PC freezing on graphics

bryn

bryn

bryn

Associate
Joined
12 May 2005
Posts
103
Problem: Since first building, PC freezes when running 3D applications, including about half the time when running 3Dmark2001/2003/2005 and games/sims like MS Flightsim 2004, and GTR demo.

Thought it must be the graphics card or drivers: no luck so went from ATI 800XT PCIe to NVidea 6800GS. No luck.

4x512MB Geil Value PC3200 RAM runs Memtest86 all night with no errors.

Prime95 runs for hours with no errors, max cpu temp 54C.

Where to look next?? I'm running out of ideas.

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3700 San Diego on Abit AX8 motherboard, stock cooling, no overclocking, latest BIOS.
2x250GB WD SATA drives, not in RAID configuration.
Creative Audigy ZS sound card.
Enermax 485W PSU in Antec Sonata case
XP Home

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Bryn
 
OFFTOPIC: but Ide read the faq's about signatures mate :) only 4 lines of text allowed.

Cant really say anything about your situation as Im not too much of a pc tech. good luck :)
 
When you changed the graphics card did you remove the ati drivers fully?

What are the voltages?
Download OCCT and run the 30min test, this will create a few graphs at the end showing the voltage rails and what they are at under stress.
If they get off too much then this could be the problem.

http://www.ocbase.com/OpenBeta/OCCTv0.91.exe
 
DanMc07 said:
OFFTOPIC: but Ide read the faq's about signatures mate :) only 4 lines of text allowed.

Cant really say anything about your situation as Im not too much of a pc tech. good luck :)
Click to expand...

Actually the sig is only one line :D I just put a divider in the main text to give folks all the info they would otherwise be asking me for.

Sorry you don't have anything meaningful to contribute - I really need some help here ;)

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Bryn
 
lee87 said:
When you changed the graphics card did you remove the ati drivers fully?

What are the voltages?
Download OCCT and run the 30min test, this will create a few graphs at the end showing the voltage rails and what they are at under stress.
If they get off too much then this could be the problem.

http://www.ocbase.com/OpenBeta/OCCTv0.91.exe
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I'll try the OCCT you suggested and report back.

Yep, I used Driver Cleaner to wipe out (I hope fully) the ATI drivers.

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Bryn
 
messiah khan said:
What temperatures are the cpu and gpu running at?
Click to expand...
CPU as in original message only got up to 54C after 6 hours of Prime95, otherwise much lower. I don't have GPU figs to hand, but it would freeze quite quickly on some occasions and the case is very well ventilated at present.

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Bryn
 
How does it freeze?
I am having some issues with mine atm, I get graphic lockups and looping sound for a couple of seconds before the pc resets.
Have you looked in event viewer to see if there are any entries which will point you in the right direction?
I'm currntly thinking that my problems are hard drive related, but pinning it down is a nightmare.
 
tim_enchanter said:
How does it freeze?
I am having some issues with mine atm, I get graphic lockups and looping sound for a couple of seconds before the pc resets.
Have you looked in event viewer to see if there are any entries which will point you in the right direction?
I'm currntly thinking that my problems are hard drive related, but pinning it down is a nightmare.
Click to expand...

Graphics display just stops on current frame, keyboard and mouse inoperative. It often stops in the Matrix shootout scene in 3DMark2001, but I have seen it freeze in one of the loading progress screens in 3DMark2003 - not a time when much 3D processing can be going on. Also I have on rare occasions had a blue screen which reboots automatically after a few seconds.

Where is the "event viewer" to be found? I don't know my way around these new fangled operating systems yet :)

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Bryn
 
right click on my computer and you should see 'manage', which takes you into 'computer management' you will see in there the event viewer and you want the system section, look in there and see what relates to your crashes, you may need to look up some error codes on the net to find out what they mean.
 
tim_enchanter said:
right click on my computer and you should see 'manage', which takes you into 'computer management' you will see in there the event viewer and you want the system section, look in there and see what relates to your crashes, you may need to look up some error codes on the net to find out what they mean.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. Nothing found I'm afraid - nothing made the event log at all at the time of the freeze.

I have now got Everest working again to check the GPU temp. It is normally running below the CPU temp, which idles around 42C.

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Bryn
 
I have had the continual loop problem before and common causes are PSU try changing the load on it. BIOS settings worth going over the mobo manual.
It does not sound like a heat problem but give it a good clean for dust especially if your running it with the case open.

Problem with this is it could be anything and you need to narrow the culprit down a bit.
 
Well, I have this IDENTICAL problem as well. My situation is pretty similar:
MSI RS480IL motherboard (ATI chipset)
Athalon 64 3200+, stock cooling & no o/c
Nvidia Geforce 6600LE, 512mb
1gb dual-channel PC3200 Crucial value
200gb Maxtor SATA, another arriving tomorrow
Sony DVD & Aopen DVD-RW
Brand-new Hiper TypeR 480w PSU (Upgraded from a 400w generic, no difference)

All voltages are well within acceptable ranges, and the temps are:
Idle 36c
Load 42c
Case temps are generally around 11-15c, don't think this is the problem as the PC still does it with the side off & a fan blowing in :D
Again rot all in the error log, apart from a protection system driver failing to load at startup (Not important).
Just out of interest- Do you have any McAffee stuff installed? I removed the firewall bit, and this has reduced the crashes to almost nil on BF2 (Used to crash at 60% of loading a level every time), but I'm supposed to have this crud installed to access the uni network :rolleyes:
Memtest & prime are rock stable.

My other thought is a buggy BIOS- Its lost the settings after one of these crashes once now, and I have only had the crashes on BIOS ver 1.2 but I need this to run Linux properly :mad: (And I added the Gf6600 at that time as well)

Make of it what you will

-Leezer-
 
Last edited:
Nope, both mine & the OPs machines are at stock.
I've removed McAfee & installed Avast, & shall see what happens.

-Leezer-
 
Thanks for all the replies. I run eTrust EZAntivirus.

I'll be out of the loop for the next few days. When I get a chance I'll rip a few more things out of the case to try to narrow it down a bit.

Later..
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Bryn
 
Oh, well- It's not McAfee :rolleyes: (Couple of crashes on loading webpages with large numbers of images)
I've checked the HDD for errors & bad sectors- Nothing except a couple of corrupt attribute errors; Nothing serious.
I've just updated the system drivers to the latest from ATI as opposed to those provided by MSI, we shall see.
Have you updated all drivers?
Also, in your case I might be inclined to suspect the Creative card- I know these are picky at best.

However, I have just realised my pagefile was on manual :eek: I've moved it to the new drive and set it to system managed. This could be the problem, as I know all the crashes were in relatively memory intensive areas, but we shall see!

Oh, it's definitely a Windoze based problem- No crashes whatsoever in Linux, including the prime crash culprit (Train-Sim) running under Cedega.

-Leezer-
 
A small bump with a little more info- Recreating (Full delete & re-create) the pagefile with Windoze managed settings appears to have dropped the frequency of the crashes a little more- Now the only proggie that does it is NFS: MW.
Gonna try rolling back the BIOS to the intitial release if no more ideas come forward soon.

-Leezer-
 
to be honest may not help but your cpu temps do sound a bit high if all the settings are stock, possibly check silly mistake didnt occur maybe? use cpu-z to get details of speeds.
and then see if occt does finish the stress test or not. cant really tell whats going wrong. could check a different set of drivers (long shot i know) for graphics.
 
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