Graphics card crashing after new sound card

leetk3zzer · 12 Aug 2011 at 23:59

Hello,

I recently bought the Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card and installed it today. Upon installing it, PC ran fine, no problems.

About 4hours ago I've started experiencing graphics problems. World of Warcraft will crash or graphics will disappear (such as mounts/items/character) and turn invisible. Also, occasionally the screen will freeze/go black and windows will return with "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered".

My mobo only has 2 PCI slots and the soundcard is pretty much sitting right next to my graphics card (Ati radeon 4570). PC currently has one side off so ventilation shouldn't be an issue.

So far I've lowered the speeds of the GPU and increased fan speed from 50% to 80% and it seems to be OK atm. However, I'm still getting little freezes (where a black screen appears for say 0.3seconds), so I can tell there's still an issue with it.

I also only have a 350 or 400W PSU (can't remember). I've read this may be the case? Is there a temporary fix until my next payday? Thanks.

Thekwango · 13 Aug 2011 at 00:55

have you tried removing the soundcard to see if the problem goes away? also a run down of the rest of your rig might help, including the make of your psu

leetk3zzer · 13 Aug 2011 at 01:04

Pretty old rig but it's:

AMD Athlon x2 64 5600+ at 2.8ghz
2GB DDR2 ram
ATI radeon 4670hd on a 32inch tv connected via hdmi
PSU is the default one that came with PC. Cheap ASUS one I think.

World of Warcraft is currently just a black screen, no graphics are showing at all. Was working fine before soundcard was installed.

ShakeNBake · 13 Aug 2011 at 01:46

is the sound card blocking any of the fans on the graphics card.

if it is, then it is quite likely your graphics card is overheating.

leetk3zzer · 13 Aug 2011 at 01:48

Yes. There's hardly any space for the graphics card to ventilate.

No possible way to change that. Soundcard's on the furthest possible PCI slot. Problem is the fan on the graphics card is quite big and actually fills a whole PCI slot.

Edit: Gfx card temps are around 45-50C when gaming.

Thekwango · 13 Aug 2011 at 01:50

personally i'd remove the soundcard to see if the problem goes away. if it doesnt it could be that the gpu has given up the ghost and it just happens to have coincided with the installation of the soundcard.

i dont know enough about psu's but it could be that it's not up to the job or is on its last legs. can you get hold of another psu to test in the system to rule that problem out?

leetk3zzer · 13 Aug 2011 at 01:58

Just checked the PSU and it's 350W peak, 300W. I'm presuming that 300W is too little power for a 4570HD and external soundcard? It's pretty old, say 4years.

My rooms underground and is always freezing (even now in summer). One side of the case is off so the fan should be cool enough. AMD Vision is reporting 49C temperature with WoW/Firefox open, 20% activity and 80% fan speed. I've underclocked it from:

GPU Clock: 750MHZ
Memory Clock: 800MHZ

To: GPU - 680MHZ, Memory - 725MHZ.

Should I try underclocking it more?

Thekwango · 13 Aug 2011 at 02:07

i wouldn't underclock the gpu anymore to be honest, i cant imagine that it would make a huge difference on the power draw.

as per my previous posts, have you tried removing the soundcard to see if the problem goes away?

Jfan · 13 Aug 2011 at 02:20

I think as you already seem to of realised. I don't think that power supply is powerful enough

Those temperatures seem fine tbh. I think your just going to have to do without sound card till you can get a better psu. Hopefully it will still be up to powering your system without the sound card

Orcvader · 13 Aug 2011 at 02:23

Remove the soundcard to see if the problem goes away. If it does, then it may be a power problem, and you should consider a new PSU.

Do you mean the 4670 by the way? Google only shows the 4570 as a laptop GPU, a 4550 is a desktop card but it's single slot. If that's the case then it does sound like a power problem. 50c is fine for a card, the 4670 should be fine up to 90c.

leetk3zzer · 13 Aug 2011 at 03:58

Yea sorry it's the 4670. I took the GPU & soundcard out, cleared some dust around the PC, made sure the PSU cables were fitted to HD/DVD-Drive etc and plugged it back in. Been playing wow for about 2hours now and no signs of GPU problems. Will invest in a new PSU anyway.

What PSU should I be going for? 450W?