Power Issues? I don't think its heat...

[McDale78]

Hey All,
I have and AMD system that is a few years old that I have been having some problems with while gaming lately. The machine used to have a Radeon HD 4870, but I was having issues with lots of atrifacts and screen flicker after gaming in Dragon Age2 for only a few minutes. Then the screen would go black, but was fine in 2D (Desktop) Ditto for other games I tested. So, I recently bout a GTX 460 to replace it. Now, I don't get any artifacts but while playing Dragon Age 2 now I get tonnes of freezes after a while (1hr or so, then they happen frequently) playing. Requiring me to kill the game and restart.

Here is the output from HWMonitor, while playing for 5-10 minutes then having a game freeze:

The voltages all appear lower than the stated values... is this a powersupply thing all along? I know the 4870 is hungrier for power than the GTX460 which could explain why the issues showed up faster in games with that card than with the new one.

Thoughts??? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Mike

 

[lunyone]

My first guess is that you have a possible PSU issue. If you could give your complete specs, this will give us more details on what could be going on with your system. Also your "TMPIN2" had a 124 C max temp. You might want to verify where that is located and verify that you don't have an issue there.

 

[abekl]

Curious that only one of your fans is reporting as working. Can you verify that the other system fans are working?

 

[pepe2907]

Test your Direct3D

 

[McDale78]

Hey, yeah I read about the "TMPIN2" (the 124C scared me!) and in other places for this board they chalked it up to a sensor issue not reporting correctly to this tool. So I doubt that is the issue as it never seems to get too hot?

Yes, I can confirm that the fans are there and working.

I built this system a few years back so it's a little tough to remember the full specs in detail but here goes:

-AMD Phenom 9550 (Quad) now (When originally built this was a Dual core, but was swapped to an X4 a year or so later)
-Originally used a 9700GT I think, then installed the Palit Radeon4870 Sonic at the same time as the X4 CPU, now its a Zotac GTX460 (756mb)
-Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 CPU Heatsink
-4 gigs (Dual Channel 2x2g) Buffalo Firestix RAM (1066 5-5-5)
-Azuntech HDA Xplosion 7.1
-Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe (nForce 570 SLI)
-OCZ 520ADJ-SLI Powersupply
-1x Seagate Barracuda HDD
-Samsung DVD Burner
-Floppy drive / card reader combo
-Thermal Take - Matrix case (front is mesh with a filter so it's one big air intake)
-1 fresh air in fan blowing through front (80mm)
-1 120mm case exhaust fan right behing CPU cooler output

 

[McDale78]

Ran DXDiag as suggested. Only issue that it mentioned is that the HDA Xplosion 7.1's drivers are not WHQL certified, but no issues found.

I can attach the text output if you want?

 

[lunyone]

If you have access to a different PSU, I'd try that option out. It seems that maybe your PSU is starting to show it's age (assuming it's as old as your original parts).

 

[pepe2907]

Where did you buy the game? Is there a possibility the game to be buggy?

 

[McDale78]

Yes, the PSU is the original from when I setup this case. I made sure I bought a good one so that it would last.

No, the game was ordered directly from EA through their direct internet purchasing. I'm on the newest v1.03 patch which has been out for months.

I think I may have solved the random crash issue though! When I was in changing some of the BIOS settings when putting in the new GTX460, instead of letting the Motherboard auto-handle the RAM timing settings I locked it to 1066 5-5-5 as the RAM is rated. I set the speed still locked at 1066 but let the board/bios auto determine the other settings and played DA2 for almost 2 hours with no issues afterwards. Whew!

I will play it and some other games a little more over the week. If it seems stable then I guess this was the root issue. (in addition to the old 4870 crapping out) Thanks for the ideas everyone. I'll update the thread if this is the cause.

McD.

 

[McDale78]

Best answer selected by McDale78.