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Possible 8800 Ultra problem

hterag

hterag

hterag

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Joined
7 Nov 2007
Posts
82
Location
Wales
I'm not entirely sure if this is the graphics card, some advice and ideas would be very helpful.

This post may get a bit lengthy, I'm not sure how relevant it is but here we go:

My system:

XFX 8800 Ultra 650M
Athlon 64 X2 6400+
Asus Crosshair
2x1GB OCZ SLi Ready PC6400 DDR2
320GB Seagate Barracuda(Only 200GB partitioned) IDE->SATA adapter
2x74GB WD Raptors RAID 0
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty sans drive bay thing
etc

Issue 1: Two days ago, I disabled the IDE controller in my bios since I'm not using the IDE ports, XP took a lot longer to boot (the "grey bar" part took around 20 seconds) but otherwise there were no issues.

Issue 2: I've been planning to add a second Ultra to my system for a while and yesterday decided to move my soundcard etc. around to make room for it. The PC was off, unplugged and had been for over 10 minutes, but as I moved the soundcard into position to place it in the top slot, I saw a blue flash. I have no idea where it came from, as far as I know I'd just touched the soundcard against the side of the case, what could possibly have caused this? There was no power going into the computer at the time...

Today, I've been having lock-ups galore, so I've looked into it, updated the BIOS to the 904 release (no change) and eventually re-enabled the IDE controller, grey bar sorted. I've tried reseating everything, monitoring temperatures, running memtest to 2000%, no problems. I can run the CPU test in 3Dmark06 constantly without any issues, as soon as I run anything graphically demanding (Crysis, 3DMark06 graphics tests), not only is it slower than before (without any changes made to the clock speeds) I also get random lock-ups, although I've had no other lock-ups outside of games/3DMark since re-enabling the IDE controller. Interestingly, when the system does lock up, the hard drive activity LED lights up constantly.

Are these issues related? Has the spark damaged the graphics card? Did it damage anything else?

One final note, while running Crysis just now, I had the nvidia monitor running on my second monitor, when the game locked up, the monitor kept updating although I could not ctrl+alt+del Crysis or switch to it. The CPU activity had dropped to virtually zero and the graphics card temperature was falling steadily but hard drive activity was seriously weird, massive spikes going from 0 to 100% constantly. When I went to get a camera, I returned to find both monitors off.

Looks like I need to replace some parts, but which ones? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm pretty sure it's the graphics card...

EDIT: It's probably worth mentioning that this definately isn't a driver issue, I had no problems with the ones I'm using before this all started...
 
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the order is turn off and unplug psu (if its turn offable) and then hit the power button on the pc to empty capacitors etc on the board

did you do that first or did you just unplug wait 10 then dive straight in

my old nforce2 board with the power off after half an hour unplugeed had enough juice left in it to spin up all the mobo fans for a milisecond when hitting the power button
 
Good point, but yeah, I always press the power button before starting to do anything, I didn't wait 10 minutes for it to discharge, I just left it alone for 10 minutes as I got my screw driver. :P The PSU was turned off and unplugged too, definately, there were no lights on etc. (the Crosshair is covered in random LEDs :S) Thanks for the reply though.
 
Sorry for the bump, but I have an update.

Just tested a few things, here are the results:

Running without the sound card - Locked up in web browser
Running without sound card and only one stick of RAM at a time(tested with both) - Locked up on desktop/Locked up in web browser
Swapped graphics card for an older one - Locked up in Crysis(I was playing all low at 800x600 with a 6800XT graphics card, 7fps ***) and locked up at desktop
Turned off RAID controller - Locked up during Super PI run

I don't have a spare CPU to try but have tested the PSU voltage levels, they all seem normal, the only possible exception being the 5v which was only giving 4.91V at load, I think that's acceptable though... The 3.3v was at 3.31, 12v was at 12.04.

That, to me, leaves either the CPU or the motherboard, the fact there is no blue screen made me think it was the graphics card initially but I've ruled that out, it could be the PCI-E bus or something but who knows, any ideas?

Thanks in advance.
 
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Your PSU readings appear to be normal, a slight variation below or above expected outputs is to be expected. However, you may not be monitoring your PSU all the time, so it is possible that a power spike / surge may be causing the problems you are describing. You have done a great job at narrowing down what could be causing the problem. You need to test the remaining components in another system, with the exception of the motherboard. If everything else checks out, a faulty motherboard it must be.
 
i have the same sort of problem with my 8800 ultra all temps norm, newest drivers, bios updated. checked ram etc and still get lock up in demanding games, have looked into it on the nvidia website and quite a few people have the same issue, although there is no fix as of yet :/ bloody annoying
 
When I was working on an old Asus mobo I experienced something similar with a blue flash, although it wouldn't boot at all after.

Mine was the motherboard, but a bit easier to diagnose than yours.

I would first suspect the sound card, but as you've tested without this installed and still experience the same problems that would tend to rule that out.

From your tests so far, the graphics, cpu and memory work when stressed on their own, but not when they're stressed together. This would lead me to look at replacing the mobo.

What surface were you working on? Could it have been static from you that caused the spark? Fleeces are great producers of static when you take then off which can turn you into something deadly to a pc.

Out of interest, after my incident I was was told the safest (if there is one) way to work on a PC is to turn off the power switch on the PSU if it has one and at the wall but leave the kettle plug and the wall plug plugged in for earthing, then press the power and reset switch to discharge.
 
@JackRegan

Thanks for the reply, yeah, I'm beginning to think it may have been static, possibly from my cat, who I'd been absent mindedly stroking a while before. I did touch the case to discharge myself (and to unplug it in the first place) but other than static, it could only have been charge left in something, the graphics card has a few meaty looking capacitors and there are a few others near the pci slot I was plugging the sound card into. But that's a good observation, that the components work individually just not together.

I'm going to have to RMA the motherboard as I can't think of anything else to try, thanks for all the help to everyone who responded.
 
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