A8N-SLI GPU settings.

[TheNiceGuy]

Thank you!
I built a new system, and just want to use it at stock speeds.

I have been getting an occasional GPU low power warning at Windows startup from Asus System Sentinal (and the accompanying lowering of performance). Also, the screen goes black and I have to manualy restart the PC during some graphicaly intense applications that should be no problem.
I havereplaced the PSU, but the problem persists. I checked Asus nTune utility, and it shows some readings I was hoping you could interpret:
Under "Speed" section, it shows almost "red" (danger) for the GPU Memory Bus = 1000mhz; GPU Core Bus = 500mhz in the "yellow" (unstable); Also, under "Volts" section, the mem = 2.75v as "red" (danger). Probably unrelated, but in a different part of the utility it recommends I change my IDE drive mode from PIO to UDMA (what ever that means!).
I read the nTune utility manual twice, but it gives no interpretation beyond what I have listed here. Can you help me out with what this stuff means, and how I can stop these GPU errors from occurring?

 

[century child]

That power supply is just too weak to power your system. As this is a dual rail model, it is only capable of supplying 14 Amps on the 12V rail and that's simply not enough. If you purchase a quality, single-rail unit, you should not have any more power problems.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

woops! - forgot to update specs!
Look again please!

 

[FastEddie]

What bios version? 1003 Final is purported to lower some system voltages.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

I'm just using the BIOS/drivers that came on the installationm CD.

I see v.103 is a Beta. I'm a littel nervous to try it, as I don't know how to restore back to the original if it goes nuts.

 

[FastEddie]

Can you tell me how many volts your 12v rail is reading? Your psu allows for the tuning of individual voltage rails. I could be simply a matter of tuning the 12v rail.

 

[JMag]

I don't know if this has already been covered or not...

Do you have the EZ-Plug hooked up to a PSU molex?

Also the little SLI slector, is it in dual or single mode? (you can run one vid car deven when it is in dual mode, but it still bothers you with the warning msg)

What revision of the board do you have? It will be printed on the PCB. Also CPU-Z will tell you what rev of the chipset (they are different btw).

If you want to monitor your voltages and you don't have a multimeter (which I would highly recommend) use speedfan as it will display individual rail graphs. The thing to be aware of is: don't pay attention to the starting point of the voltage rail. Most of the time they aren't calibrated properly so are off by a fews points. BUT, whenever you see any changes happen in real time, then that is actualy useful info. For example, in speedfan it registers my 12v rail at 11.7 However, if I measure with a Multimeter, It is at 12.01. Both my multimeter and the speedfan application do register real time fluctuations. So when I am looking at speedvan 12v readings, I just add .3v.

Anyway, if you see any spikes or dips in any of your voltages you should be concerned.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Thanks guys:

mobo = v1.2
MCP version = nForce4 A3 (is that what you mean by chipset?)
BIOS = v1002
EZplug in.
card selector came dual, I changed to single.
*Volts measured with Asus PC Probe* sorry, no meter
12V = 11.904-11.968
5V = 5.053-5.026
3.3V = 3.296-3.312
VCore = 1.408-1.392

After replacing the PSU, all volt readings went up to these levels. This OCZ has 3 light meters on the back that report if the PSU is within reasonable limits, and it is. I haven't messed with any settings on any of my hardware, just left it all at stock.
I updated everything I could at the Asus and Leadtek websites today (the GPU and "Chipset 64" drivers had updates), and obtained a free copy of 3DMark2005 (scored 3227). I will try this out and see what happens.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Well, I think we licked it boys. I've been running it for a few days now - no more crashes or GPU error messages. The last thing I did was install the new drivers, so that must have been it. I'm sure the new PSU doesn't hurt though.

I still am wondering about these readings in the Asus nTune utility:
Under "Speed" section, it shows almost "red" (danger) for the GPU Memory Bus = 1000mhz; GPU Core Bus = 500mhz in the "yellow" (unstable); Also, under "Volts" section, the mem = 2.75v as "red" (danger). Probably unrelated, but in a different part of the utility it recommends I change my IDE drive mode from PIO to UDMA (what ever that means!).

Any ideas?

 

[TheNiceGuy]

*hip check*

 

[coyrls]

I think the reason you're getting these readings is because you've got the Extreme version of the Leadtek 6600GT (as do I). At stock speeds, this version of the card runs at 550 GPU and 560 Memory, rather than the standard 500/500 for 6600GT (specs on Leadtek Website). nTune is assuming the standard 6600GT speed, hence the graphs. I'm guessing that the voltage is related to this as well, but Leadtek don't include this in their spec.

You should sort out your PIO problem, the OS will back off to PIO from DMA if it is getting disk errors at higher transfer rates. Check that you have used the Ultra ATA cable (80 thin wires, not 40 fat ones) and also that it is seated properly.

 

[ahurtt]

I was having a similar problem to yours at one point, NiceGuy. With the power sentinnel warnings, and I knew it wasn't my PSU being too weak. I have a 450 watt w/ 26A on the +12V. Plus I'm only running 2 6600GT's which don't have nearly the power consumption of 6800's. At the time I was running official release drivers for nForce and ForceWare from nVidia's site and BIOS 1002. The problem would stop if I booted into safe mode and reinstalled the drivers. Sometimes with the 66.93 ForceWare I would get the problems after enabling SLI and rebooting. I installed BIOS 1004-01 beta, and the ForceWare 71.25 WHQL beta drivers and the latest Beta nForce drivers and the problems disappeared.

 

[Solutions]

Originally posted by: TheNiceGuy
Probably unrelated, but in a different part of the utility it recommends I change my IDE drive mode from PIO to UDMA (what ever that means!).
Any ideas?

UDMA is a faster transfer speed than PIO. You definately want UDMA (the higher the # the faster the speed, EX. UDMA3<UDMA5). You may be able to change the type/speed your HDDs are using in the BIOS. Not sure of the way to get to those particular settings though as I am away from my mobo. Probably under IDE or Standard CMOS settings.

 

[ahurtt]

I think you can also enable it in the Device manager for the drives you want if the drive supports it.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Thanks guys - I'll muk around and see what I can come up with. My drives support RAID and NCQ, although I am not using these due to their drawbacks. And the cables are the really thin red ones, the larger ribbon type ones don't work with these drives. Can I change the HD settings to UDMA on the fly? No reformating required or risk of lock up?

coyrls- That would be awesome if I have the extreme, as I bought the normal one at the shop (2 different prices too)! I was wondering why I am getting 3D Mark 3222!
The sticker on the card itself is as per my sig. Is there a chip marking I can check as well?

 

[coyrls]

I was suprised too when I got the Extreme version, I thought I was just buying the SLI capable version, but I looked on the Web site and it now seems that the Extreme version is the only SLI capable one. Anyway apart from looking at the clock settings, the only other way is under the card model number on the front of the box that the card comes in there is a gold panel with the word "Extreme" on it..... that's all.

I didn't check your HW config when I made the comment about cables BUT the error message you are getting refers to IDE drives (not Serial ATA ones) so perhaps its your CD/DVD drive that needs to be checked.

 

[coyrls]

Sorry I should check before I post, S ATA drives are shown under Standard Dual Channel IDE controllers in Device Manager. If you check the controller that your each of your disks is connected to (use view devices by connection) and then look at Advanced Settings under properties, you should be able to find which device is running in PIO mode. Also check that Transfer Mode is set to "Use DMA if available". I would still suggest if you find a device operating in PIO mode and that "Use DMA if available" is set that you should check the cables are seated correctly.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Cheers Coyrls- I'll check that stuff out tonight, although my wife cleaned up and now my Leadtek box is in the deap, dark, recesses of the closet under a bear rug and piano. Regarding the drivers, i wonder if the RAID drivers ahve anything to do with it. I don't use RAID, and despite turning off RAID in BIOS, I am asked to config at every startup. I was a bit confused when setting up about what drivers to use on the bundled disks...

 

[TheNiceGuy]

OK, home now,
The drives are listed under "NVIDIA CK804 ADMA Controller (v2.7)" in Device Manager.
And they are set as a master and slave and "SATA DMA" as "transfer mode" (as opposed to "PIO").
However, I noticed a yellow exclamation mark next to the Silicon Image 3114 SoftRaid5 Controller. I am not using RAID.

Any ideas whats up?
BTW- the drives all seem to be working fine. These are brand spankin new, so is it possible that, like the GPU, Windows can't 'see' them properly?

 

[coyrls]

OK, I don't have this issue as I've got the non-Deluxe version of the board that doesn't have the Silicon Image controller, but I believe the problem is that RAID is enabled on this controller by default. You need to go into the BIOS and find the setting that disables RAID on the Silicon Image controller, this should also get rid of the message on boot that asks you to configure RAID. If this gets rid of the exclamation mark, you can then re-check the nTune output to see if it was the Silicon Image controller that was causing nTune to report the PIO problem.