On windows xp my shit would crash constantly while playing source games. Nvid cards are riddled with the "infinite loop error" and nvid refuses to address the issue. I'm just wondering if you ever experienced games rendering textures in the wrong places?
[QUOTE=Ermandfa;19370356]I currently have a 9800gtx+ in my computer. On windows xp my shit would crash constantly while playing source games. Nvid cards are riddled with the "infinite loop error" and nvid refuses to address the issue. I'm just wondering if you ever experienced games rendering textures in the wrong places?[/QUOTE] No, and not on any source games. The fact that roughly the same problem occurred on two different cards (with different brands) on the same motherboard is mostly what confuses me.
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