Problem with Gainward 7800 512mb

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Al_P4

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Sep 9, 2006
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Hi all. I have just fitted my new motherboard (bought 2nd hand from Ebay)in a new case, and a brand new Gainward 7800GS 512mb. I have done a fresh install of XP Pro+SP2.

I thought I would install 3DMark06 to see how well my new card runs but it hangs the screen and theres different coloured pixelation just near the end of the first test "return to proxycon". I ran it 3 times and it fails at the same point. I have made sure nothing is running in the background to interfere with it running etc. I have tried fitting my old Geforce card which I know is 100% but its too low spec to run 3dmark06 at all. It definatley looks like a hardware fault of somesort, im suspecting either the card or the board I bought is faulty, just wanted to see if anyone has any ideas or has experienced something similar.

I have not overclocked anything. The system is stock:

LianLi PC-61 Case with sumvision 400w PSU
P4 3.4GHz (running stable at up to 70'C)
1.5gb Kingston PC3200 (2x512mb/2x256mb)
Abit IC7-Max3 (with latest bios update and drivers)
120gig Seagate Barracuda (IDE)
Genuine XP Pro+SP2 (latest updates/DirectX)

Help much appreciated.

Al.
 
it could be the drivers at fault here...im using 84.43 with the same card and all works well with those drivers

give them a go

oh and after removing the old driver try using 'driver cleaner' to completely remove traces of the old drivers

good luck
 
Thanks for replying guys. I only fitted the 400w PSU because I wanted to get the system up and running. The cases dont come with PSUs, and all I had at work was the crappy sumvision ones. Do you reckon the 7800 consumes too much power from a PSU like that?

I uninstalled the drivers, rebooted, ran driver cleanup, rebooted again then installed 84.43 and ran 3DMark06. It ran fine and I scored 3986 which is alot better than the 500 odd I scored with my Leadtek 5600 256mb lol. Thanks for the tip Wallis.

I am thinking of buying a couple of WD raptor drives and striping them
and also buying 4GB of OCZ platinum RAM to fill my 4 memory banks. Then theres overclocking. Do you think it will improve gaming in any way?


Thanks for your help and time,

Alex
 
Raptor HDs will improve load times slightly, but not the actual gaming performance.

4gb of RAM is a total waste now. Get 4gb with Vista. 2gb is more than enough for gaming nowadays.

[qoute="mousemonkey"]I think XP can only 'see' 3 GB of system RAM don't know about Vista though.[/quote]
32-bit XP can support about 3gb. The 64-bit can support like 128gb of RAM. Vista will support more than 3gb, but maybe not as much as 128.
 
Either the PSU is too weak or the card is dodgy, how many +12v Amps is it capeable of?

I'd never trust the purchase of a Gfx card to ebay myself, been there tried that with computer components...
 
get your self a decent PSU, you wouldnt want a fried video card would you.

i use an ennermax noistaker 600w, and i can fully recommend it
 
Im thinking about getting an Antec "true power" 600w PSU. Fair point about the ram.

I bought my 7800 from the place I work, the only thing I bought 2nd hand was my motherboard, which I just had to do a bios update on it so it would run my 3.4 cpu properly.

Can anyone tell if my system is under performing with a score like 3986 on 3dmark06 with my current spec?

Al
 
Ive just played Call Of Duty 2, it ran for 5minutes then hanged the pc like it did with 3dmark on the first test - which I managed to get running fine after installing the 84.43 drivers.

Has anyone had issues with call of duty 2 and their 7800?

Al
 
Yea, i tried both 512s seperatley, and left the 256s out alltogether. Ive had those sticks in my pc for 3 years and they have been fine, ive never had my system crashes in games before.

I did turn up some of the graphical effects on COD2, I ran it on the lowest and it didnt crash. Should I be able to run highest vga settings with my card?

Al
 
it could be your PSU, i had all sorts of problems with the computer rebooting or BSODing until i got a good PSU with good steady rails.

antec, ennermax something with a good reputation will do ya

also try running memtest just to make sure your memory isnt causing errors

put all your ram in then run it even a single error is not good.

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

good luck
 
If your card didn't like the highest settings I'd have thought the game play would just get boggy and slow rather than crashing out, unless the card is overheating, during gaming have you tried running the nvidia control panel, leaving it on temperature and seeing if the card is running too hot also there might be an entry in the debug menu that will let you know if the card has overheated, other than that a good 600w PSU is always a good idea :wink: and a memory stress test would put your mind at ease if it passes which if it does then you could try relaxing the timings a little and maybe even upping the voltage a notch or two.
 
Try reinstalling all of the latest motherboard drivers & the latest graphics drivers (9.1.4.7.), see if that helps any.
Reboot the computer between the updates.

Are you changing the settings in the control panel or in game?
Better to set them to application preference in the control panel.

Have you updated Call of Duty 2 to the latest patch also?
 
Hi guys. Ive ran memtest on my pc all day and when I came back to it it was still running without any errors listed.

Ive install FarCry and ran it and put all the options to their highest, it ran fine. I played it for about half and hour.

I installed mostwanted and turned all the gaming features up and then it crashed after about 5 minutes, did the same screen as previosuly, pixelated image of the game screen.

Ive tried the drivers that came with it on cd, the 84.43 drivers which seems to have stopped the system from crashing when i run 3Dmark06 but not the games. Ive tried the latest nvidia drivers also, and the system still crashes in games.

Im thinking of borrowing a vga card from where i work just to try and see what it does with that. I really dont want to have to RMA it.

All my hardware was working fine before. I have changed only motherboard, vga and psu. The system hasnt locked up, BSOD'd, rebooted or done anything untoward while im in windows with loads of applications running. Surely it must be a problem with either the card or software drivers?
 
I uninstalled the drivers, rebooted, ran driver cleanup, rebooted again then installed 84.43 and ran 3DMark06. It ran fine and I scored 3986 which is alot better than the 500 odd I scored with my Leadtek 5600 256mb lol. Thanks for the tip Wallis.

I am thinking of buying a couple of WD raptor drives and striping them
and also buying 4GB of OCZ platinum RAM to fill my 4 memory banks. Then theres overclocking. Do you think it will improve gaming in any way?


Thanks for your help and time,

Alex
Click to expand...

Overclocking will definetly help gaming and benchmark scores. I borrowed my cousins Gainward 7800GS card and ran some tests on it with my old computer.

System specs:
Intel Pentium4 3.2ghz Extreme Edition CPU(overclocked to 3.5ghz)
Asus P4C800 E-Deluxe
Gainward 7800GS+ Bliss 512MB DDR3 overclocked to 550mhz core clock and 700 memory clock
OCZ 2GB EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel Platinum
1x 150GB WD Raptor
1x 250GB WD Caviar 2500KS

3Dmark03= 18,310
3Dmark05= 7,259
3Dmark06= 4,233

I also ran some game benchmarks with Half-Life 2:Lost Coast and FEAR.
I posted my "mini-review" on another forum- heres a link to it mini-review
 
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