I hope someone on here can help me.
Back in August I raided Overclockers for the components for my new PC, including an OCUK 570 GTX. Turns out, when it arrives it is a PNY XLR8 Enthusiast Edition, the version with the fan in the middle, not at the end.
I finally had some time to actually build the PC in the middle of last month as a dual boot XP/Win7 machine. After using the machine for a few days I start having peculiar graphics problems. I have some games just shut down on me. The screen goes blank and the 570's fan howls, and it isn't as quiet as I thought it would be at the best of times. The only recourse is a hard reset. Other times the screen is covered in pixellated squares (pink?), running diagonally across the screen. These often appear after running a game e.g. Section 8 Prejudice, appearing about ten seconds after the return to the desktop. Then the machine hangs (although occasionally I get an error message about the nvidia drivers having to restart and everything clears when running Win7 x64). Sometimes the squares appear mid game too.
Other games seem to produce no problems at all.
I have removed the card and re-seated it.
I have tried the card in the other 16x slot on the mobo.
I suspected that something else may be causing the issue, so dismantled the computer completely and rebuilt it in a minimum configuration (1 HDD, 4Gb RAM and the 570, reinstalled XP and Win7 from scratch).
I have tried old, current and latest beta Nvidia drivers.
I reinstalled my previous mobo and I still get the problem, which is as near as I can get to trying it on another machine.
My new PC works fine with my old Radeon 4870HD but not the 570.
The only component I can't swap out is the power supply; a Seasonic 650W 80 plus Gold, which I have stuck a multimeter across and is still delivering over 12V on the single 12V 53A rail.
In testing the card I find that GPU-Z says that the card is running at 0.9500V, however, when I was running a test with GPU-Z logging in the background after S8P had finished I think I saw the voltage drop to 0.915V. Then I had the pixellation artefacts and required a reboot (Win7).
Freestone stability test and Furmark quickly ramps the temps up to 85 degrees, where the temperature stabilizes. The card hasn't yet crashed on exit after a stress test.
Unloaded, i.e. as I type this, it is running at 40 degrees. The fan is distinctly louder than the 4870 was, but then, it is running a little hotter.
I have made no attempt to overclock the PC or the 570 at any point. That would have come later.
I have done CPU and RAM tests without anything identified. The case has been cleaned and the cabling is mostly routed behind the base plate, so good for airflow. When running a game the case fans are exhausting a lot of heat.
After nearly three weeks of sodding about with this I am getting very fed up.
Does anyone think the card is actually faulty?
System specs: Intel i2500K, MSI P67-GD53 (b3), Corsair 8Gb 1600 RAM, PNY 570GTX, Samsung 1Tb HDD, Crucial M4 64Gb SSD, Panasonic 20x DVD burner,
Seasonic X-650W PSU, Antec P182 case. Win XP x86/Win7 x64 dual boot.
Back in August I raided Overclockers for the components for my new PC, including an OCUK 570 GTX. Turns out, when it arrives it is a PNY XLR8 Enthusiast Edition, the version with the fan in the middle, not at the end.
I finally had some time to actually build the PC in the middle of last month as a dual boot XP/Win7 machine. After using the machine for a few days I start having peculiar graphics problems. I have some games just shut down on me. The screen goes blank and the 570's fan howls, and it isn't as quiet as I thought it would be at the best of times. The only recourse is a hard reset. Other times the screen is covered in pixellated squares (pink?), running diagonally across the screen. These often appear after running a game e.g. Section 8 Prejudice, appearing about ten seconds after the return to the desktop. Then the machine hangs (although occasionally I get an error message about the nvidia drivers having to restart and everything clears when running Win7 x64). Sometimes the squares appear mid game too.
Other games seem to produce no problems at all.
I have removed the card and re-seated it.
I have tried the card in the other 16x slot on the mobo.
I suspected that something else may be causing the issue, so dismantled the computer completely and rebuilt it in a minimum configuration (1 HDD, 4Gb RAM and the 570, reinstalled XP and Win7 from scratch).
I have tried old, current and latest beta Nvidia drivers.
I reinstalled my previous mobo and I still get the problem, which is as near as I can get to trying it on another machine.
My new PC works fine with my old Radeon 4870HD but not the 570.
The only component I can't swap out is the power supply; a Seasonic 650W 80 plus Gold, which I have stuck a multimeter across and is still delivering over 12V on the single 12V 53A rail.
In testing the card I find that GPU-Z says that the card is running at 0.9500V, however, when I was running a test with GPU-Z logging in the background after S8P had finished I think I saw the voltage drop to 0.915V. Then I had the pixellation artefacts and required a reboot (Win7).
Freestone stability test and Furmark quickly ramps the temps up to 85 degrees, where the temperature stabilizes. The card hasn't yet crashed on exit after a stress test.
Unloaded, i.e. as I type this, it is running at 40 degrees. The fan is distinctly louder than the 4870 was, but then, it is running a little hotter.
I have made no attempt to overclock the PC or the 570 at any point. That would have come later.
I have done CPU and RAM tests without anything identified. The case has been cleaned and the cabling is mostly routed behind the base plate, so good for airflow. When running a game the case fans are exhausting a lot of heat.
After nearly three weeks of sodding about with this I am getting very fed up.
Does anyone think the card is actually faulty?
System specs: Intel i2500K, MSI P67-GD53 (b3), Corsair 8Gb 1600 RAM, PNY 570GTX, Samsung 1Tb HDD, Crucial M4 64Gb SSD, Panasonic 20x DVD burner,
Seasonic X-650W PSU, Antec P182 case. Win XP x86/Win7 x64 dual boot.