-=HaXoMaTiC=-
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Messages
- 16 (0.00/day)
Is one of my cards broken? (Updated! Need a bit more help!)
I'm running this rig currently.
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
FX-55 AMD
2x Seagate 250gb HDD
Onboard AC97 Audio
Sony DVD-DL +/- Drive
PNY 9600GTx2 SLI-Setup PCI-E 2.0 Compat Note: I'm using a 2.0 16x card in a 1.0 x16 slot but I read that they are backwards compatible
OCZ gameXstream 700w Power Supply
Now everything runs smooth and I never crash outside of games and even then it occurs rarely if that. However, I am quick to paranoia and I am getting something that worries me quite a bit.
It has only crashed twice in 1 month but both times it crashed like this.
------------------------------------------
Instance 1: I was playing oblivion I had overclocked my pci-e bus to 2650 (6 mhz), raised my mhz on my core and mem by 50 mhz each, and overclocked my cpu a mere 8 mhz. I was jumping down a mountain heading towards a city and my moniter shut off and went into power saving mode. It was as if my cards stopped sending a signal completely and my monitor just responded by shutting down. I had to force power-down the computer to rememdy the situation but it started up fine and dandy and ran flawlessly (and the overclocking reset).
------------------------------------------
Instance 2: I was playing Synergy a Halflife2 modification which allows you to play HL2+ games in 2 player online. I was hosting a server and only 1 person was connected as we played. My game instantly locked about 30 minutes into gameplay and the sound looped at around a 0.1 second interval (very fast short sound repetitions). My monitor shut down just like in instance 1 however the sound was going nuts. After a hard power-down it ran fine.
------------------------------------------
Now here is the odd thing, I've played TF2 (Team Fortress 2) for up to 8 hours with this exact setup minus the overclocking. In fact I've even ran it for at least 4-6 with 50/50 increase in core/mem clock speed and it ran roughly around 50-65 Cel. I've played oblivion on 1440x900 with fairly high settings for 2 days straight in fact and it never seemed to crash one time or show any signs of instability. The only thing I've changed recently is the video cards, previously I had 1 single video card (7900 GS KO) now they are 2x PNY 9600 GTs .
Overclocking wise the cards crash well before they even reach a temp remotely around a dangerous temp (It's never peaked 70 deg and thats with gpu fans on LOW (25-30%). They don't seem to like getting above a clock of 725/975 in fact the core clock stays near 714 if i clock it that high.
Of course all in all I've left my computer at stock speeds only instance 1 was a time I overclocked and it was for a very short time at which I monitored the temps of my system very closely.
Specifics: I have the most recent drivers for my chipset, graphics and sound. I used driver sweeper to remove the graphics drivers before installing the most recent as well. My settings in my drivers are fairly stock except for texture filtering being high performance and single display performance mode.
So here is my question after this wall of text... Is SLI still a bit unstable at times causing hardware-level lockups and I experienced an oddity or is one of my cards faulty? I never crash anywhere else and as I said it has only happened twice in 3-4 weeks under very certain circumstances.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have little information left to go off of. Also, if you need anymore information let me know and I will post it.
I talked to a PNY rep who claimed my 700w power supply was insufficient and the black screens and hardware locks are because the cards require 22 and the rails only show 18 (forgot the measurement he said of voltage)
Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.
I'm running this rig currently.
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
FX-55 AMD
2x Seagate 250gb HDD
Onboard AC97 Audio
Sony DVD-DL +/- Drive
PNY 9600GTx2 SLI-Setup PCI-E 2.0 Compat Note: I'm using a 2.0 16x card in a 1.0 x16 slot but I read that they are backwards compatible
OCZ gameXstream 700w Power Supply
Now everything runs smooth and I never crash outside of games and even then it occurs rarely if that. However, I am quick to paranoia and I am getting something that worries me quite a bit.
It has only crashed twice in 1 month but both times it crashed like this.
------------------------------------------
Instance 1: I was playing oblivion I had overclocked my pci-e bus to 2650 (6 mhz), raised my mhz on my core and mem by 50 mhz each, and overclocked my cpu a mere 8 mhz. I was jumping down a mountain heading towards a city and my moniter shut off and went into power saving mode. It was as if my cards stopped sending a signal completely and my monitor just responded by shutting down. I had to force power-down the computer to rememdy the situation but it started up fine and dandy and ran flawlessly (and the overclocking reset).
------------------------------------------
Instance 2: I was playing Synergy a Halflife2 modification which allows you to play HL2+ games in 2 player online. I was hosting a server and only 1 person was connected as we played. My game instantly locked about 30 minutes into gameplay and the sound looped at around a 0.1 second interval (very fast short sound repetitions). My monitor shut down just like in instance 1 however the sound was going nuts. After a hard power-down it ran fine.
------------------------------------------
Now here is the odd thing, I've played TF2 (Team Fortress 2) for up to 8 hours with this exact setup minus the overclocking. In fact I've even ran it for at least 4-6 with 50/50 increase in core/mem clock speed and it ran roughly around 50-65 Cel. I've played oblivion on 1440x900 with fairly high settings for 2 days straight in fact and it never seemed to crash one time or show any signs of instability. The only thing I've changed recently is the video cards, previously I had 1 single video card (7900 GS KO) now they are 2x PNY 9600 GTs .
Overclocking wise the cards crash well before they even reach a temp remotely around a dangerous temp (It's never peaked 70 deg and thats with gpu fans on LOW (25-30%). They don't seem to like getting above a clock of 725/975 in fact the core clock stays near 714 if i clock it that high.
Of course all in all I've left my computer at stock speeds only instance 1 was a time I overclocked and it was for a very short time at which I monitored the temps of my system very closely.
Specifics: I have the most recent drivers for my chipset, graphics and sound. I used driver sweeper to remove the graphics drivers before installing the most recent as well. My settings in my drivers are fairly stock except for texture filtering being high performance and single display performance mode.
So here is my question after this wall of text... Is SLI still a bit unstable at times causing hardware-level lockups and I experienced an oddity or is one of my cards faulty? I never crash anywhere else and as I said it has only happened twice in 3-4 weeks under very certain circumstances.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have little information left to go off of. Also, if you need anymore information let me know and I will post it.
I talked to a PNY rep who claimed my 700w power supply was insufficient and the black screens and hardware locks are because the cards require 22 and the rails only show 18 (forgot the measurement he said of voltage)
Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.
Last edited: