Any 3D crashes almost immediately

[SurreDeth]

I've had this system for a couple years, but starting a couple weeks ago it started to crash often while playing games. Now, it will crash almost immediately once a game or intense 3D application has begun. It goes to a black sceen and is unresponsive.

Motherboard: Leadtek K7nCR18D Pro Rev 4.
Motherboard BIOS: 04132004
Motherboard Chipset: nForce 2
Chipset Driver: nForce 5.10 Unified Driver set

Memory: Corsair XMS CMX512-3200LLPT Timed Pair 512x2
Video Card: ATI 9700 Pro @ stock speeds
Video Driver: Catalyst 5.4

and have also tried

Video Card: BFG 6600 GT OC @ stock
Video Driver: 71.98 & 66.86

Sound Card: removed for troubleshooting

NIC: LNETX100 v5.1
NIC Driver: LNETX512



Troubleshooting steps:
1) Tested memory with Memtest86 for 4 hours, no errors
2) Tested memory with MS Memory test for 3 hours, no errors
3) Turned off AGP Fast Writes and 8X in MB BIOS, no improvement
4) Set Hardware accleration to one spot down, then 2 spots down. Turned off Write Combining, no improvements
5) Removed sound devices
6) Made sure that VGA card gets a unique IRQ at bios startup
7) Tried a different video card, 6600 GT. I completed system purge of ATI drivers before installing the nvidia card and drivers. the 6600 lasts a little longer but is not acceptable. Maybe five minutes before it crashes
8) Increased VCORE voltage to +1, no improvement
9) Enabled AGP and CPU spread spectrum, no improvement
10) relaxed memory timings to 2.5-2-2-10, no improvement. memory will not post at 3-3-3-10
11) tried another PSU, no improvement
12) disconnected all non-critical devices to PSU and 2nd PSU, no improvement
13) tried different memory, no luck

I can do anything non GPU intensive all day long and even burn DVDs without any problems, but anytime I fire up a game or 3DMark I will crash within the first minute usually.

Using SpeedFan these are my voltage readinds, they don't differ significantly from each PSU:
VCORE =1.63
+3.3 = 3.38
+5 = 5.08
+12 = 5.65
-12 = -8.9
-5 = -2

I even whiped my HD and reinstalled XP just to get back to square one. Any suggestions?

 

[LiLithTecH]

+12 = 5.65
-12 = -8.9
-5 = -2

You don't see anything wrong with these?
(Hint: well below the +/- 5% error limit)

 

[SurreDeth]

I do see something wrong with them, that's why I posted them. How do I fix it? Is replacing the motherboard a guaranteed fix?

 

[theMan]

this happened to me. get driver cleaner and wipe out your chipset and video drivers. re install. that worked for me. especially if you just upgraded drivers. try the older ones.

 

[CrispyFried]

Originally posted by: LiLithTecH
+12 = 5.65
-12 = -8.9
-5 = -2

You don't see anything wrong with these?
(Hint: well below the +/- 5% error limit)

-12 and -5 arent used anymore. Using MBM to monitor them my -12 and -5 are -0.5 and -2.7 respectivly and no problems here. .

If 12v were really 5.6, I wouldnth think it would run at all, HD and optical drive motors run off that and I doubt they would keep running. Also the fans use 12v. Do the fans run really slow?

That 5.6 reading is probably an error. Use a volt meter to see the real voltage.

Have you tried rolling back the chipset drivers a few revisions? If you have SP2 installed, uninstall it and see what happens, SP2 installs its own UAGP driver.

What does dxdiag report when running the 3d tests?

 

[SurreDeth]

I have 2 HD's and 1 DVD-RW in the machine and I can burn DVDs fine. I though 12V powered these devices and if there really was a voltage problem it definitely wouldn't be able to use those HD's to re-encode a DVD then burn it.

I reverted to WinXP w/o SP2 and am getting the same problem after reinstalling the nForce drivers and video drivers. I tried an older nForce driver, but am still getting the same thing. Any 3D app, such as HL2, WoW, or 3DMark is locking up my system.

 

[aGreenAgent]

It's not so much that it's getting 5 volts on the +12v line, as much as if you're reading that voltage, it might be indicative of other problems with the PSU or the motherbaord.

 

[SurreDeth]

I removed all cards and drives except for the primary hd & video card, plus disabled everything I could on the motherboard. 12V is still screwed up and still crashing.

I took out the motherboard, cleaned the pan underneath, made sure nothing could be shorting, made sure all the fasteners had washers. Still screwed up and crashing 🙁

 

[aGreenAgent]

Either your power supply or mobo is shot....see if you can find someone who can lend you a power supply and see if it still reports bad voltage.

 

[SurreDeth]

I tried another PSU already and got the same results. Going to newegg a new mobo and get it in Tuesday. Never cared much for this Leadtek board anyway, was just the first nforce2 that newegg carried back in the day.

 

[SurreDeth]

I replaced the Leadtek KNCR18DPro for an Asus A7N8X-U and viola.

The voltages are back to normal. I looped through 3DMark05 for 2 hours without a crash and play WoW for about another 2 hours last night with no crashes.

I wonder if I should return this 6600GT now?