a little help

[ThunderChild]

A few months ago i bought a new mobo, cpu etc from you and built myself a shiney new system. Shortly after i got planetside and started playing it. My experience was plagued with crashes until i updated to some beta drivers etc. But still the system intermittantly crashes. I thought it was a game issue until i rescently bought a new shuttle system, the games and crashes dont happen on that at all. So now im puzzeled.

I took out all the extras in the new machine, stripped it down to the mobo, ram, cpu, graphics card and tried the game. Still crashed after a while. So i know its none of the other components. The graphics card i have 2 of, one in the main comp, one in the shuttle, i swapped them, still crashes. So i know its not that. So im left with the CPU, RAM and mobo. RAM passes a mem test with flying colours. CPU was left in a loop building FreeBSD 5.2, 8 jobs at a time for 12 hours and then with a windows CPU burnin in test giving it 99% load accoridng to the task magaer for another 12 hours. So i think its the motherboard. Oh the machine did have a 300w silenX PSU, i thought it might be that and upgraded it to a 480w PSU, but no help either (and the shuttle has a 300w so go figure)

The crashes are as follows.
Type 1: Monitor goes black, then onto standby mode as though recieving no video signal. Headphones emmit occasional (about once a second) scratchy noises like its trying to play game sounds. Machine has to be reset.

Type 2: Screen freezes, few seconds later i get a popup saying VPU (might be GPU) has stopped responding to input and needs to be reset. Hardware rendering has been disabled, game switched to sofwtare rendering, machine needs to be reset to go back.

Sony online entertainment (makers of planetside) report no one else has crashes like this, not a known issue.
ATI report no issues with their drivers and planetside.

What do you guys/girls think? Im stummped with this, it sounds like a motherboard issue. Can anyone think of anything else? It only seems to happen with 3D games. I can replicate the crash on darwinia now as well. The machine is fine at all other times. Oh and a last note i tried a fresh install of win2k with only hotfixes and latest drivers and it still did it. so its not software conflicts.



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[Unolocogringo]

I would suggest turning off Fast Writes in the bios.
If you would list the components, Mother,video card, memory, sound card. etc. List specific models and brands.
We mighthavemore suggestions. if this dosent wouk.

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[ThunderChild]

Sorry, should have mentioned. Its not the CPU, northbridge or GPU overheating, I have this huge heatsink and fan on the CPU it never gets above abut 39degrees, GPU heatsink remains cool at all times as does the northbridge. Crashes occour with case side on or off and then of course there is the fact the crashes dont occour in the shuttle or when i switch the graphics cards around.
The crashes also occour even when i have striped the system down to its minimum components, these are...

Athlon 64 3200+ (socket 754)
Giga-byte GA-K8NSNXP
ATI Raidion 9800 pro graphics card

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[ThunderChild]

Teach me to reply at 5am and miss stuff.

I have also previously tried turning off fastwrite and setting the AGP speed to x4 instead of 8x with smartgart, no luck.

Oh there are also 2 dust filtered intake and 2 exhaust fans on the system and the PSU is an Akasa 460 watt ultra quiet. Hard disk is a western digital 120GB SATA disk that sits right behind the instake fans, keeping it nice and cool.

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[Crashman]

Sounds like you might have a power supply problem.

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[ThunderChild]

I had a 300w PSU in there, now i have a 480w psu in. the shuttle has a 1U 300w. I tried both PSUs with nothing but the mobo, cpu and graphics card. Still no luck. I thought it might be a power issue at first but it doesnt look that wat now. Does anyone know a good voltage testing program that will give reliable diasgnostic outputs?

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[Unolocogringo]

Motherboard Monitor

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[Flinx]

What is ur graphics card? Did you plug in the extra power connector to it? (if it has one).

Did you plug in the 4 pin power connector to the motherboard?

BTW.. what is your new system? .. Mobo and graphics card plz

The loving are the daring!

 

[ThunderChild]

Interesting Motherboard monitor (thank you for the heads up btw) gives these as the outputs when using the 460w psu, the 300w is also down on the 5v and 12v channels. So its back to looking like a power issue but they perform fine in another case powering another machine. So it could be something on the motherboard not handeling voltages correctly. Any other info anyone would like? Oh its still down like that even when i disconnect all the system fans, DVD roms and remove the sound card.

--Sensor Chip Readings--

Temperature Readout[1] : 26
Temperature Readout[2] : 15
Voltage Readout[1] : 1.4711
Voltage Readout[2] : 2.608
Voltage Readout[3] : 3.296
Voltage Readout[4] : 4.08
Voltage Readout[5] : 11.3696
Voltage Readout[6] : -4.37728
Fan Readout[2] : 2410

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[Rugger]

Did MBM have your particular board listed as supported? If not, then the voltages may not be accurate. Does your BIOS list the voltages on your rails?

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[ThunderChild]

No it did not have the exact type. The one i chose from their list is the GA8KNXP my mobo is th GA-K8NSNXP., I have just changed it to the GAK8NPro on the list and the -12v is lo longer flipping about but its reporting the +5v rail fluctuating a bit as well as the +12v rail. This is consistent with what AIDA32 reported before, for both PSUs so im convinced its a motherbaord power issue. Something seems to be affecting the 12 and 5 volt rails.

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[Rugger]

Do you have another PSU that you can try in the system? Can you try this PSU in another system?

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[endyen]

MBM says you are slightly undervolting your chip.
That would be consistant with your problem. Add a little voltage to your v-core, and while you are at it, add a bit to v-dimm as well.
memtest will tell if your memory subsystem is ok at no load, but that doesn't mean it's ok under heavy load.
Also, make sure all memory is in the slots closest to the chip.
How much/ and how many sticks of memory?

 

[ThunderChild]

I have a 300w PSU that i originaly had in the system it was reporting the same issues as the 460w currently in there. I have another system im going to put both PSUs in today and see if they report being down. If they dont then its probably the mobos power circuit. That motherboard monitor is a great piece of kit. Oh one thing about the voltages, its not set to the exact motherboard i have, just the closest match. But then again AIDA32 also reported the same thing all be it with less info. Anyway il try the PSUs in another system and report back. Thanks for your assistance so far.

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