Stable Win7 64bit apart from when playing games.

[RimBlock]

Hi,

I am running Win 7 RC (64bit) and have been since it's release. I have had no real problems with it as far as day to day usage like web browsing, spreadsheets, music playing or video watching.

I had a cheap 8600GTS (I think from memory) so didn't play games whilst saving a bit for a decent game playing video card.


Problem 1
I bought Kingston 4GB 6400 (2*2GB) to replace my OCZ 2GB 8500 (2*1GB). The 6400 was the fastest the shop had.

Since the upgrade to 4GB I have seen problems with the system recovering from going to sleep mode (auto suspend with wake on keyboard). I have a backlit keyboard and when I hit a key to bring the PC back up, the PSU fan starts but after a second or so the keyboard back lighting flickers like a loose connection and the machine reboots. It does not even get far enough to display the bios message on the screen. The only way to stop this reboot cycle is to pull the power cable out of the back of the machine.

Going back to the 2GB OCZ memory and I do not seem to get this.

Problem 2
I recently got a Nvidia 260GTX (SP16) card and so have started playing games again.

Halflife 2 (EP2 and lost coast) crash to desktop within 20 minutes. Increasing graphics corruption as timegoes on, 2-3 second pauses increasing in frequency.
ARMA 2 crashes to desktop within 20 minutes. Increasing graphics corruption as timegoes on, 2-3 second pauses increasing in frequency.
Hellgate London hangs or crashes to desktop within 10 minutes. Graphics corruption fromt eh start, increasing as timegoes on, 2-3 second pauses increasing in frequency.
Red alert 3 crashes to desktop within 20 minutes. 2-3 second pauses increasing in frequency.
Fallout 3 - A little graphics corruption now and then, slight pauses.

Crash to desktop as in jumping to the desktop with the game icon still on the bottom start bar and either not responding or tabable with game sounds but no change back to the game video (i.e. still windows desktop).

Graphics corruption as in sparkles, shading coming up as white areas then going back to normal, negative image (black and white), incorrect colours like the water / beach area in HL2 - Lost Coast being tinged pink.

I originally suspected the new memory but it works fine outside of games. The new video card could be faulty but again, it is only inside games where the problems occur. I am now leaning towards an insufficent power supply. Any way of testing for this and an idea of expected results to compare against ?

Any suggestions / ideas would be most welcome as I don't have the cash to swap all the bits out.

Cheers
RB

System;
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4
Memory: Kingston 4GB (2*2GB) or OCZ 2GB 8500 (2*1GB)
Video Card: Nvidia 260GTX (SP16)
Sound Card: Motherboard built in.
Hard Disk: Hitachi 250GB Sata2
DVD Writer: Not sure but Sata2
Wireless mouse - Logitek G7 (usb receiver)
PSU: Not sure.

 

[RimBlock]

Hi mate (btw i put that fitness trainer on hold until next year when i get more time )

Anyway,

Problem 1 - have you tried the ram in different slots and try just using 1 stick? Also i dont think this would cause it, but to rule it out put the keyboard in a different usb port.

Problem 2, an easy fix i suspect. Those graphics card run very hot, you will have to download RivaTuner or Evga Precision, manually set the fan speed for the card at say 55%-60%. I know, we should not have to do this, but every nvidia card ive had i needed too.

i think its safe to say the psu is not the problem if you are getting 20 mins or so gaming done, could you take a picture of it, and the side of it with all the amp information on it - if non of the above works first.

With the RivaTuner or Evga Precision (i would reccomend the evga one: http://www.evga.com/PRecision/ ), you can see the temps of your GPU which would be handy if you posted.

Let me know if you need anymore help with anything mate.

Hi Toon,

Good to know the FT project has not 'faded away' .

I will give the keyboard a go in another slot to see if that helps, I also suspect not though.

I will try the other two slots for the memory tonight as well and see if that makes any difference. I believe they are in the first two slots which is where the 2*1GB sticks ( OCZ PC2-8500 SLI-Ready 1066MHz 1GB ) were.

As for the video card, what setting is the cards fan usually on as standard ?. The card is a Palit Ge-forceGTX260 Sonic 896M216SP and as it is factory overclocked I imagine would run hotter than stock.

I will have a look at the PSU when I get home tonight.

Any suggestions on minimum PSU rating for this sort of setup ?

I will try and get some temps for the card up tonight too.

I have usually stuck with ATI cards and never had this sort of issue. Maybe I am just unlucky though. I did hit Win 7 with the blame before checking out the various game forums and seeing people reporting the games working fine for them on Win 7.

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

Hi,

I downloaded the EVGA Precision but am having difficulty getting the OSD to display in ARMA 2 and I don't seem to be able to find any graphs for tems, only Mhz and fan speed.

On a plus side, I upped the fan speed to 60% and played ARMA 2 for 20 minutes with only getting graphics glitches twice and they didn't get worse.

Would love to see the temps though .

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

Strangely the percision details on the EVGA site state you can see the temps but they are just not an option for me just like the OSD does not seem to work.

Will give rivatuner a try now.

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

Yep, Rivatuner has a whole load of 'stuff' most of which I have no interest in.

Cant find how to turn on an OSD or configure what stats I would like.

Went and uninstalled the NVidia drivers, rebooted and Win 7 reinstalled the drivers automatically, although I am not sure if they are the older Windows update available Nvidia drivers or the new Nvidia drivers from their site.

Precision now allows for a GPU temp graph but the OSD still does not seem to work .

ARMA 2 ran for a while after I set the GPU fan to 65 with no corruption visiable but the machine is now quite noisy. When I knocked it up to 70+ the noise was intrusive and pretty irritating and I have an XBox 360 so I know what noisy machines sound like .

Maybe I will also look at better cooling for the case and giving it a spring clean .

Thanks for the advice. I will get round to the RAM at the weekend. I have disabled the suspend option anyway which is no bad thing TBH.

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

Surprisingly, I have a core216 GTX260 in my pc at the moment. It's not running hot by any stretch of the imagination. Idles at only 42°C with the fan at the 40% default!

I need to turn off driver signing to get Rivatuner to work on Win7, but I figured out how to get some pretty good fan profiles going. It takes ages to set up as first you have to create the different fan profiles. I save ones at 10% increments, starting at 40% all the way to 100%. You never know when they'll be useful.

Then you have to create the launcher item that starts each of those fan profiles. Then you have to create the temperature thresholds that start each of those launcher items. I start from normal idle temp, having that set as the 40% fan. If it goes 10° above that, then it kicks it up to 50% fan. Basically increase it steadily, but I always say that if the card goes above 80°C, then the fan speed goes up to 100%. I've never had this happen so far. But those fan profiles keep it nice and cool, and I haven't had any graphical artefacts.

Hi SMAndy,

How do you monitor the temp as I cannot get the OSD working for either application.

When you say you needed to turn off driver signing, did you get an issue / request on installation or did you turn it off from somewhere in control panel and then install ?

Rivatuner looks to be very powerful but will take a bit of learinng to get the profiles sorted out. Are there any recommended guides out there just for this ?. I really have no interest in overclocking the core etc more than has already been done in the factory.

Many thanks
RB

 

[RimBlock]

I have the palit 260 GTX and it's a cool card, I run it at 25% fan speed so it's quiet, temps just under 80 on load. At default fan speed it idles at 32 with an ambient of 24!"

Oh dear. Not good news for my card although ambient temps here are a bit higher than the UK . With the aircon on then the rooms ambient temps are 25 degrees all year and the aircon is usually only on at night.

System specs didn't include CPU, tho I don't think this is a likely cause of the problem(s)"

The CPU is a Intel QC 9450 at stock speed.

Did you reset the cmos when you changed hardware? My mobo wouldn't even post after changing DVD drive until I did that (I hate my mobo!)."

No I didn't but then I have never needed to for any other hardware in the past. I may give it a try and see if it sorts out the restart from suspend issue.

I'd underclock the gfx and see if things improve, also check the drivers are the latest. Not sure why you're unclear as to what version you're on, device manager will tell you.

Because I didn't go and look to see which version windows installed.

If underclocking solves it, I'd send the card back. Also, going back to the old memory while you do this will be useful unless you can confirm stability with the new memory.

Good idea with the underclocking.

Unfortunately returns are a bit more of a problem here than the UK. It will have to go back to the manufacturer.

I can also try it out on my sons machine now we have pretty well pinned it down to one component to confirm it is the card. Even though I have been building PC's for myself for 20 odd years, when I put a faster video card in my sons Acer PC it started going funny. It was a year old and turned out to be the motherboard so after replacement it now works fine. My wife still blames me for breaking his machine . I tend to not touch it now as it keeps life simple at home.

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

Ok, some more updates.

Actions:
Ran driver sweeper and uninstalled all ATI (used to have a 4870), creative, Nvidia video, Nvidia Phyx, Realtek sound drivers.

Had to reboot in safe mode to clear everything and then installed the Nvidia 191 drivers and the latest Realtek 2.36 Azalia drivers (motherboard HD sound).

Rebooted

Got the hardware monitoring running on Rivatuner.

ARMA 2 is running fine. Slight graphics glitches rarely (4+- over 30 minutes). All settings to MAX at res: 1920*1600.
Hellgate London runs as above with slight pauses to begin with but these vanished. All settings to MAX at res: 1920*1600.
Halflife 2 EP2 hangs all the time. Game hangs usually with a sound loop. I can get task manager up and wait for the core 1 on the cpu to drop too below 100% then switch back and continue. These hangs once they start (about 5 minutes - 10 minutes into playing) can happen as frequently at every minute. Core temp for the GPU is monitored at 73 deg max. Upping the fan speed is making no difference. Replacing my old ram is making no difference. Sensor voltage runs at 3.33 - 3.35 on desktop then dips to 3.30 when playing a game and bounces maybe 0.03 lower in troughs so the trace looks like a heart monitor ecg display. As soon as it hangs and I switch back to the desktop, core 1 is 100% but drops pretty much straight away (before driver clean and reinstall it took up to 20 seconds to drop), Temp is max 73 but has been around 65 on a game hang.

I will look at underclocking the card to see if that makes any difference today.

I will also post up the Rivatuner trace when I get home (just at the swimming pool while my son has his swimming lesson ).

I also downloaded Left for Dead 2 demo so will give that a try along with Stalker SOC and CS.

Hope it is not an issue with HL2 EP2 as I was enjoying replaying even if I have to jump to desktop every couple of minutes. Almost like watching a movie on Sky 1 so reminded me of home .

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

The vertical lines through all charts are where the game hung and the 0 framerate period is where I switched to task manager and was at desktop. The sudden rise in framerate is where I was able to switch back to the still running game and continue. CPU was 100% for core 1 when the game hung and I am able to continue the game when the % dropped again.

This was taken whilst trying HL2 EP2 (Steam download). Left 4 dead 2 also hung after about 5 minutes and I could not recover.

Any good voltage monitoring software our there ?. Motherboard is gigabyte.

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

Ok,

Installed CPUID last night and got some readings for power.

12V = 12.16 avg, 11.84 Min

Not graphed so cannot see if the min occured around the time of the hangs.

Other info gathered from 'out there'.....

Tech Harp

When you test the card out, be sure to note any visual abnormalities like corrupted textures. The game may even hang. This is a sign that one or more of the memory chips are failing at that clock speed. When that happens, clock down the memory bus by one step.

3D Guru

[Page 4]
So we fire off a hefty shader application at the GPU and start monitoring temperature behavior as it would mid-gaming, we literally stress the GPU 100% here. We measured at a set 21 degrees C room-temperature.

In idle you can expect a temperature of 45 degrees C / 113 F. Pretty normal. Yet once we push the GPU to 100%, the temperatures take a pretty hefty toll and settle at almost 70 Degrees C / 158F. This is also fine, actually pretty good for a pre-overclocked product.

My card was topping out around 79 deg but averaged around 65-68 deg

The PSU I have I believe is this one (came with the case).

I took the machine apart completely last night to clean it out. There is only the exhaulst fan and the PSU fans for cooling the midi case. Both where pretty dusty with the exhaust fan choked to the point of sounding like a helicopter. I had to take out the motherboard to get the CPU fan out for cleaning and not everything is sparklie new. The PSU I believe is suffering from dust buildup as well but everytime I try and clean a PSU it tends to fail soon after so I have left it alone apart from a vacumn.

Testing after all the cleaning resulted in no real differences in temps etc although recovery time from a HL2 EP2 hang after jumping to desktop is more or less straight away.

Going on the notes above I may start underclocking the mem chips first and see if that fixes it. I am loath to accept a card which does not meet production specs especially as this card is meant to be overclockable on top of the factory overclock.

I will post a shot with the CPUID info tonight when I get home.

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

good point, i completely forgot about that!

it will push your gpu up to 100% and give it a right good stress testing.

It seems to me like the temps are the enemy here, have you got any spare fans you could put in your case, make the airflow better or anything?

its cold in the uk, normally dont worry too much about the heat

I have never had problems in the Uk with heat in the PC even when I had 8 15K SCSI hard drives running....... noise yes, heat no .

More than the heat it is the dust that causes problems I think, that and the humid weather. The back USB port of my DLink DNS-323 NAS box is rusting . Old cable TV points (maybe 15+ years old) here are usually heavily corroded, green and unsurprisingly dont work too well.

I used to smoke tobacco (rollups) and I believe even after stopping smoking a year ago, the dust buildup in the PC is more than when I was smoking in the UK.

Now I have seem recall reading about an idea years back of putting one leg of a pair of tights over the case to act as a filter (high denier I believe, bigger holes in the thread). I do not recall what the article suggested doing with the other leg of the tights although you could always use stockings and then you would have an excuse if your wife / girlfriend found the pair you bought for them in the draw and had a disapproving look on their face. Just hope she does not ask 'If you bought it for the computer to act as an air filter then where does the suspender belt go' .


TBH this is the first time here in Singapore I have had the problem. My ATI4780 and 8400GS (not surprisingly in this case) ran fine.

Oh the fun of changing video cards .

Finally down the gym again tonight so might not be ble to do the memtest I completely forgot about over the weekend but will try.

Cheers
RB

 

[RimBlock]

ah yes the stocking dust filter tip

you can also by those air can cleaner things, they are pretty good actually.

i think it might be best you try and sell the graphics card or rma it if you can, you shouldnt have to underclock your card - but then it already is running faster then a standard one.

good luck whatever you decide.

Cheers Toon,

I checked the PSU for dust last night and it was clear. I also checked the 4GB memory using memtest 4 boot CD and it passed.

I underclocked the 260 using VTune from Palits site and underclocking the memory had no effect, however, when I underclocked the GPU core from 625Mhz to 580Mhz the problems vanished. The shaders Mhz were also reduced as I did a linked underclock (Core and Shaders frequency reduce together).

I managed to get the core back up to 609Mhz (shaders were around 1340 down by about 12Mhz) and it was stable with no graphics glitches etc.

I have spoken to the shop and they have no stock so cannot replace. Spoken to the warrenty supplier and they have no stock until next week. Investigation doing a topup and replacing for something with better spec that they do have in stock. I suspect I will not be able to do this but no harm asking.

Oh and I ran the Furmark at extreme burn on 1920x1600 (Dell 24" monitor) with 16X AA and had no issues with the card. The card stabilazed at 80deg +-.

Oh well, at least the underclocking highlighted the core cause.

Is it worth the hassle of waiting a week, having to travel to the warrenty centre, wait to have the card tested and then, hopefully on the same day, take the replacement home for the sake of 16Mhz GPU clock speed.

Possibly, the required drop in speed may be an indicator of something worse to come and from the review I posted in this thread, it seems these cards should be even more overclockable.

Thanks for all the advise everyone.

Much appreciated.

RB