God what did I break now?

[dizman]

I'm sure a couple of you have probably read about me and my problems with my mobo (horrible incompatablitiy issues). I'd finally got it to a semi-decent place (it only crashes or freezes once or twice a day now!). Well I've already decided to replace the mobo but before I get rid of this one I thought i'd try to OC just a bit.

Tried for just a 200Mhz OC (so 2.0Ghz), couldn't get it to boot to windows, changed a few settings got it to boot ran some test (3DMarks) and got better scores and life was good. Tried to see if I could go for a little more, so I went for 2.4Ghz total, wouldn't boot to windows, ok decide to just for the hell of it try for 2.6Ghz despite it not work on the last one. Wouldn't even boot to BIOs. So I shut it all off, do the jumper thing and clear the CMOS. Restarted, worked fine, ran 3DMark again to make sure yup.

Went to get something to eat came back to play a game and now the screen is horrible screwed up. Like the bottom half will be all different colors and pixelated then if I move (say in a FPS) then say the bottom will be fine but the top is screwed up or if I move another way both parts will be screwed up in different ways. So I decided to run 3DMark06 to see if it ran fine cause 03 did eariler in the day. It ran fine on the first 2 test but when it gets to the CPU test the screen gets all pixelated and screwed up like in the games I tried!

The only things I've changed since yesterday (when it worked right, well as right as this thing ever has) was uninstalled Norton as that was screwing with my dual-cores and uninstalled the NV IDE drivers (which I don't have any IDE drivers) as someone at DFIstreet said they are know to cause problems.

So any ideas what I broke now? I've had nothing but headaches with this machine from day one. Everything seems to be running at the settings it was before, both GPUs are running at the same temps and stock speeds as they were before.

P.S. I should get my new mobo (Asus A8N32 Preminum (the one with the SLI x16)) tomorrow so I can switch that out.

 

[crazywheels]

with the screen acting like it is it sounds like a video card problem.

 

[dizman]

O....k..... now I'm confused.

That's kind of what I was thinking Crazywheels though, god I hope not. I think newegg is going to hurt me if I RMA one more thing (first the cpu, now mobo, and possibily two video cards).

I was going to upload a screenprint to show you guys what it was doing. So I loaded up a game did a screenprint and pasted into MS paint and it shows the whole game screen just fine!?!? Yet if I go back into the game (it's minimized atm) the bottom half of the screen is all scrambled, and then like I said depending what I look at in the game (or which way I move) different areas will scramble and changed or get better.

Argh so confused

EDIT: I tried it in single gpu mode instead of SLI and it reduces the amount of corruption or whatever you want to call it by quite a bit but doesn't get rid of it all.

 

[Wgfalcon]

just for the sake of covering all of your bases do have access to another monitor to try on your system or can you try your monitor on another system just to rule it out. it sounds more like a driver issue to me so removing and reinstalling the latest video driver might fix the issue. you might also want to check you resolution and refresh rates set to 800x600 at 60hz see if the coruption still occurs.

 

[mpjesse]

Ummm... I'm going to be brave here and follow a path of logic. You might very well have screwed something up permanetly if the last thing you were doing was overclocking. You say the video problems only occur
in the CPU tests? If so- that's an issue. In those CPU tests, 3dmark does not use the video cards for rendering. The only thing the video card does is display what's been ported to it via the directx api. I other words, i doubt the issue is with your video card or the drivers- esp. since the problem only pops up in the cpu test.

In a nut shell you might have damaged the chipset or CPU. Luckily you're getting a new mobo tomorrow. If the problem does not go away w/ the new mobo I'm inclinded to believe you somehow damaged the cpu.

I would also try running some other benchmarks to see if you get any BSOD's. Typically speaking, if you damaged the cpu other problems should be going on besides artifacts in 3dmark.

2 other possible issues: you could have damaged the memory. I would suggest clearing the BIOS, but it sounds like you already did that. Of course, you should also try using the latest forceware and mobo drivers.

-mpjesse

 

[mdd1963]

I'd try disabling SLI, and testing each video card one at a time...; also ensure you have al the latest nvidia drivers

I'd also jump into the BIOS and bump up the DDR voltage to 2.7V...(DFI boards can be a bit finicky with DDR voltage)

I'd also skip the overclocking ventures until the system is stable at stock freqs....

(At gaming, an SLI system runs quite fine, and getting another 200-400 Mhz out fo your cpu is worth but 1 or 2 frames per sec at high res, making it an essentially worthless heat generation process, IMO...)

 

[rodney_ws]

Someone needs to say this... this guy got what he deserved. He tried and finally got the 2.0 GHz OC. Not too impressive, but definitely not a bad thing. He then jumps to 2.4 GHz which fails miserably and then tries for 2.6 GHz even though 2.4 failed. Come on... that's just stupid. A little common sense goes a LONG way when dealing with computers.

 

[AntiHax0r]

Sounds like you have faulty ram, or they may be overheating thats causing your graphics distortions and reboot/lockups. My friend had similar graphics distortions when one of his ram modules died, try swapping out each module and testing them one at a time, or run memtest.

 

[dizman]

Someone needs to say this... this guy got what he deserved. He tried and finally got the 2.0 GHz OC. Not too impressive, but definitely not a bad thing. He then jumps to 2.4 GHz which fails miserably and then tries for 2.6 GHz even though 2.4 failed. Come on... that's just stupid. A little common sense goes a LONG way when dealing with computers.

Yea I won't say it wasn't stupid. I just was super pissed since I've been trying to build this thing for over a month now! (had to wait 12 days for replacement CPU then 2 weeks after that dicking with the mobo). I didn't think 2.6Ghz would work but I didn't think it would peranently damage anything either, just try once and stop.

I'm pretty sure it's not the drivers as I did unistall both graphic and chipset drivers and reinstall them and the problem continues. Windows, even the menus in games is fine just the actually 3D Game itself is scrambled and like I said the CPU test in 3DMark06.

Does anyone find it odd that when I play the game it's all scrambled but if I go to screenprint that the screenprint comes out looking normal? (clearly shows the part of the screen that was scrambled as if it never was).

but yea like mpjesse said I've got a new mobo that will be here today when I get off work so I'll reformat that and try. God I feel stupid I normally wouldn't just jump into shit like that but I was pretty pissed and was basically thinking "ah what the hell". I hope I didn't damage anything but if I did I have only a week or two left to replace it!

I've never had such a nightmare of a time building a new system before, sheeeesh. And since I'm a pretty big PC gamer this is just killing me, I've only got to play PC games about 3 days within the last 40 days! :?

 

[ocularis]

The fact that a screenshot looks OK means nothing really. It's just a representation of what the screen should look like when it is finally rendered to the screen by your graphics card. Screenshots are not the same as say taking a photo of your monitor, Its just copying data from a video buffer somewhere and converting into jpg or bmp format. I would say that the SLI function may be screwed therefore chipset is hosed. Or you have a problem with one or both graphics cards. Since you have been bumping up the frontside bus, my guess is SLI chipset.

 

[dizman]

The fact that a screenshot looks OK means nothing really. It's just a representation of what the screen should look like when it is finally rendered to the screen by your graphics card. Screenshots are not the same as say taking a photo of your monitor, Its just copying data from a video buffer somewhere and converting into jpg or bmp format. I would say that the SLI function may be screwed therefore chipset is hosed. Or you have a problem with one or both graphics cards. Since you have been bumping up the frontside bus, my guess is SLI chipset.

Yup it appears it was the chipset. I got my new Asus A8N32 Deluxe and it works GREAT! Got windows installed and all the drivers and updates all in about 40mins with no problems what so ever and even ran 3DMark06 to make sure. None of that scrambling crap!

Man I'm relieve. It's amazing what a difference one piece can make. God I hated that DFI board, not cause of this scrambling of images when I play games, yea that one was my fault. Just I messed with that board for 2 weeks just to try and get it run right on just stock, didn't even try to OC till I knew I was replacing it. 2 Weeks and it wouldn't run stably, again on stock and with this new one it took me 40mins! I should have known to stick with Asus or Abit with this new machine.

Put a new fan on the side so now I have 140mm intake, 120mm outtake, and 120mm 90CFM intake on the side (for chipset mostly). lowered my chipset from 49C to 38C! Woot, so I got 38C on mobo and 41C cpu idle. Not sure why cpu has higher idle on this mobo but I think it's still acceptable.

EDIT: OK I spoke a tad too soon. I'm not having the problem with 3DMark06 but I am still having the problem with the games, well at least the one I keep trying which is Star Wars Battlefront 2. It was working fine yesterday before I messed with OCing on the old mobo. So it's not the chipset (or maybe that was at least part) so what else could be causing this and how would I go about testing it and/or fixing it??? Any help is much appreciated, Thx in advance!

And yes I did reformat after I put in this new mobo. It won't let me update the BIOS using Asus' program, says something bout NT file or something missing then goes to setup anyway like it is about to install then says no Asus board detected, installation closing.

So I'm having some problems still but it's going smoother than the last one that's for sure.

 

[mpjesse]

well we're kind of back to square one. again, it can be 1 of 3 things (or all of them).

CPU
RAM
Video Card

Let's start with memory. Download memtest86 here:
http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

Burn the ISO and boot from it. Run the tests (do this at night when ur not using it, the tests usually take a couple-few hours). Report back here with any errors. Report back here if there are no errors.

Mmmmk pumpkin?

-mpjesse

 

[dizman]

well we're kind of back to square one. again, it can be 1 of 3 things (or all of them).

CPU
RAM
Video Card

Let's start with memory. Download memtest86 here:
http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

Burn the ISO and boot from it. Run the tests (do this at night when ur not using it, the tests usually take a couple-few hours). Report back here with any errors. Report back here if there are no errors.

Mmmmk pumpkin?

-mpjesse

Well I ran it for 4 hours and 21mins and since I've never used it before I didn't know what I was looking/waiting for. I don't know if you want me to list all those stats it had or what but from what I saw it had 6 for Pass and 0 for Errors. Is there actually and end to that or does it just keep looping? I'll trying running it again tomorrow while I'm at work if you want. (Can't run it at night as I have a lot of lighted fans and it keeps me awake.)

If not, now what? What can we test next. BTW thx for all the help! 😀

 

[cisco]

Well I would think it would lie in the video cards. But I was just wondering, it looks like a great system but you didn't list your PSU. I am assuming you bought a nice one it didn't look like you cut many corners.

 

[mpjesse]

Looks like your RAM is A-OK. Something else you might want to try: Prime95. Run a torture test (on both cores) and see if all 5 tests pass.

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103

(note, test each core individually by specifying "affinity" to core 0 or core 1. you can also save time and do both at the same time if you'd like by running two instances of Prime95 and specifying different cores for each instance)

If things go well there (no failures) my next guess is the video card or the monitor. Try using different refresh rates and resolutions and then try to duplicate the problem. See if the issues goes away at higher/lower resolutions and refresh rates.

-mpjesse

 

[dizman]

Well I would think it would lie in the video cards. But I was just wondering, it looks like a great system but you didn't list your PSU. I am assuming you bought a nice one it didn't look like you cut many corners.

Yea it won't let me put it in my sig, too many characters. My PSU is a Enermax Liberty Modular 620W PSU.

It's 6am here but when I get off work at 3:30pm I'll try prime 95 and let you know mpjesse

On a side note, turning it on this morning I got a little bubble by the system clocking saying that my GPU's were not connected by a SLI bridge, yet they clearly are as (I have a window) I haven't messed with any hardware for day and half to 2 days.

 

[kolemunky]

you havent dicked with the peg link have you??? should be set at normal. I have found that to cause some of the symptoms youre explaining.

 

[dizman]

you havent dicked with the peg link have you??? should be set at normal. I have found that to cause some of the symptoms youre explaining.

peg link? what/where is that?

 

[kolemunky]

its a setting in the bios ....under jumperfree configuration....leave the pice frequency at 100, set peg link to normal. let me know if this worked

 

[dizman]

its a setting in the bios ....under jumperfree configuration....leave the pice frequency at 100, set peg link to normal. let me know if this worked

Hmmmm I don't think I did. I'm have the same problem though on two different mobos..... I'll look though

Ok mpjesse I ran the Torture test on Prime95 on each core. Couldn't do both at the same time, no matter where I set the affinity (in the program or in task manager) it would only have one core at 100% usage according to my Asus Probe 2. But if I did them one at a time each core was at 100%. That's not to say it didn't run when I tried two it just didn't seem to do one per core, I did have Asus Probe 2 running the whole time so I dunno if that was messing with it since it was using both cores, I wanted to see what my stress temps were (45C for CPU and 40-41C for chipset)

Anyway after running core 0 for an hour and 48mins it passed 6 test with 0 errors and 0 warnings (I could have kept it going but I thought that was enough). And after running core 1 for and hour and 55 mins it passed 6 test and got 0 errors and 0 warnings. So that's good right? So now what?

Again thx a lot for the help

 

[ir_efrem]

don't wanna toss a monkey wrench into everyones fine suggestions here

everything that has been listed so far could definately be causing you issues

as a side note though - ive seen a power supply also cause these types of issues - don't spose you happen to have a decent backup PSU to toss in there and test for the same problems?

 

[cisco]

I'm telling you the problem lies in the video cards. The reason half the screen is screwing up is because you are running SLI and each card is responsible for half of the screen. One thing I would do is call the tech support for your card maker. They will be able to run you through some tests to see if it is a faulty card or SLI connector or whatever. At least they can pin point the problem if it lies in the cards. And the issue with the mobo not updating I would call Asus, you spend the money you did on their equipment they owe it to you help you get it running right.

 

[dizman]

I'm telling you the problem lies in the video cards. The reason half the screen is screwing up is because you are running SLI and each card is responsible for half of the screen. One thing I would do is call the tech support for your card maker. They will be able to run you through some tests to see if it is a faulty card or SLI connector or whatever. At least they can pin point the problem if it lies in the cards. And the issue with the mobo not updating I would call Asus, you spend the money you did on their equipment they owe it to you help you get it running right.

Well I doubt it's the SLI connector as I still get the same problem on two different mobos with two different SLI connectors. But yea it probably is the video card or cards I just wanted some ideas to test other things so as to minimize what all I have to RMA back.

It just seems weird that trying to overclock the CPU on the other mobo would damage the videocards but I won't claim to know the deep techincals behind the hardware.

Yeah I should contact Asus about the BIOS thing that is kind of weird but not causing the issue as it all started on the DFI board when I tried (and failed) to OC the CPU in a quick-fix fashion as I knew was I getting rid of the board anyway. It's getting late for me tonight but tomorrow I'll try just running one card or the other and see if maybe I can isolate it to just one or both, so I know what to send back. If for some weird reason it's both "maybe" I'll pay the extra and just get GTX's 😀

But keeps the tips coming.

Oh and no I don't have another PSU to try. And it's not always exactly half the screen it depends how I move (in a FPS) or what is on the screen as to how it scrambles. Tried watching just a small video in WMP and that opens windowed not fullscreen and when it opened the video it scrambled the entire screen to where I had to hit the power switch to reset. But the majority of the time it is the bottom half of the screen, even when I changed the positions of the video card (made bottom one the top and vice-versa when I put the stuff on the new mobo)

 

[cisco]

I knew the card thing started before the Asus. I was just saying you should call them about the other problem. I had an Asus board with the same problem. I never did anything about it except bitch.

I wouldn't think oc'ing the processor would cause a problem with the video cards that would be the first I have heard of it. But with computers I wouldn't rule anything out. If you RMA you might want to look at eVGA they allow you to oc without voiding the lifetime warranty or my personal favorite BFG. 😀

 

[Grimmy]

Did you try running the video cards as a single card?

Test each card as a single to see if you get the same problems.

Other wise you may not be getting enough amps through the 12V + rails for sli mode.

Can't remember the spec's.. but I think GTX in sli needs around 30 amps. One card.. 20 amps.

Not sure how much lower the GT are in comparasion...

I'm guessin 18 amps for 1 card.. 28 amps for 2. But I guess I shouldn't assume.. :lol: