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New system problems

Z

ZeroRift

Member
Okay,

So I build this new system for my gaming needs, and, inevitably, it doesn't work.

Let's start with system specs:

AMD 64 3800+
512x2 Mushkin blue line
Giga-byte GA-K8N Ultra-9 (nforce4 ultra)
GeForce 6800 Ultra eVGA
200gb SATA Seagate Barracuda
500w FSP Bluestorm (fortron)
IDE CD-RW drive
floppy

Before installing XP pro, my computer passed a 13 hour stress test involving port testing and memory (RAM) acessing. I installed XP pro without issue, and updated it to the latest version (SP2) with all the necessary security updates along with the latest nvidia drivers for my graphics card.

Whenever I run any graphics-intensive app (3D mark 05, UT2004, Halo PC, etc.) my computer bluescreens within a short time (say 20 min). For a long time, the BSODs were IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL errors, but this fixed itself (seemingly) when I installed NVIDIA firewall and cool&quiet. (I was trying some software utility installs to possibly resolve the issue as the hardware may be unstable without them... possibly)

Anyhow, When playing games, after about 20mins I typically get a "general protection fault" error, which windows recovers from. However, if I go back to playing games the BSODs return, although they are not IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL errors, but mostly page fault errors, Read/Write to paged memory. (sorry I don't have the exact text right now). Occasionally, it doesn't give any error message at all, just the general BSOD.

NOTE: The copy of XP I'm using was designed for a Dell, while my system is a custom build. Could this be the problem?

I've re-installed windows a few times and re-formatted the hardrive. Scan-disk sector scans come back clean. I'm at least 80% sure my RAM is okay, but I have yet to run memtest86 myself (although I believe this was done in the stress test). I am also in the process of finding new BIOS updates as well as the latest Chipset drivers from Giga-Byte/nivida, and some new SATA raid drivers for XP (as the problem frequently occurrs when the HDD light is on). My Graphics card drivers are current. After each error I check my CPU temp via BIOS and it is barely above startup temp. My GPU also regesters as cool (via NVIDIA temp monitor). I'm also going to get fanspeed to check my voltages during gaming.

I was wondering if anyone else had more suggestions. Since I do not have internet at home, and I'd like to do all my dowloads in one shot, I'd appreciate anthing I might have over looked. Also, What are appropriate voltages for my system? (I've left them at default, but perhaps they shouldn't be?)
 
Just found this

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL stop errors are caused by software not hardware. When Windows is in the middle of scheduling an execution thread, it puts the processor at an Interrupt ReQuest Level (or IRQL) of ?Dispatch?. This blocks further software interrupts from the scheduler until the process is complete, and no one is allowed to do anything that requires the scheduler. Unfortunately, accessing a memory address in virtual memory is such an activity, because when a process generates a VM page fault, it is usually suspended while the slow hard disk gets around to delivering the requested page. The upshot of this is that drivers (and everything else but especially drivers) are restricted to the contents of physical memory while the IRQL is at dispatch. If anything breaks this rule (say because a corrupted pointer tries to access a random memory address), XP flings up the blue screen and shuts that bad boy down pronto.

It would seem that this typr of error is fixed by useing new drivers
which one ? is the real question
I would start with the MB drivers and see if that fixes it
 
Alright, it's been a few days, I've got some more info.

Memtest 86 showed no errors after 3 passes.

Speedfan showed no odd temp fluctuations, or volage oddities. Unless +/- .1 volts is something to be concerned about on my mainboard's 12v and 5v ramps.

I set my BIOS setting to default, and it extended my game time form 20min to about 2 hours. Apparently one of my RAID controllers was disabled, I have two. The one that was disabled wasn't controlling my HDD... oh well.

So, being the die-hard gamer I am, I began playing a few games figuring my system would eaither:

A: die, so I could get more symptoms
or
B: fix itself (It happens occasionally)

It seems to have done a little of A. After the first 2.5 hour run, I got a BSOD: IRQL. After re-starting, I noticed a odd ghost-like image slightly displaced from the current display. This stayed constant through gaming. It only appears if my GPU core temp exceeds 50C (whic it does a lot). The NVIDIA drivers say that my card will be fine until 135C, although that seems awfully hot to me. My card has yet to pass 75C. It also runs certain complex sceens in KOTOR slower than my previous machine (amd 1.4ghz t-bird+GeForce3 Ti500). Same KOTOR version. Other games (including 3D Mark 05) do not exhibit this behavior, although my system should never drop to 1fps on KOTOR.

Anyone else smell a video-card problem?

I was wondering also: Is it possible my other hardware caused damage to my GPU, and if so, is there another means of testing, say, the mb without swapping hardware?
 
Okay, time for a little update.

I RMA'd my vid card and what should happen when I open the box, but I find a loose component drifting around in the box. I checked and found that it was, indeed from my video card. I didn't bother inserting it into my system (that many volts can do some damage), and am in the process or RMAing again.:disgust:

I also found out the artifacts I saw were being produced by the monitor. I began using my older system again (which works) with said monitor, and after a few days the problem appeared again. I tried many things: changing the rez, changin power cords, but I resigned myself to the problem. Then one day, it just vanished. I don't know how it happened, but my PC started in an unusual resolution (800x600) as it does on occasion (gotta love win 98), but the problem was gone and has been gone for many weeks of running at 1024x768.

So I guess I RMA'd the good card for a bad one.😱

I'm open to any other suggestions, really any help is appreciated. Thanks.
 
Alright, yet another update....

first off, BSODs seem to be gone.
I finally got a good card back from eVGA, and now I'm using a stock version of winXP pro sp2. My guess was that one of the embedded Dell drivers in the old copy was causing the IRQL issue. It was eaither that or the graphics card was actually bad. My guess would be the Dell crap though.
But now I'm having fairly consistant General Protection faults whe running games. It doesn't seem to matter if I'm loading or anything that would lead me to suspect any specific hardware. Regardless of what I'm doing, I'll get a general protection fault after about an hour of play. I checked heat and my GPU is running "cool" at ~57C and my processor is running at ~50C during gameplay.
So I guess my question is: What causes General Protection faults and how do I get them to stop?

Thanks again.....
 
I've seen this type of problem many times...it is frustrating. The first thing to do is check the obvious.

People today think XP is magic with it's handling to IRQ's....it is NOT. There's still only 15 IRQ's to go around (hardware limit) no matter how XP may look to you with it's assignments past IRQ 15. It's still possible to have an IRQ conflict! Some devices just don't share well!

Do you have any PCI cards in this system?
 
No, all my PCI slots are empty, save the PCI express. I've tried disabling sound, updating chipset drivers etc. Maybe I could mess with the IRQs a little.

Here's something I found that may be at least contributing.
The GPF listed my system specs as "unkown AMD processor @ 2415 mhz". This is odd, because my system should be clocked perfectly to 2400 mhz. I went into my BIOS and checked, sure enough, FSB 200mhz and processor multiplier fixed at 12. I loaded everest home edition, it listed my FSB as 201 mhz and my processor clock at 2412. Everest also said that my system's FSB was overclocked by 1 mh. So I tried loading easy tune (since it came with my board) it listed my FSB as 200 mhz, but my processor clock as 2412. So, what's going on with my system? I always hated the idea of modifying the CPU clock from a software shell. I really miss the older switch design.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure this is my problem because I did look through some other forums just to see if others have had the same issue. Sure enough, I found someone with a very similar system who was having an identical fault. He discovered that his FSB was overclocked by 1 mh. The only way he found to solve the issue was to downclock his FSB. Unfortunately, my FSB does not go below 200mhz, and I can't change my multiplier, because my CPU is fixed at 12. I'm completely clueless now, since I have pretty much no experience with overclocking. I'm working on updating my BIOS, but the lack of internet at home makes this.... difficult. There is a fairly recent update (5/5/05) that fixes a problem with "CPU coding," but if there is something in Windows that is overclocking my FSB, then updating the BIOS may not help.

I tried running my system in safe mode, my clock issue remained. I run normally on a pretty clean boot, don't process the win ini file, and only load the programs at startup that I choose, which would include like, nvcpl type stuff that applies my personal gamma settings.

Is it possible my RAM is causing clock issues? I'm really just lost on this one.
 
alright, I think I fixed it, Here goes:

1)Changing the OS helped. I'm strongly led to believe that most, if not all of the IRQLs were being caused by Dell drivers being used on a non-dell system, regardless of whether I actually installed the Dell stuff.

2) My BIOS had been set to shut down my CPU at 60C, so if my processor hit that temp I would get an error even though my CPU was not overheating.

3) I installed the latest chipset drivers. I'm not sure if that was part of the solution or not though.

Since then, I've run 3Dmark 05, Halo (through the entire single player campaign), and KOTOR (for 7+hrs) without issue. The FSB did not turn out to be a problem, just a marketing ploy to try to make the board look better in benchmarks. UT2k4 still has issues, however, but I'm taking this up in the software forum as they have more experience specifically with UT. Other than that, things seem to be running fine.
Thanks.
 
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