A very frustrating problem

TerrorFirmer

Hi Guys,

Have a bit of a problem with my PC that simply won't go away and has me stumped.

Specs:

P5n 750i
GTX260 Sli
E8600 (stock)
700w Jeantech storm

When playing Crysis/World at War, the game artifacts terribly after a short time, and in the case of WaW, crashes completely. But lowering the settings holds the occurance off for a long time - but temps are fine, in the mid 50's when this happens! Bizarrely, I can play Stalker for hours on max settings without any issues at all. I've tried loads of different drivers, without any solution. The worst thing is that the very same problem happened with 8800GTS Sli - artifacting after a few minutes, so its not isolated to these cards - and even if it was, I've tried both cards separately and both seem to be perfectly fine so I can't figure out an explanation at all. He-lp...

Solitaire

Sounds like overheating or borked GPUs, but if both pairs of cards are doing it then its most likely the SLi Bridge on the mobo that's the culprit. Is the Bridge a discrete IC on 750i mobos or is it integrated into the southbridge? Because the latter are known to run very hot...

TerrorFirmer

Well, now its gotten worse. Artifacting on single cards - both GTX's and and old 8800GT. But its not even gradual, ie. the game will be perfect, then literally at random times the screen simply explodes in colors. I've updated bios, drivers, everything....

somakasvh

Are the cards ok on another machine?
Do you have another PSU you could try in the machine with a single card?
If not, you could maybe check load voltage levels on the 12V rail of the PCI-E plug using a multimeter.

TerrorFirmer

somakasvh wrote: »

Are the cards ok on another machine?
Do you have another PSU you could try in the machine with a single card?
If not, you could maybe check load voltage levels on the 12V rail of the PCI-E plug using a multimeter.

Well I have the same problem with 3 cards, so it'd be incredibly unlikely all 3 were suddenly failing...

Don't have another PSU. More interesting info: In COD5, on the level 'Ring of Steel', it artifacts instantly, and so badly you can't see anything. Whereas on some other levels, it works for 15 minutes and then starts 'normally' artifacting. I just don't understand it. Other games seem OK, Crysis artifacts here and there, Half Life 2 seems totally unaffected as does Stalker, Necrovision seems OK, Jericho crashes after a few minutes but without artifacting.

Tearing hair out...

Solitaire

Yipes! :eek:

It can't be the cards (if all of them went on the fritz at the same time you'd be almost as unlucky as, well, me!) realistically so the obvious culprit is the mobo. If it affects single cards then it must be a fault with the PCIe lanes or the rail voltage going either to mobo and then PCIe or the PCIe (PEG) connectors. If the current were insufficient the cards probably wouldn't power up in the first place.

TerrorFirmer

That does sound plausible but the total inconsistancy is what baffles me. i.e some levels in COD5 cause brutal artifacting straight away, others work for 10 or so minutes and then start crapping out! Other games, there's no artifacting at all, or not for quite some time! I just don't know how to explain that.

TerrorFirmer

More Strangeness.

I left COD5 on after it crashed, and lo and behold - after a few minutes the audio ambience returns, and the picture accompanies it, frozen, but without the artifacts...then the game actually runs, but at about maybe half a frame a second, even less possibly. On other levels it doesn't do this, just artifacts terribly after a few minutes, but doesn't crash. And again, other games either don't artifact at all, or take quite some time. The face I experienced total shutdowns in jericho, even though it was jericho alone, is still planting doubt about the stability of my psu in my mind.

Is it possible something has just gone terribly wrong with the OS installation?

edit: Just to add I played Crysis for 15 minutes at 1920x1200 everything max to really stress the card, still not a single artifact.

somakasvh

If you don't have a spare drive, you could maybe try partition off 20-30gigs on your drive and install the win 7 RC (since it's free) and test the games just to rule out a software issue

Blazer

I've never heard of a OS causing that kind of artifacting...

only think I can think of is maybe reinstalling directx.
Apart from that I reckon it's your motherboard or PSU
I'd try those cards in another system but I have seen issues where motherboard problems )usually power related) bork video cards.
I remember watching one tech replace a video card in a system failing for video distortion..then watched as that one went the very same way.
Told him to change the board..but nope..he had to go off and put in a 3rd video card..considering these was quadro cards he'd just blown about €1500 worth of cards in the space of 20 mins.

TBH to be on the same side I'd replace both motherboard and psu.
Try reinstalling first just to see if the issue reoccurs.
If it doesn't..you've saved cash..if it does 100% hardware.


PS: Just out of curiousity..are you OC'ing the cards? If so drop back to defaults.

TerrorFirmer

Installed Win7, and so far, everything is fine. Played Ring of Steel through to the end at 1920x1200 max settings full AA/AF, no problems whatsoever, though I was just waiting for problems to appear. Seems very unusual, would have never pegged the OS down, but something must have gone wrong there. Anyway, bought a new PC Power and Cooling 750w Silencer PSU - any excuse! The storm has had its day, too inefficient and a tad loud for my liking these days.

Solitaire

May still be the old PSU.. I might be going a bit mad but tracking the values in P-Tuner I noticed that Win7 is more economical with component power usage values. Apps seem to get by on shorter stints of lower peak usage than XP/Vista; its not a huge difference but if one or more 12V rails were marginal on the JeanTech... the less efficient OS might have been the straw that broke the camel's back in games that really did whack the GPUs up to 100% rather than 80-90% utilization and perhaps the pull dropped the rail voltage or caused excess ripple and the logic levels in the GPU went half-cocked

... maybe

polishpaddy

Solitaire wrote: »

May still be the old PSU.. I might be going a bit mad but tracking the values in P-Tuner I noticed that Win7 is more economical with component power usage values. Apps seem to get by on shorter stints of lower peak usage than XP/Vista; its not a huge difference but if one or more 12V rails were marginal on the JeanTech... the less efficient OS might have been the straw that broke the camel's back in games that really did whack the GPUs up to 100% rather than 80-90% utilization and perhaps the pull dropped the rail voltage or caused excess ripple and the logic levels in the GPU went half-cocked

... maybe

What a fascinating read old boy, I...hang on, my monacles slipped off into my brandy. Anyway, good show.

Blazer

Don't mind him..he's going a bit mad as he said.

Solitaire

Maybe mad vis-a-vis Terror's problems but I'm 100% certain about the OS loading phenomenon :P

Have a very basic system (don't game so much anymore, and practically never online now) with an E5200 up on 3.33GHz (FSB1066) which handily allows for full power-saving (as you can't screw with SpeedStep and expect to keep the max multiplier) and at 1.6GHz to boot, and an "old" HD4830 up at 650/1900MHz (but the catch is that its a Sapphire Value, which have killer p-states. Even OCd mine idles at 160/500MHz ) 4GB DDR2-8500 and single SATA HDD and DVD. Oh, and a hacked X-Fi, and (very old) 108Mbps wifi... etc. etc.

Starting up in XP I noticed that DC power usage went close to 100W then dropped down and idled around 60W. But in Win7 not only does everything load in a split second, but I also notice power consumption peaking well under 70W and idling at under 30W, only jumping up to 35W+ if the CPU has to flick out of power-saving which is pretty rare when I'm watching/listening to something on one hand and browsing the internets on the other.

Bear in mind that this is with identical system setup and speeds in both cases and the only part of P-Tuner that operates in software (and is thus open to (mis)interpretation by the OS) is the ugly GUI that shows me stuff. All the hard math is handled by an onboard controller lurking inside the ODIN - all hardware. I'm pretty sure that Win7 handles GPU initialisation differently than XP (Vista is probably like 7 in this regard) as I noticed different fan patterns (you know when the card is loaded because it idles so low it goes passive ). But I'm guessing the workload is, if anything, higher in Vista or 7 so the continuing drop in power usage must have something to do with the fact that 7 seems to be doing the same amount of work with lower CPU utilization. I doubt the difference is that epic if both rigs were gaming, but given most of the time isn't spent gaming its pretty compelling. Note to self: must try monitoring power usage with the same game in each OS sometime

Its kinda interesting - save the world and a dying PSU by upgrading to Win7 now! Gates would die laughing... But that's my random 2 cent piece, I'm interested in what really borked Terror so I'll shut up and stop dragging the whole thread OT :rolleyes:

TerrorFirmer

Christ on a bike, the Silencer was difficult as hell to get into the armour. I actually hate this case. All set up now and running well. Thanks for the interesting read solitaire.