System: Pentium D 950. 3.4 dual core "Presler" Asus P5ND2-SLI Chipset: nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Bios: ASUS P5ND2-SLI ACPI BIOS Revision 0701 Nvidia 9800 gtx+ RAM: DDR2, 2 gigs at 333.3 mhz (2 sticks, 1 gig each, part#: OCZ2SOE6671G) Power Supply: oczgxs600, 600 watts, an OCZ GameXStream Power Supply. Hello, this has been driving me crazy for over 4 weeks now. A while back I was surfing you tube and a bunch of artifacts came up on my screen, it froze and i had to re-boot my computer. When I did the screen with my motherboard's logo was messed up and so was the windows loading and log on screen. I booted into safe mode and the logo and loading screens were still messed up except when i logged into windows there were four 2cm wide bars going vertically up my screen. Everything next to these bars was perfectly fine but everything in the aforementioned area was blurred/messed up. (Side not: I looked into the driver details of VGAsave and found that there was this in the conflicting device box: Input output range 03B0-03BB used by PIC Standard PCI to PCI bridge Input output range 03C0-03DF used by PIC Standard PCI to PCI bridge Memory Range 000A0000-000BFFFF used by PCI Standard PCI to PCI bridge I thought that maybe this was the reason the screen was messed up in safe mode but when the 9800gtx+ artifacted there were no conflicting device errors. Thought I would include this anyway as it might be connected.) So I uninstalled nvidia, all the software that came with it and the drivers for the device and restarted. This seems to do the trick sometimes and when I load with a clean mobo screen I get out of safe mode, install my gpu and everything is back to normal. In trying to prevent this from happening again i run registry scans, spy bot and avast but never the less the computer still freezes up with artifacts on the screen, sometimes after 2 weeks and sometimes after 2 days. I read around and aside from the possibility that the gpu might be faulty (fried RAM i believe was what a lot of people were having trouble with) i learned that it could also be the power supply's fault. I looked up the voltages of the psu in speedy fan and found that the 3.3 v rail is putting out 0 volts. The 5 v is putting out 4.95 v and the 12 is putting out 12.22 v. I am also getting a temperature reading of 73 c (which i know is not the gpu since i can cross check the temperature given to me by evga's software and it is most likely not the cpu as i just cleaned the heat sink and re-applied some thermal paste, even though i never saw temperatures that high 3 months ago when everything was working fine.) This same temperature reading jumps all the way to 127 c sometimes and just stays there, however when i feel the power supply and the air coming out of it it is not that hot. This same system has already burned out one power supply but when it did you could smell it in the air... In addition, the computer just shut down today 3 times, once when i wasn't even using it. Could this also be pointing to the psu as the culprit? I am now running an nvidia 8600 gts perfectly fine (no shut-downs or artifacting), but maybe its because this gpu doesn't place nearly the amount of demand on the psu as the 9800 gts+. Sorry for the long post, I hope I provided enough information about the problem. Thank you for your time!
Hi, your psu isn't a cheap brand OCZ generally very good. 600W is more than enough to power your setup including a 9800gtx. What are your temperatures? cpu, nb & sb? the thing that isn't right is your 3.3v rail is puting out 0. could well be a faulty psu. Have you tried running a game or 3dmark with the 8800gt installed to see if your machine powers off? if it does it's generally a sign of a failing psu or overheating system. artifacts on your screen could be a direct x problem trying re-installing directx. also you mentioed gpu ram could also be an issue causing your system to freeze, but I can't see how that would cause your machine to shutdown. so to round it all up for your shutting down issues most likely overheating system or failing power supply unit. for your freezing issues could well be gpu ram as it does comes up with artifacts on the screen.
Thank you for responding. My temperatures when idle are all below 50 degrees Celsius except one reading that is at 71 C and has a habit of jumping up all the way to 127. Nvidia monitor view tells me that my CPU is at 47 (been hovering around there for a while) but as for the north bridge and south bridge (I think this is what you meant, im not an expert in this ) I dont know which if any of the temperature readings speed fan gives me relate to these specifically but either way only one temperature reading is too hot and its not the CPU, GPU or the 2 HDs. This leaves me to think its the power supply but am I leaving something out? I did run a game using the 8800gts (it reached 84 C w/ fan at 75%, its a hot card.) and everything was fine for the 20-30 min i played. I got the latest updates for DX (didn't reinstall it yet though) and am using the 9800 now to see if it had an effect. I took a deeper look at the voltages of my psu and gpu and got this: Vcore1: 1.22V Vcore2: 3.30V +3.3V: 0.00V +5.V: 4.92V +12V: 12.22V -12V: -16.97V -5V: -8.78V +5V: 5.11V Vbat: 3.04V Voltages for GPU: CPU: 1.2688V Memory: 1.8V Do you know if the voltages for the GPU are normal? And the readings for the -12V and -5V outputs seem to be quite a bit off, is this anything to be concerned about? Thank you for your help!
psu look right except for the +3.3v, do you still have warrenty on your psu? if so send it back. Your gpu voltages seems fine. I think your temps are perfectly fine even when underload (check in the bios for the cpu,nb & sb temp shutoff temp). the thing that gets me is when you play a game on your 8800gts it's perfectly fine. but sometimes when your not using your pc it just shuts off. Are you sure you don't have any virus's on your machine? check in task manager for any dodgy processing that are running. Also disconnect your power switch from the motherboards control panel and just use a flat head screw driver to short the power switch pins on the motherboard, this will rule out any issues with the power switch causing the machine to randomly shut off. if your still having problems after following the above, I would recommened using acronis true image to make an image of your hard drive, back it up on an external hard drive or spare hard drive or even over the network, then do a full formatt and re-install windows, this will rule out any issues with the OS. if you still have the same issues after a clean install you can then revert back to your true image backup. btw: one more thing try running prime95 for stability issues, if you have an unstable machine this can cause random freezes, restarts, shutdowns etc.
I emailed newegg with a copy of my order asking them if they know if i have a warranty, whether its still valid and if i could send it in (sadly i didn't keep any of the stuff that came with the package, a mistake i will not repeat) but its been over 2 days and no answer. And I have been running the 9800 for roughly 5 hours now and no sudden shutdowns yet, however I will follow your suggestion about disconnecting my power switch from the motherboard if it happens again. I will hold off on the re-installation of windows for a bit but thank you for telling me about that program, makes it seem like a less scary process . I ran an nvidia stability test today with the 9800 and everything seemed fine, as well as a full scan of the computer with avast a few weeks ago when the issue first started and nothing I always like to keep my start-up processes to a minimum and when I looked now nothing was out of the ordinary. I will continue to monitor the computer, waiting for the next freeze/artifacting/shutdown to happen and hope to discern a pattern but as the days pass I'm feeling more and more inclined to just buy an $80 psu from newegg and see how it goes (Newegg.com - Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply - Power Supplies). P.S. Thanks, I'll run prime95 tonight.
So I ran rpime95, noticed that the north bridge heatsink was getting quite hot and so I thought that it might the the cause of the very hight temp. reading in speedfan. I unscrewed the motherboard from the case and tryied to remove the heatsink from the board but the plastic pins seemed to be stuck. I then took out some pliers and atemped to use them to squeez the pins (instead of using my hands) and then push them through. It didnt work and the pliers ended up sliping a little and knocked off (what i think was) a resistor. The board would not start after that and I was angry, but I got a 70 dollar board to replace it (it should last at least 6 months, thats all I need) and everything has been working fine for about 1 week. I'll see how it goes, I am getting a 12.2 volt reading of 12.56, approximately, so I think thats a little high butt its within the safe zone so Im not complaining too much.
