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All is well now, nothing to see here :)

NFS4

No Lifer
Piece of CRAP!!!:|:|

My system has been acting weird for the past week or so. It all started when all of a sudden, whenever I would open up a video file with WMP10, my system would hard lock. Didn't matter what kind of video it was, it would just hard lock whenever it was opened and started playing. I tried three different driver sets and tried disabling WMV acceleration in the Catalyst control panel. I even tried the non .NET versions of the drivers. I tried removing WMP10 and everything. I even did a clean install of my system and thought that would help. Same problem.

Then I tried playing the Sims 2 and it would hard lock whenever a sim would go to change clothes or take a shower (this looks to be a pretty GPU intensive operation as my system stutters briefly when this action takes place normally as the sim does a little jump spin move).

As a last resort, I take off the retail heatsink so see what's going on. I removed the old crusty thermal paste and put on a fresh coat of thermal compound.

I can now play videos in WMP10 without it crashing out and I get through about 30 mins of the Sims 2 before the dreadful happens again. It hard locks.

Dumbfounded I recheck the CPU to make sure that the heatsink is seated properly to make sure there's nothing wrong with it. Everything checks OK. So I run a Prime 95 torture test all last night to check the CPU. Woke up this morning and it was still churning. Did some encoding. CPU works out just great. So I tried Sims 2 again and it hard locked after 5 mins after I went to fast forward some of the action (speeds up the movement of the Sims greatly and seems like a big stress on the GPU. It locked up immediately after I hit the FF button). Pandora Tomorrow locks too 🙁



Sigh 🙁 Now what? I guess my warranty is void since I removed the heatsink and put on new heatsink compound. I think it's past a year old anyway (in fact, I'm quite sure it is).

**Sniff** **Sniff**


**Updated**

Well, thanks to Anand and Derek, I am now happy 🙂

6800 GT
 
Bummer :thumbsdown:

But maybe a good excuse to upgrade to 6800GT or something 😉

Fern
 
Radeon fan spinning good? Try running with-out the case cover on, maybe the fan ain't doin the RPMs it should be?
 
Originally posted by: Reliant
Run to your local computer shop asap!

LOL, I wasn't planning on upgrading my video card until I was ready to go to PCI Express with an nForce4 motherboard. Now that plan is shot all to hell. Specifically, I was gonna go 6800GT + NF4 SLI 🙁
 
Originally posted by: NFS4
Originally posted by: Reliant
Run to your local computer shop asap!

LOL, I wasn't planning on upgrading my video card until I was ready to go to PCI Express with an nForce4 motherboard. Now that plan is shot all to hell. Specifically, I was gonna go 6800GT + NF4 SLI 🙁

You may have wanted to wait but HL2 is out now and it NEEDS to be played.....to not do so would go against the gods of gaming.
 
Originally posted by: NFS4
Originally posted by: Reliant
Run to your local computer shop asap!

LOL, I wasn't planning on upgrading my video card until I was ready to go to PCI Express with an nForce4 motherboard. Now that plan is shot all to hell. Specifically, I was gonna go 6800GT + NF4 SLI 🙁

I broke down and am buying a 9800pro :/

Originally i wanted my aging 8500 64MB to last through to my next build, but it aint happening...

Perhaps you can find a 9700pro on the FT/FS for <150$ - or perhaps you can try to troubleshoot your card that you have now... good luck :/
 
Originally posted by: JeReMY
Try to downclock your core and memory and try different drivers.
I've tried three different driver sets including the 4.12 betas. Didn't try downclocking though.
Originally posted by: Killrose
Radeon fan spinning good? Try running with-out the case cover on, maybe the fan ain't doin the RPMs it should be?

Fan is spinning perfectly. I blow out the fan once a month with compressed air so it's always in top condition. I've tried running with the case off and that doesn't help either. The heatsink is warm to the touch, not hot.
 
Originally posted by: NFS4
Originally posted by: JeReMY
Try to downclock your core and memory and try different drivers.
I've tried three different driver sets including the 4.12 betas. Didn't try downclocking though.
Originally posted by: Killrose
Radeon fan spinning good? Try running with-out the case cover on, maybe the fan ain't doin the RPMs it should be?

Fan is spinning perfectly. I blow out the fan once a month with compressed air so it's always in top condition. I've tried running with the case off and that doesn't help either. The heatsink is warm to the touch, not hot.

I know this is a long shot - but have you tried redoing the drivers - wipe your system of ATI drivers, then load on the newest ones? Also, maybe try running with side panel off and desk fan pointed direct at video card. Good luck!
 
Originally posted by: Tiamat
Originally posted by: NFS4
Originally posted by: JeReMY
Try to downclock your core and memory and try different drivers.
I've tried three different driver sets including the 4.12 betas. Didn't try downclocking though.
Originally posted by: Killrose
Radeon fan spinning good? Try running with-out the case cover on, maybe the fan ain't doin the RPMs it should be?

Fan is spinning perfectly. I blow out the fan once a month with compressed air so it's always in top condition. I've tried running with the case off and that doesn't help either. The heatsink is warm to the touch, not hot.

I know this is a long shot - but have you tried redoing the drivers - wipe your system of ATI drivers, then load on the newest ones? Also, maybe try running with side panel off and desk fan pointed direct at video card. Good luck!

I did all that when I had did a clean install of Windows XP. I was so stumped by the lockups in WMP10 that I did a clean install of XP with the new 4.11 drivers. When I kept getting the WMP10 lockups, I tried Sims 2 where I realized that this was more than a WMP10 issue.

I don't have a desk fan, so I can't try your other suggestion.
 
Yea I definitely know the feeling. My x800xt pe died a couple weeks ago, but an xt is on the way. See if you can squeeze any warranty out of your vendor, whoever that may be and just reattach your stock heatsink. Buy from a company that doesnt have a big problem with returns like that in the future. Im sure our kind make up a large portion of their business.
 
Originally posted by: RearAdmiral
Yea I definitely know the feeling. My x800xt pe died a couple weeks ago, but an xt is on the way. See if you can squeeze any warranty out of your vendor, whoever that may be and just reattach your stock heatsink. Buy from a company that doesnt have a big problem with returns like that in the future. Im sure our kind make up a large portion of their business.

I bought mine from Circuit City last year sometime.
 
Originally posted by: JeReMY
Originally posted by: NFS4
**Updated**

Well, thanks to Anand and Derek, I am now happy 🙂

6800 Pro


Are you saying that they gave it to you for free?

I'm saying I just picked it up from Derek 😛 After seeing Rage's post, I decided to get ahold of Anand and he worked his magic. Afterall, we're all one big Anandtech family😀

2 :beer:'s for Anand 😛
 
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