Please Help, GeForce 7950 GT Freezing

[Shaina11]

I have just recently built a Pentium 4-based rig for older games, but I am experiencing a problem. Here are my current specifications.

ASUS P5WD2 Motherboard
Pentium 4 530 HT @ 3.0 GHz
2 GB DDR2 PC5300 hynix RAM module
GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB PCIe
PSU Delta 400 Watt, 16a on 12v1 and 12v2 individually

My problem is this. Whenever I tried to run WolfQuest 2.7.1, as soon as it starts to load the game after creating my wolf, the whole system freezes, and the audio is stuck. Now I know my system doesn't meet the game requirements but hear me out. (Note: Tried it on the lowest settings possible)

I also tried the older version, 2.5.1, which ran perfectly fine... Until I turned the resolution up to 1440 x 900, and at one point in the game, the whole system froze again. And my system definitely meets the requirements for this game. (Note: Played on maximum settings.)

My question is this. Could it be that the PSU is not supplying enough power for the GPU? I've read it requires a MINIMUM of 18a on the 12v rail, but really I should have somewhere between 20-24. But both of the 12v rails on my current PSU are rated at 16a. Do you think the PSU is the problem? Have you experienced this before?

When I ran Prime95 and FurMark separately, it's never happened. I haven't tried them together at the same time however. I may try to recreate the problem.

Please reply soon, thank you.

P.S. Please don't mix up the GeForce 7950 GT with the Radeon 7950 HD, totally different cards, massive difference in age.

P.P.S. No the components are not overheating, I've monitored both the CPU and the GPU and the temperatures are fine.

 

[SKIPPY PB]

That sounds plausible with the amperage deal you reasoned. I don't know for sure but that seems like a possibility.


You gotta get the P4 670!!!

 

[Shaina11]

Thanks for the response, I'll have to see if I can find a relatively cheap one to test, hopefully it solves the problem.

I would love to have it, though I would have to [strike]update my BIOS and[/strike] get a bigger heatsink. (Found out the MB supports it on all BIOS versions.) Though first I need to resolve the freezing issue.

 

[Shaun o]

Yes your problem is two fold here.
First of all a pentium 4 cpu is known to run very hot and draws a lot of power its self.
Add to the fact that you have also put a 7950 ATI card in the system.

And only given it both to work from a very poor power supply indeed of 400W.
If you take a look on the side of the power supply you should see along with the wattage for each power rail.
12v 5v and 3.3v an amp rating.

For you 12v power rail you probably have if your lucky some where from 14a up 18a.
But what you are forgetting is the wattage and amp rating has to be divided for each component that requires 12v with a max of 18a

For example the cpu might take 100w do drive it at 9 amps.
Leaving 200w but 8 amps only provided to the 7950 card.

Then it all falls over.
In other words your looking at 600w with a high amp rating on the 12v power rails of the PSU.
Making sure the Power supply unit is of a good and well know brand name.
And they don`t come cheap, My Life Is Tech.

If you want I could throw you a few recommendations.

 

[Shaina11]

Thanks for the response, by the way it's an Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT from 2006/7, not ATI. The PSU lists 16a on both the 12v1 and 12v2 rail. Do you think an Antec Earthwatts 350 watt with 20a on both 12v rails could work? I know it doesn't leave a lot of room for load however.

Edit
What do you think about the EVGA 100-N1-0400? I can't spend much, do you think this could be enough?

 

[ikaz]

Hey have you tried any other older games just to make sure it not something going on on the software side, maybe load up steam/GoG/or whatever and try some older games like star wars or maybe War craft 3 something that was release around the same time as that card.

 

[Shaina11]

I'll certainly try other games, though if it has to do with the PSU, then the game has to really push the GPU and CPU to overload it and cause the freeze.

 

[Shaina11]

Question, are we certain that my PSU can't handle the load? Here are the ratings for the 12V rails on my current PSU:

+12V1 = 16A
+12V2 = 16A
+12V1 and +12V2 combined cannot exceed 30A

From my calculations and from what I can gather,
the GPU takes 82 watts max, /12V that's 6.833333333333333 amps, (but I've heard the GPU requires 12 amps? Clarify please?)
the CPU takes 195 watts max, /12V that's 16.25 amps,
together that's 23.08333333333333 amps on the 12V rails. But if both rails combined is 30A, then why would it overload it?

Unless the 30A is divided by the two rails, which would be 15A per rail, which seems like it would still be enough for both components.... am I missing something? Please correct me.

P.S. Even if the GPU took 12 amps, 30 - 16.25 = 13.75, which would still be enough for the GPU.... unless the CPU isn't getting enough amps from one of the 12V rails if it requires 16.25 and the rail is only 16 each, unless it could take from the second rail.

 

[SKIPPY PB]

Why don't you email nvidia and say you are looking at a 950 but would like an answer about one of there older guys. And that good customer service is a factor in your purchase of a new GPU.

 

[Shaina11]

Found the Solution!

First off, my math was all off before, I got the maximum power usage of the CPU mixed up as well. Here's the consumptions.

If the CPU uses 100.78 watts at full load, then ÷ 12V that's 8.39833333 amps.
If the GPU uses 82 watts at full load, then ÷12V that's 6.83333333 amps.
Together, that's 15.2316667 amps on the 12V rails, excluding the consumption of other components such as fans, ODDs, HDDs, Floppies, Motherboard, RAM.
If the PSU supplies 30 amps on the two 16A 12V rails combined, then I believe it can handle the load.

Now secondly, I think I have resolved the issue! I do not believe it was the PSU nor the GPU at all. Since the Pentium 4 530 is hyper-threaded, I disabled the hyper-threading in the BIOS, along with the thermal control, just to see if one of them would solve the issue. And it did.

I had remembered reading somewhere before that hyper-threading on a Pentium 4 could cause issues in certain applications and games, and in some cases, could cause the system to run slower in general. In my case, I believe hyper-threading was the issue. I'll re-enable the thermal control later to verify. WolfQuest 2.7.1 now loads the game without freezing. *Knock on Wood*

As we know, hyper-threading is essentially making one physical processor core run two tasks at one time, when part of the CPU is idle, it will work on the other task via a logical core. This is not of course, nearly as effecient as having two physical cores, essentially two separate CPUs, to run two different tasks, rather than one core trying to take on the load of two. (If I'm wrong or off on the technical explanation, please correct me.)

Perhaps some programs/games are not coded to tell the difference between logical, and actual physical cores on a CPU. This could possibly be the case with WolfQuest. Perhaps it saw the logical core as another physical core, ergo believing that the CPU was, in fact, a dual core. Thus it may have attempted to split the work upon the two cores, and possibly overloaded the CPU with tasks it could not handle in parallel fast enough, therefore causing it to stall/freeze. At this time, the whole system is unresponsive, the mouse won't move, audio loops, and the PC requires a hard reset.

Prior to finding the solution, I had tried installing an older version of the Nvidia graphics driver, thinking perhaps the latest release had some sort of bug. I had also tried updating the Realtek audio driver as I had heard that Nvidia and Realtek could have some sort of conflict, (though I don't think that would've been related to my system as it would probably affect cards with HDMI outputs alongside integrated audio decoding.) neither heaved the solution.

A thank you to all of the suggestions from everyone here, I really appreciate it, and I apologize if I confused anyone with my varying math.

And if anyone is curious as to how well the game performs on my system, please let me know and I'll monitor my FPS, report it here along with settings used, and the system requirements of the game.

Thank you again! 😀

 

[mjslakeridge]

Hey Tech, I have a Pentium D 805 @2.66Ghz which I retired quite a few years ago, and have no use for. I "think" your board supports it. It is a dual core @95 watts. As I recall it runs pretty hot, so you would need an aftermarket cooler. Where are you located? If the US, send me a PM and I would donate it to you. It has a passmark score of 532 compared to 356 for your chip.

 

[Shaina11]

Oy vey... as it turns out, that was not the solution. The game still freezes. It worked one time after I reinstalled it after disabling thermal control and hyper-threading in the BIOS, then it freezes upon second launch.

Does anyone know if this could be related to my other problem mentioned in this thread? I'm wondering if either my motherboard or the GPU is faulty, or if it's a BIOS issue, or the CPU, or the RAM... Aye, too many variables.

Prime95 would tell me if there was an issue with my CPU right?

Also, I notice the game always freezes in the same exact spot, and sometimes while in Windowed mode, right before it freezes, the screen flashes to black, and sometimes it'll do weird stuff like go to a white screen with a bunch of hyphens/dashes is random order throughout the screen, and the audio loops. The monitor also appears to turn off right before Windows XP boots, but always recovers. Also whenever I click the Nvidia settings on the taskbar, the screen flashes before displaying the options.

 

[SKIPPY PB]

IDPT can for P4's I believe.

Is this game compatible with your system specs with this update?

If you can run a Pentium D I would strongly suggest doing so. A 3.4 GHz one cost like 8 bucks on ebay and it was a big difference for me in a few rigs.

 

[Shaina11]

The system requirements are listed for both games in the manuals below. But even in WolfQuest 2.5.1, I've noticed even at 1280 x 720 the game froze on me at one point. But I was almost always above 60 FPS and I meet the requirements for the best settings. And like I said, I had gotten 2.7.1 to run one time, before it would freeze the next time I tried to launch it.

WolfQuest 2.5 Manual
WolfQuest 2.7 Manual

Edit
Before I go out and get any CPU, I need to figure out if this problem is related to the issue I have in the other thread I linked to above.

Edit 2
What's IDPT?

 

[SKIPPY PB]

Intel Diagnostic Processor Tool I think or something liek that. Just google intel idpt

Don't P4's primarily run as single core with 2 threads?

An i3 is many generations past the P4's if my memory serves me correct. And thats what its listing on the 2.7 requirements. 2.5 says a P4 is required but thats not even in the list for 2.7

 

[Shaina11]

Some P4s, the later models, have hyper-threading like mine, which I disabled and thought it solved the issue, which as it turns out, it didn't. The 2.7.1 manual states "2.0 GHz Dual Core Pentium, i3, or higher processor" It does list Pentium, just not Pentium 4, yet somehow I got it to work once.

Also I read that sometimes if CPU usage is above 70% in some cases it can freeze the whole system, could this be true? If so, perhaps my CPU is in fact too weak to play 2.5.1 on the highest settings, thus freezing at perhaps more graphically intensive parts of the map. and ergo 2.7.1 could be too much in general. But then how the heck did I get it to run at least once?

 

[SKIPPY PB]

Some P4s, the later models, have hyper-threading like mine, which I disabled and thought it solved the issue, which as it turns out, it didn't. The 2.7.1 manual states "2.0 GHz Dual Core Pentium, i3, or higher processor" It does list Pentium, just not Pentium 4, yet somehow I got it to work once.

Also I read that sometimes if CPU usage is above 70% in some cases it can freeze the whole system, could this be true? If so, perhaps my CPU is in fact too weak to play 2.5.1 on the highest settings, thus freezing at perhaps more graphically intensive parts of the map. and ergo 2.7.1 could be too much in general. But then how the heck did I get it to run at least once?

Luck, not sure. But if it hits 100% on a single core CPU I would expect something like a game to cause a freeze. Kind of like a BSOD during a stress test.