9800Pro+Direct3d==death?

[v1rus0fl1fe]

I bought my 9800Pro (to replace my 9200SE) almost a month ago and it ran awesomely on Counter Strike and Enemy Territory. I felt nostalgic to play Vice City again, then the problem arose.

The game would most usually lock-up in either the Display Setup and Audio Setup menus, and after a couple of seconds, the black screen comes and my monitor light flickers, which means the my monitor isn't picking anything up from my 9800Pro. I never had this problem with my 9200SE before.

I tried Tribes Vengeance, and once I get to the options menu, the same problem arises. This never happened with my 9200SE.
I tried Hitman Contracts, and about 10-15 minutes into the game, the black screen comes.
I tried ROSE Online, and about 10 minutes into gameplay the black screen comes back with vengeance.
I tried Kal Online, and during the Character Creation process, the black screen comes back for some more vengeance.

In some cases I even get the blue screen of death.

NOW, when I open my side panel to let my AC (which is behind my computer btw lol) blow in cool air, and astoundingly I actually get to play my games longer. None of the options menu problems arise. Just during 15-30 minutes of gameplay the blacks creen comes back again.

The fan is spinning, and it cut my finger when I tried to touch the heatsink lol. I touched one of the RAM on the card, it ran decently hot, but not hot enough to get me to flinch. I'm not sure of the exact tempurature my GPU is at. In my Bios my System Tempurature is at 52 Celcius, and my CPU is at 43 Celcius, and I believe these are all in idle (bad sign of overheat?), and the readings are with the side panel ON.

I set my AGP Speed to 4x instead of 8x, and it works the same way opening the side panel did.

I updated my bios, which updated the compatibility of the 9800 Pro, and that didn't seem to solve the problem.

I installed all the mobo drivers...nothing seems to work :<.

Any ideas ?

My Computer Specs:
Intel Celeron D 2.4ghz w/heatsink and fan (Stock Speeds)
EliteGroup (ECS) PM800-M2 Motherboard
Sapphire 9800Pro 128MB AGP (Stock Speeds) w/DNA 5.7 Driver
768MB DDRRAM PC2100
WD 40GB IDE HD
Elitech 450W Dual Fan PSU

 

[mechBgon]

My thoughts:

1) maybe your generic-ish power supply is not up to the task. Got any quality-brand PSU's with adequate wattage to substitute as a test?

2) maybe your 9800 Pro is faulty

3) if your case really is so badly ventilated that your system temp is 52C, then get a better case such as an Antec SLK3000-B, because you want your case's internal air temperature below 40C, preferably below 35C in fact. You can verify internal air temperatures by putting a thermometer inside the case somewhere near the middle, run the system closed for a while, and then check the thermometer.

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

A couple of months ago my system ran around the 30 degrees range, but so suddenly it rose to 50 :/. the wires and such in my computer are not dangling around. I tied them up with an eleastic band so they aren't in the way so much. I also recently bought the 450W PSU to replace my Turbolink 350W PSU (not sure if it's major brand). I only got 1 case fan running, located on my side panel hovering parallel to my CPU fan.

 

[mechBgon]

If the case has any vacant exhaust-fan positions, add an exhaust fan. If you can afford a small gamble, replace your off-brand power supply with a name-brand unit with plenty of wattage.

If you live in the United States, here's a possible power supply unit to consider: link. Powerful single 12-volt rail, fits both 20-pin and 24-pin ATX, good reputation.

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

There aren't any vacant fan positions on this stupid MDG case lol. I'll see if I can grab myself an Enermax and possibly a better case. I'm on an extremely tight budget but I am no casual gamer, I go hardcore. I'm using my old Celestica 9200SE temporarily until I can get a good solid solution.

If I can, I could wait until next year to grab myself enough money to get me an A64 3000+ and a PCI-e video card, or I can gamble and test my 9800Pro on the future 939 board. I'll also probably grab me some good sticks of RAM because the ones i'm using now are unbranded i think (hynix 512mb and elixer256mb), or I can get me a Dual Channel board. I'm so confoosed to what I can do >.<.

If you can give me some good advice on what to buy now and in the future it'd be very much appreciated :>.

Thanks so far .

*edit* btw, nice computer building guide .

 

[mechBgon]

Hmmm The Enermax power supply would be one item that you could re-use whenever you did upgrade your motherboard/video/CPU. So if you gamble on the PSU being the problem, and it isn't, at least you didn't waste the money.

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

okay. PSU it is :>. thx

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

ahhh omg wdf lol. my 9200SE crashes on me as well now . It lasted almost twice as long as 9800Pro in 4x speed but it had to give up. wdf.

I'ma go check my bios on my case tempurature brb .

*edit* 51C Case Tempurature, 39C CPU Tempurature.....I'm really leaning towards getting a new case...

 

[mechBgon]

If you want suggestions, I like my SLK3000-B a lot. It's mechanically the same chassis as the one in my building guide, but 1) it's black, 2) it has a 3-speed fan instead of 1-speed, 3) it doesn't come with a PSU included, and 4) it has the side snorkel to feed cool air right to your CPU, and the other side vent by your video card.

If you like what you see there, you can get one from Amazon.com for $46 shipped. That's a good buy when you consider the shipping.

You can also buy that chassis with a 400W Antec power supply, as the SLK3800: Newegg link

Thanks for the compliment about the building guide, by the way

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

pretty damn sexy compared to my old and bland white case :/. It says there are 2 fans, 1 attached and the other one optional (i'ma hafta go buy a 120mm?). That snorkel shiz sounds off the hook . That thing will cost me $63 here in canada if I go to my closest computer store.

I really hate my case...whether your idea of the Antec SLK3000B works to help my problem or not, it still looks hella sexy .

This is what I think I'm planning to buy in the future, unless the price drop or like uberly dramatic:

Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 Socket 939 $97.98
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz Socket 939 (Retail Box) $182.99
OCZ PC-3200 DDR400 Premier Series 1GB (2x512MB) Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 $139.00
Western Digital Caviar EIDE (WD1600JB) 160GB ATA-100 7200RPM 8MB Buffer (OEM) $96.99

Grand Total+TAX == $594.50

This store so far has the cheapest prices overall, and has a good variety as well .

Thx for your help dude, I'll see if I can get the case ASAP.

*edit* shiz i'm so noob lol. I just noticed on the back of my case I can screw in a 90mm fan. should i try for the fan first?

*edit#2* Oh, and do you know of a site where it shows the optimal airflow setup in a case? I saw one before but didn't bother to look at it because I was noob .

 

[mechBgon]

You can add a second 120mm x 25mm cooling fan in the front if necessary, but unless you're cramming 4 or 5 HDD's into the HDD rack, it's probably not going to be important to have the second fan. The rear exhaust fan and the PSU fan will be pulling air through the two side-panel vents and somewhat through the front-panel vents, so everything ought to get a share of the cooling.

It isn't perfect, the door over the external drives is a little annoying since my DVD-burner software wants to eject the disc when it's completed. Also it lacks front ports for mic, headphone and Firewire. But for what it costs, I'm not complaining

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

schweetness . thx a bunch man.

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

My sister's boyfriend (who has good experience with computers), had a couple of 80mm fans lying around his closet, and fortunately, he's living here .

The airflow in my case before the change, was that the pwoer supply was sucking air out, and my side panel fan (parallel to CPU fan) is also blowing air out. The problem arose.

Now, he helped me mod the case so a fan is mounted right below the CDRW drive to blow air out. The fan took up 2 slots. And because I have 4 drive bays, and if I ever need to add another drive, I can simply slot the fan down own space. He also added a little blue lightbulb for added effect :>.
In total, 3 fans were installed, and 5 altogether. Because my AC is right behind my case, he reversed the fans in teh pwoer supply to blow air in, and another fan is mounted at the back to blow air in too. there is 2 fans mounted at the front (top near CDRW drive) and the bottom. And the last one is mounted parallel to my CPU fan. So simply, the air is blowing from the back, to the front, with the added support of my AC.

Fortunately I was able to stay in the games that crashed on me, a little longer, but also suffered the same fate . I had Winamp playing in the background, and when the computer turned to crap, the music went off too, and something crossed my mind.

Not only did my graphics turned into a black screen, but my music was cut off too. So should mean that it's not necesarily my video card's fault, but it could've been my CPU or my hard drive. If it was the motherboard's fault, then the whole computer would be shut off, but everything else but my gfx and my music were shutdown. Does this mean that my CPU or harddrive is really aged? My hardrive is about 4 years old, and my CPU is about 5 months old.

Any conclusive ideas?

*edit* I checked my BIOS and my system temperature is at a good 35-37, and my CPU at 40-43 at idle.

 

[mechBgon]

The time delay seems to suggest overheat. PSUs can overheat, and it's most likely to happen when they're pulling hard, so I still pin my hopes on the PSU replacement, since it's a sort of generic brand you're using now

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

Can you give me a run-through on how it could've been the PSU's fault? I'm not quite sure if I'm getting your drift . My computer starts to go into black screen mode, but every component in my computer is still functioning with the lights on and the fans spinning (including my 9800's fan). If one component were to shut down (i.e. my 9800), wouldn't my whole computer go down the drain as well?

My sister's boyfriend recommended me to get some new DDRAM chips. I have a Hynix 512MB pc2100 that I bought about a year ago, and an Elixer 256MB pc2100 that came with my MDG computer almost 4 years ago. I seem to think this solution is quite plausible.

btw, 1 question, if I were to buy dual-channel RAM sticks and stick'em into a motherboard that doesn't support Dual Channel, then would the RAMs still work but without the dual-channel function?

 

[v1rus0fl1fe]

*bump*