crashing woes

[frostythehoeman]

I have a:
athlon 2000+
soyo dragon 333 ultra platinum
(2x) 512mb mushkin ddr 266
Nvidia 5700 ultra

I have some serious crashing problems when using a 3d intensive applications, I have a hardware monitor that runs on my second monitor and it doesn't even break 105% (f) I have tried the graphics card in my specs and an radeon 9700... It still crashes every time. I have taken out either stick of ram and still nothing. I have reformatted the hard drive installed all updates, absolutely everything. Any ideas?

 

[Fern]

Welcome to the forum! This will give you a bump till good help comes along. Looks to me like you may be having driver probs with the gfx card. What drivers are you using (and OS, as the nVidia cards use diff drv depending on that) What is your power supply too? Good Luck

 

[Gravity]

Sounds like it could be heat. What HSF are you using and describe the ventilation in your case please?

 

[frostythehoeman]

Well let me explain a little better. I had this problem with a Radeon 9700 (np) and I tried reinstalling everything. So I decided to check if it was the graphics card bby getting the 5700 ultra. I reinstalled windows installed latest nvidia's and still no go, I can play Deus Ex Invisible war demo through but it will get "stuck" for ~1 minute at a time. BF1942 just locks up during anything. I have two monitors so I had a hardware monitor to check heat on one and the game on the other, the crashing temperatures were not consistent it would crash at 99%f or 110%f it doesn't seem to really make a diff. I am using a thermaltake volcano 11+ xaser edition with the fan on full power at all times. Also using a common antec case with a 450 watt psu and 4 80mm (i think) 2 in front 2 in back. Also using Windows XP and detanator 53.03(?) or whatever the latest from their site is.

 

[flashbacck]

we it sounds like it's not the gfx card or heat. What about your memory? if you stress test your system will it crash as well, or is this a 3d application only thing?

 

[frostythehoeman]

I have done some testing on the memory but can't find a very good program to do the job... I know it's not the best thing but my memory is kinda mixed and matched. But I have tried each stick on it's own and it still crashed. Anyone recomd a good stress testing program?

 

[Mem]

Anyone recomd a good stress testing program?

Try Memtest86 from here .

 

[frostythehoeman]

ran fine for 2-3hrs

 

[flashbacck]

uh... hmm. have you tried swapping cpu's with a friend's? And 450W PSU is way more than necessary, but that might be the problem...

 

[frostythehoeman]

no cpu's in the area to swap with... I live in a... country town. My neighbors don't know a cpu from a hard drive, and they still run off slot processors anyways. I have triede a 550 watt psu it still crashed. I have really come down to like the mobo or cpu, but not sure what my best deal is right now... I'm hoping to get a new comp for christmas but I would still like to make this a gaming server.

 

[hoov]

I have some serious crashing problems when using a 3d intensive applications

What applications?
Have you tried any 3d Benchmarks?