- Aug 18, 2009
- 38
- 0
- 61
First of all, I just noticed it after I got carried away a little with my post, I want to apologize for its length but hope its not TLDR, I tried to describe it in as much detail as possible. Very much appreciate if you can bare with me.
Let me first list my specs:
asus m5a97 r2.0
fx6300 currently at 4.4ghz 22x multiplier
evga gtx 650ti boost factory oc
8gb corsair vengeance 1600
samsung evo 250gb
coolermaster g550m bronze psu
win 8.1
Cpu is the only part thats currently OC. I havent checked that its 100% rock stable. Here is whats happend. I initially ran it at 4.65ghz with 210mhz bus, I messed around with voltages and clocks quite a bit and although I could never be bothered running 20hrs+ stress testing to make it was rock solid I was satisfied enough for the time being with its stability. I could stress it for an hour or so without any issues, did not have a single crash in real world usage for weeks. So even if it wasnt 100% stable, there certainly werent severe stability issues.
I also tried OC the gpu and could push it a bit, in particular the memory, but only did some benching and after that ran it at stock. All was stable and well until a couple of days ago. As I was playing Titanfall it started crashing repeatedly, and I had played that for extended sessions, as well as other games, before. Since then, much simpler tasks, browsing, document work etc has also caused it to crash randomly.
In a couple of crashes I've had artifacts over screen leading me to believe gpu been the issue, another few times windows has told me nvidia drivers stopped responding and has been restored. Most of the time it kind of just goes though, black screen, white screen, no signal, sometimes gotta hard reset, sometimes just reboots. Another thing I've noticed, the monitor (an old CRT), started doing tick then shrink image real quickly and back to normal every once in a while, at first (before the instabilities started) I thought the monitor was on the verge of going but now thinking maybe its the gpu. I'm pretty sure it didnt do this from the start with this box, and I certainly got no memories of it doing this ever before this box was connected to it. Needless to say I'm using VGA connector with it, so converter inbetween.
I was running the latest stable nvidia drivers when this started occuring, 335.23 I think, have tried removing them and reinstalling, both via CP and driver sweepers successor whatever its name was. Have also done the same process with the new beta 337.50. Multiple times with both of them. Have also unplugged the GPU, reseated it. Cleared CMOS, and set it all up again.
Before you say but set cpu to stock it could be the cause. Have done so, the crashes continued. Yesterday I thought I may have fixed it, went into Titanfall, crash within a few secs. Set cpu clock to stock, exact same.
What really bugs me is that it all came out of nowhere while playing game, had not been messing with drivers, had not modified or added any hardware, which leads me to believe its more likely a hardware issue than a software issue.
Have run cpu stress tests for several hours, and while I had issues with 2 modules in prime95 yesterday after about 3h I say that isnt reason enough for it to go from being rock solid in real life to this. I have since decreased multiplier by 0.5x, as I said the issues doesnt go away even at stock. Cpu temps are solid, think it hoovers in mid 50s in prime95 at current clock and voltage (1.35V in bios, NB set to 1.15V).
Have run memtest, in windows though, as I dont have a usb stick or dvd drive at my hands atm, no issues after close to an hour full load. No ram issues reported in prime95 blend either.
My prime suspect at the moment is:
1. gpu (kind of strongly until today once after a crash pc wouldnt post at all until I cleared cmos, which lead me to believe mobo issues)
2. mobo
3. some kind of psu issues
My ideas of further troubleshooting with my tools at hand:
1. Create another partition and make a clean windows 8.1 install, with clean drivers and all to rule out software issues. Will this leave any problems if I want to just remove the new partition with windows 8.1 and revert back to the current install? I have quite a lot of software configured that I do not want to redo, unless software issues are the problem.
2. Try with an old corsair 400W psu I have laying around, this should be sufficient still albeit not giving a ton of headroom, right?
Unfortunately I do not have another box to try out the gpu in.
If, and I hope some did, you managed to bare with me for this long, what are your thoughts about this and if anyone could answer the 2 questions I have above regarding my next steps I'd very much appreciate it.
Let me first list my specs:
asus m5a97 r2.0
fx6300 currently at 4.4ghz 22x multiplier
evga gtx 650ti boost factory oc
8gb corsair vengeance 1600
samsung evo 250gb
coolermaster g550m bronze psu
win 8.1
Cpu is the only part thats currently OC. I havent checked that its 100% rock stable. Here is whats happend. I initially ran it at 4.65ghz with 210mhz bus, I messed around with voltages and clocks quite a bit and although I could never be bothered running 20hrs+ stress testing to make it was rock solid I was satisfied enough for the time being with its stability. I could stress it for an hour or so without any issues, did not have a single crash in real world usage for weeks. So even if it wasnt 100% stable, there certainly werent severe stability issues.
I also tried OC the gpu and could push it a bit, in particular the memory, but only did some benching and after that ran it at stock. All was stable and well until a couple of days ago. As I was playing Titanfall it started crashing repeatedly, and I had played that for extended sessions, as well as other games, before. Since then, much simpler tasks, browsing, document work etc has also caused it to crash randomly.
In a couple of crashes I've had artifacts over screen leading me to believe gpu been the issue, another few times windows has told me nvidia drivers stopped responding and has been restored. Most of the time it kind of just goes though, black screen, white screen, no signal, sometimes gotta hard reset, sometimes just reboots. Another thing I've noticed, the monitor (an old CRT), started doing tick then shrink image real quickly and back to normal every once in a while, at first (before the instabilities started) I thought the monitor was on the verge of going but now thinking maybe its the gpu. I'm pretty sure it didnt do this from the start with this box, and I certainly got no memories of it doing this ever before this box was connected to it. Needless to say I'm using VGA connector with it, so converter inbetween.
I was running the latest stable nvidia drivers when this started occuring, 335.23 I think, have tried removing them and reinstalling, both via CP and driver sweepers successor whatever its name was. Have also done the same process with the new beta 337.50. Multiple times with both of them. Have also unplugged the GPU, reseated it. Cleared CMOS, and set it all up again.
Before you say but set cpu to stock it could be the cause. Have done so, the crashes continued. Yesterday I thought I may have fixed it, went into Titanfall, crash within a few secs. Set cpu clock to stock, exact same.
What really bugs me is that it all came out of nowhere while playing game, had not been messing with drivers, had not modified or added any hardware, which leads me to believe its more likely a hardware issue than a software issue.
Have run cpu stress tests for several hours, and while I had issues with 2 modules in prime95 yesterday after about 3h I say that isnt reason enough for it to go from being rock solid in real life to this. I have since decreased multiplier by 0.5x, as I said the issues doesnt go away even at stock. Cpu temps are solid, think it hoovers in mid 50s in prime95 at current clock and voltage (1.35V in bios, NB set to 1.15V).
Have run memtest, in windows though, as I dont have a usb stick or dvd drive at my hands atm, no issues after close to an hour full load. No ram issues reported in prime95 blend either.
My prime suspect at the moment is:
1. gpu (kind of strongly until today once after a crash pc wouldnt post at all until I cleared cmos, which lead me to believe mobo issues)
2. mobo
3. some kind of psu issues
My ideas of further troubleshooting with my tools at hand:
1. Create another partition and make a clean windows 8.1 install, with clean drivers and all to rule out software issues. Will this leave any problems if I want to just remove the new partition with windows 8.1 and revert back to the current install? I have quite a lot of software configured that I do not want to redo, unless software issues are the problem.
2. Try with an old corsair 400W psu I have laying around, this should be sufficient still albeit not giving a ton of headroom, right?
Unfortunately I do not have another box to try out the gpu in.
If, and I hope some did, you managed to bare with me for this long, what are your thoughts about this and if anyone could answer the 2 questions I have above regarding my next steps I'd very much appreciate it.