Argh, please help :(

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 14:41

Okay, I received my new 8800GTS 320Mb BFG OC this morning and something is wrong somewhere.

I get around 3600 points in 3dmark06 with the set up in my sig, Enermax Liberty 620W PSU and the 8800GTS on stock timings etc.

I've tried reseating the card, ensuring the 6 pin PCI-ex power plug is correctly - it is - I've tried different drivers (I'm using 9792 at the moment) and nothing. The best I can muster is 3746.

3DMark Score 3746 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 1416 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 1359 Marks
CPU Score 2739 Marks

Also, in Company of Heroes I get incredibly bad artifacting, and strange texture problems whereby huge brown and black pyramid shaped textures appear on the back of people's heads etc.

Performance in other games is frankly shocking too, so something is definitely wrong somewhere......

Please, please help

Curio · 17 Feb 2007 at 16:15

If you've ruled out drivers and PSU related issues then I'm afraid you'll have to RMA it and try another card

Unless somebody else can come up with something...

Darkwave · 17 Feb 2007 at 16:19

Sounds like a borked card to me.

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 17:22

Do you think it could be PSU related?

When I reduce my system back to stock speeds/volts etc then it works as it should.

I did run at 3.2GHz with it stable for a short time, before my system froze and then rebooted. Upon reboot - the card was rubbish again. My system has been rock solid stable at 3.2GHz ever since I got it - the card is the only new component.

I'm running at 3GHz now to see if it helps it a little.

I have the Enermax Liberty 620W PSU - it's about 3 months old and is powering my system, 2 DVD drives, 4 120mm fans, the 120mm CPU fan on top of the tuniq tower.....

Do you think I've reached the limit of my cpu's juice?

james.miller · 17 Feb 2007 at 17:26

well back it all down to stock and test it then?

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 17:28

james.miller said:
well back it all down to stock and test it then?

Yeah as I say above, backed down to stock, it works fine. Indeed it seems to be fine at 3GHz. But I've just upped back to 3.2GHz and it's gone pants again....

james.miller · 17 Feb 2007 at 17:29

well if you've tested it ( EXTENSIVELY) at stock then its not the card. its the psu or another component.

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 18:02

A 620W PSU should easily be enough to run my overclocked system.

Lately, nothing seems to go right.

jaykay · 17 Feb 2007 at 18:05

Is the 3.2ghz overclock stable?

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 18:07

jaykay said:
Is the 3.2ghz overclock stable?

It is, totally. 24 hours+ ORTHOS, temps all fine etc etc etc.

Sadly though, although my system can still do 3.2GHz stable, at that speed this 8800GTS doesn't want to play for some reason.....

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 19:18

I *may* have sussed it by leaving the PCI-E frequency to AUTO instead of manually setting it to 100MHz and locking it at 33.3MHz....

MagicThighs · 17 Feb 2007 at 19:52

Is your card in the primary PCI-E slot?

Have you tried 100.65?

Darkwave · 17 Feb 2007 at 20:09

niteflite01 said:
I *may* have sussed it by leaving the PCI-E frequency to AUTO instead of manually setting it to 100MHz and locking it at 33.3MHz....

Try locking PCI at 33 and PCI-E at 110, this solved a problem of mine yesterday thanks to Tom|Nbk.

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 20:53

The card is in the primary slot

I've locked PCI-E at 110 and so far, so good.....cheers for that

What a really odd problem. I guess the 8800GTS is a bit fussy about it's bus speed etc?

Darkwave · 17 Feb 2007 at 21:34

Think it's your motherboard actually. Tom|Nbk was the one who informed me of a bug that makes the PCI-E connection drop to 1x speed sometimes when overclocking and that seems to fix it.

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 21:58

Ulfhedjinn said:
Think it's your motherboard actually. Tom|Nbk was the one who informed me of a bug that makes the PCI-E connection drop to 1x speed sometimes when overclocking and that seems to fix it.

That's EXACTLY what was happening, the slot was reported as being 1x speed.

Thanks so much everyone for your kind help, I really appreciate it

Arclite · 17 Feb 2007 at 22:33

Those brown pyramids in COH rings a big bell. That was the initiation of my X850XT's slow and painful death. RMA the card mate.

niteflite01 · 17 Feb 2007 at 22:37

Arclite said:
Those brown pyramids in COH rings a big bell. That was the initiation of my X850XT's slow and painful death. RMA the card mate.

I think they may have been a symptom of the above PCI-E 1x bug with my motherboard. I've been playing it just now and all is as it should be

I've kept all of the packaging and boxes etc just incase it has to go back though :cool:

niteflite01 · 19 Feb 2007 at 11:14

Just an update really - this PCI-E stuck at 1x bug is really quite crippling with this mobo whilst overclocking. It was fine at 110 for a while, then suddenly it backed down to 1x. So then I tried 105MHz and that fixed it for a while. And now it's jumped back down to 1x again and I cannot sort it no matter what I try.....

Come on ASUS, sort it out before I end up smashing your board into tiny little pieces and posting them to you in oversized, and overheavy boxes, without enough stamps on them.

Darkwave · 19 Feb 2007 at 12:54

Increase voltages on northbridge and southbridge as well.

I think I currently have my NB on 1.55v and my SB on 1.6v with my PCI-E frequency at 110MHz, not seen the 1x bug in a long time. Again that was advice from Tom|Nbk when it happened to me.