I need some "professional" advice on my (flaky) system

[nuihc]

Not too long ago my system started experiencing texture issues in my games. At first, I just thought it was the game I was playing at the time. But as I tried a few other games I found that the texture glitches are showing up in all of them. I have a multiboot system with several Windows 7 instances and an XP instance, so I tried my games on 3 different OS's. I.E. I tried my regular Windows 7 gaming OS, I also tried my development version of windows 7 as it is the most up to date, and I tried the XP boot. All suffered the same glitch. Each of the 3 OS instances had different driver versions so I guess that can be ruled out. I am thinking that it must be my video card or my power supply. I hope it's not my video card. Can't afford a new one right now as I am currently laid off. Anyway, I have an Apevia 900w warlock PSU in the system right now. I also have a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 610 PSU from my prior system. What I want to know is whether the Silencer 610 will run my current system which consists of:

XClio A380 Twin Engine Super Tower Case
DFI Lanparty 790FXB-M3H5 MB
AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 quad
Zalman 9700 CPU Cooler
OCZ (OCZ3G10664GK) PC3-8500 DDR3 Gold 4GB Dual Channel
Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC (Onboard died months ago)
XFX Radeon 5870 1gb GPU
Creative SB X-Fi XtremeMusic/Platinum Sound Card
Logitech G500 Laser Gaming Mouse
ViewSonic (VX2268wm) 120 mhz 22" LCD

Drive #1 - Seagate (ST3400633AS) 400GB Sata II
Drive #2 - Western Digital Black (WD1502FAEX) 1.5 TB Sata 3
Drive #3 - Western Digital Green (WD15EADS) 1.5 TB Sata II
Drive #4 - Hitachi (HDS724040KLSA80) 400 GB Sata
DVD Burner - Samsung SH-S203B Sata
DVD Burner - LITE-ON LH-20A1H LightScribe IDE
Apevia 900W Warlock Power Supply

Thanks for any advice.......Nuihc

 

[o1die]

Pc power and cooling makes good power supplies; try it. It's borderline for specs but may work; if you don't use some of your hardrives, try disconnecting them. Apevia is not a tier one ps; I wouldn't use it.

 

[andy_in_kenya]

Hi,

I agree with o1die. Probably the 610W-PSU will be close to the edge, and to keep it a bit safer you should disconnect everything you don't really need for the test, but that should at least give you a definite indication whether you have a PSU or a graphics card problem.
But, also try swapping/removing RAM modules. If they deliver corrupt data you might get similar symptoms.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

In case of graphics card problem

If overclocking graphics card stop overclocking it ( reset to default )

If not overclocking it, underclock it

In case of PSU problem
use multimeter to check 12V supply stable under load
(connect voltmeter / multimeter to a spare molex connecter black + yellow = 12V +-10%)

regards

Mike Barnes

 

[nuihc]

Thanks everyone for your advice.

I installed my Silencer 610 and it is handling my system flawlessly. I even added a couple more drives and another dvd JUST to make sure I still had power to spare and it still worked just fine. However, I still had the artifacts so I (finally) talked my sister into letting me install my card and a new power supply into her system, which confirmed it is the graphics card that is at fault.

I am waiting on a reply from XFX right now as to whether the card can be replaced under warranty. I sure hope so. I can't afford another 5870 while I am laid off. I'd have to jump to the 6870 which is much weaker and is less expensive than a 5870 although the numbering scheme leads one to believe otherwise.

Just figures, I get my hands on a Viewsonic vx2268wm 120hz capable monitor and can't even see how my games are gonna play at 120hz.

So I guess you can close the thread, and thanks again everyone.

 

[nuihc]

ALLRIGHT! - Xfx has given me an RMA on the card. Good deal.

 

[nuihc]

I keep getting email asking me to select the best answer.

Well, I would if I knew how to select my own answer as "best answer".