really annoying crashes and I have no idea what causes them..

Hutch

Hutch

Hutch

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Joined
13 Jul 2008
Posts
1,004
Location
Wales
Specs are:

Asus P5Q-e
4gb ram
q9550
gtx280
enermax modu82 625W psu

In windows xp 32bit I occasionally just get the system restarting. I lose control of what im doing for about 5-10 seconds then it reboots. This only seems to happen when im watching movies on the pc or playing games.

In vista 32 & 64 I get lockups when playing games, or wierd graphical artefacts (like phone wires in cod4 go bright pink and other textures get messed up). Sometimes the game hangs and can be shutdown from task manager..

Ive tried fiddling with all sorts of bios settings but to no avail, and ive obviously tried different operating systems..

So any ideas what i should try next?

Cheers

Edit: should say this has been happening since I had the system really. I just havent got around to trying to work out the cause for a while :)
 
Have you checked Event viewer?

Hutch said:
In vista 32 & 64 I get lockups when playing games, or wierd graphical artefacts (like phone wires in cod4 go bright pink and other textures get messed up)
Click to expand...
Could be graphics card...
I once had Radeon 9700 fail and it started with lockup in game, after reset there were few artefacts in Windows and games had corrupted graphics.
 
It does sound like either the Gfx card or possibly overheating problems...

try some programs to monitor the temp inside and check that out.. off the top of my head i cant remember the best program to do that..
 
Event viewer doesnt help a great deal.. I dont understand the messages :) But they dont seem to give much info..

I tried monitoring temps, nothing gets remotely near what i would worry about being too hot.. sadly I dont have anyone i could borrow a video card from as my mates have laptops/crappy video cards...
 
ceego said:
It does sound like either the Gfx card or possibly overheating problems...

try some programs to monitor the temp inside and check that out.. off the top of my head i cant remember the best program to do that..
Click to expand...

Speed fan and core temp are good programs for that. But yeah, it does sound a lot like a GFX problem to me.
 
So the PSU is definately sufficient to power it? I figured 625W was fine for just a single card..

I guess I will contact BFG technical support..
 
Hutch said:
So the PSU is definately sufficient to power it? I figured 625W was fine for just a single card..

I guess I will contact BFG technical support..
Click to expand...

there are numerous power consumption calculators out there... just google it and check for yourself.. i would have thought it would be able to power the system definately.. i dont think you have any room for expansion but i would have thought it would be adequate for just what you listed.. unless you have OCd and not said anything..
 
PSU should be fine, it definately sounds like gfx, is your card OC'd? If so reset to default, if not you could even try underclocking it by a small amount, see how that goes
 
The card is the bfg ocx version so its overclocked by default.. Could that be drawing too much power for my psu?

Edit: I googled pc power calculator, ended up on the antec website one.. It suggests 668W so I guess the psu could be the cause of my woes.. I guess I didnt think about all the LED fans in the antec 1200.. Going to find some other calculators now..

Perhaps time to buy a beefier psu and hope i can sell mine on the MM..
 
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Before you start to assume it's one particular component, make sure you do some checks first. It sounds like the system is struggling on load.. so it might be worth clearing the CMOS and set to safest settings.


The event log is under estimated..

Firstly, disable auto restart Control Panel>System> Advnavced tab> then click the setting button in Startup and recovery. Untick the box that says "Automatic Restart" and tick the box that says "Write an event to the system log". Also write a note of the dump directory.

Next time you get the error, pop into safe mode and examine the event log and/or dump Look for errors and any clues. Google what you can. Sometimes, this can give you a good idea what's going wrong, like driver probelms or hardware issues etc.

Next port of call is to eliminate your PSU. Check that it's supplying the correct voltages and that your PSU is working.

Guide here


Lastly check your memory is working by running memtest86. Make sure you have set the memory settings correctly in the BIOS. Latency timings, voltages etc.. You can check the manufacturers web site for settings. Clearing the CMOS earlier my have cleared any issues.
 
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Tried cmos before.. And with default settings after that.. Same thing..

Ive looked at the event viewer, it isnt too helpful since its a collection of different results, which isnt too helpful..

I will start memtest86 tonight (assuming it still takes hours to run) and check the results.. Not going to rush out and buy a new psu just yet:)
 
Hutch said:
Tried cmos before.. And with default settings after that.. Same thing..

Ive looked at the event viewer, it isnt too helpful since its a collection of different results, which isnt too helpful..

I will start memtest86 tonight (assuming it still takes hours to run) and check the results.. Not going to rush out and buy a new psu just yet:)
Click to expand...

screenshot of event viewer?
 
If you fear the PSU is under powered just disable/unplug a few things that will be drawing power that you dont need. for example optical drives/HDD that wont be needed for operation etc. and see how that goes
 
I have had this exact same problem. My thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17965699
Playing games would freeze up randomly, wait 5 seconds and reboot.
After going through a number of different options, including replacing my RAM, I saw that my PCE-E Frequency was set to 105...thought that was a bit high so I lowered it to 101. Have not had a crash since, played games for hours on end now without any trouble.
Try it :)
 
Cant post a pic of the event viewer here..

I could try removing a few things. Would only be optical drive and the case fans though, would that make a huge amount of difference to the power? I figure the overclocked GPU is the killer on power usage here..

pci-e freqency is 100 so not that one..
 
Hutch said:
In vista 32 & 64 I get lockups when playing games, or wierd graphical artefacts (like phone wires in cod4 go bright pink and other textures get messed up). Sometimes the game hangs and can be shutdown from task manager..
Click to expand...

Having sometimes same issue during COD4 (phone wires yellow, or mountains)
also COD4 while online FREEZEZ and will remain frozen til I press ctrl+alt+delete, after I press it's continues to play!
rerarely, but do have ...
I think It's o/c cpu problem maybe as gtx280 on stock, try different gtx driver?did u o/c cpu/ram/gpu?
 
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Talk about jinxing myself. Just happened to me now playing AoE III. So annoyed at this problem...no idea what is going on.
 
b-star said:
Having sometimes same issue during COD4 (phone wires yellow, or mountains)
also COD4 while online FREEZEZ and will remain frozen til I press ctrl+alt+delete, after I press it's continues to play!
Click to expand...

Yes I have had this happen too with the freezing and resuming on ctrl+alt+del... I do overclock but have tried it with the default settings and I still get the problem :/
 
Your power draw wont be anywhere near 668, more like 400, tops, unless its an old and dying PSU I very much doubt that is the issue. Whilst your card is factory OC'd, that doesnt guarantee its entirely stable, as I say throttle it back a bit, set it to default speeds. The artefacting in particular points towards gfx cad issues, added the crashes are only in stressful games I strongly suspect that is your source
Another thing you could try is adjusting your PCI-E freq, if this doesnt work, try setting it to 101 or 105, 100 whilst default can sometimes cause issues itself - this is less likely than the OC being the source
 
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