Regular lockups on my SLI rig

[malcolmmp]

Hi all,

I built a pretty killer rig recently, and I'm having some lockups in different games. The hangs are pretty consistently in the same places, and since heat isn't really a problem with my system, I figure either it must be some kind of driver issue. I've disabled SLI mode and I still get the same freezes in the game, so it doesn't seem to be an SLI thing (although I haven't actually pulled the second card from the case and all of that.

If it's of any help, the most notable time where the system hangs is in Doom 3 in hell where you pick up the plasma rifle and then the platform drops down a bit. Right in that lower room, it always hangs. There are a few other consistent places in other games, although this is the one that comes to mind. It's always when I'm running 3d.

Here's are the system specs for reference:
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
Athlon 64 FX-55
2x Leadtek Geforce 6800U PCI-express
2 gigs of OCZ platinum memory
SB Audigy 4
2x WD Raptors in Raid 0
600W Enermax Noisetaker

I've got the motherboard's bios flashed to the latest one I could get on Asus' website (though I've been having trouble looking for a new version lately), and Leadtek didn't show any bios updates for the 6800s. All my drivers are the latest versions I could find, and I switched up to beta Nvidia drivers (76.50 at the moment) hoping to solve the problem but it didn't help.

I'm really sorry if I'm posting on the wrong forum or if there's an obvious solution. I had no luck searching the forums, so I'm just hoping someone here can help. I'm all out of ideas, short of reformatting with my fingers crossed.

Thanks a bunch,
Malcolm

 

[paadness]

U really spent that much for gaming??

Anyway, ur problem is very annoying, i bet windows is the culprit.

I only had these lock ups on a low end gaming mahine but urs is a killer, strange.

I think reinstalling the game may help. Also make sure everything in ur system is set to default.

and yea... why are u using NVIDIA drivers. Leadtek muscles its card with somewhat unchangeble ID's, i suffer mostly installing NVIDIA drivers instead of Leadtek drivers. Sometimes i see my Chip version to be.. NV xx.

Another stupid suggestion, are ur both cards working or just spinning the fans??

 

[malcolmmp]

That Windows reformat is looking more and more like my best choice.

Unfortunately, it's not just one game, but almost every game I have has at least one situation where it'll lock up the same exact way.

I was finally able to get onto Asus' website for a bios update, and I flashed to the most recent bios. Unfortunately, now I can't get DirectX to even initialize. No games will boot, and dxdiag's tests won't start. I'm installing my video drivers through Leadtek's update program, Winfox right now. Hopefully, things will get fixed somehow.

Otherwise it'll be time to start backing everything up. Fun stuff.

As far as I know, both cards are running fine. They've always shown as working in SLI mode in Windows, and if it means anything, both have little green LEDs shining bright.

Does anyone ever have these kinds of problems with DirectX? I know it's not exactly normal, but does it at least happen on people's installs from time to time?

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: malcolmmp
That Windows reformat is looking more and more like my best choice.

Unfortunately, it's not just one game, but almost every game I have has at least one situation where it'll lock up the same exact way.

I was finally able to get onto Asus' website for a bios update, and I flashed to the most recent bios. Unfortunately, now I can't get DirectX to even initialize. No games will boot, and dxdiag's tests won't start. I'm installing my video drivers through Leadtek's update program, Winfox right now. Hopefully, things will get fixed somehow.

Otherwise it'll be time to start backing everything up. Fun stuff.

As far as I know, both cards are running fine. They've always shown as working in SLI mode in Windows, and if it means anything, both have little green LEDs shining bright.

Does anyone ever have these kinds of problems with DirectX? I know it's not exactly normal, but does it at least happen on people's installs from time to time?

Nice system.

I'd fdisk, only install sound/video drivers and games, see if it persists. Then work forward from there.

 

[ddogg]

damm that is one kickass system....Audigy 4 as well...!! nice!!
did u try formatting ur system??

try removing each card and running ur system on each card....

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Nice rig OP, we should all be so lucky...

 

[malcolmmp]

Heh, thanks for complements on the system. I feel pretty lucky to have one of these. It runs like a dream when it's not locking up like this.

Anyway, to reformat, I think I might take a mostly unused SATA2 drive I got for storage and just do a new install of Windows on there. Since I've currently got the installation running on RAID 0, if things did work, the Nvidia's Raid drivers could always be another possibility for the problem. At least if it doesn't, then it's pretty likely that there is in fact a hardware issue.

Well, I'm going to do that reformat as soon as I get the chance. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Ronin]

When possible, avoid installing an OS on a Raid 0 array anyway. A stand alone drive is always better for something like that.

Note that you're still installing SATA drivers to get the OS going, so you could still run into a controller issue (if that's the problem), but at least you're not locking yourself down.

 

[malcolmmp]

Really? My last system didn't have RAID or SATA, and the one before that was before those were even heard of on regular consumer PCs. I've just been going on what I've heard from other people. It was my understanding that with a Raid 0 array (especially with a couple of Raptors), you do well to install the OS and any games or other hard drive intensive programs, and leave everything else on a standard larger hard drive for storage. So I take it that's not the best route after all? Judging from the listed setup in your sig, you've got the lone 160 gig SATA drive for your OS then?

Off topic here, but how do you like that sound system and Plextor drive? I'm looking for a good speaker set and SATA DVD Burner

 

[Ronin]

Because of the risk of losing your OS, and the small, if any, benefit, of using a raid 0 for your boot drive, it's simply not worth the possible hassle.

Both the sound card and the speakers are excellent. I recommend both if you're willing to spend the money on them.

 

[cbehnken]

Originally posted by: malcolmmp
Hi all,

I built a pretty killer rig recently, and I'm having some lockups in different games. The hangs are pretty consistently in the same places, and since heat isn't really a problem with my system, I figure either it must be some kind of driver issue. I've disabled SLI mode and I still get the same freezes in the game, so it doesn't seem to be an SLI thing (although I haven't actually pulled the second card from the case and all of that.

If it's of any help, the most notable time where the system hangs is in Doom 3 in hell where you pick up the plasma rifle and then the platform drops down a bit. Right in that lower room, it always hangs. There are a few other consistent places in other games, although this is the one that comes to mind. It's always when I'm running 3d.

Here's are the system specs for reference:
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
Athlon 64 FX-55
2x Leadtek Geforce 6800U PCI-express
2 gigs of OCZ platinum memory
SB Audigy 4
2x WD Raptors in Raid 0
600W Enermax Noisetaker

I've got the motherboard's bios flashed to the latest one I could get on Asus' website (though I've been having trouble looking for a new version lately), and Leadtek didn't show any bios updates for the 6800s. All my drivers are the latest versions I could find, and I switched up to beta Nvidia drivers (76.50 at the moment) hoping to solve the problem but it didn't help.

I'm really sorry if I'm posting on the wrong forum or if there's an obvious solution. I had no luck searching the forums, so I'm just hoping someone here can help. I'm all out of ideas, short of reformatting with my fingers crossed.

Thanks a bunch,
Malcolm

Go into your device manager and pull up the settings for your raid controller. Disable NCQ. nforce4 has a bug that can lead to data corruption and crashes when raid is used with NCQ enabled.

 

[malcolmmp]

Thanks for the response. If unchecking "enable command queuing" is what you mean by disabling NCQ, then I tried doing as you said and had no luck. Anything else to try before a new Windows install? As it stands, I probably won't be able to go through with a new install until late tonight or tomorrow, so I'm all ears until then

 

[Rent]

Heat isn't an issue? I built a 6800GT SLI rig about 2 weeks ago and I knew I was going to have heat issues if I didn't take the stock coolers off and put something better on (had reference 6800GT coolers, replaced with Zalman VF700-CUs). It dropped both cards temps by an easy 9c at idle (card 1 idles @ 52c, card 2 at 50c).

The 6800U reference cooler is decent, but I would higly recommend putting something better on it in a SLI setup. When I first got my 6800U last year, my card idled at 62c. After taking the cooler off and reinstalling, I got it down to ~58c, but that was still warmer than what I wanted. I tried a few nVsilencer5's, they didn't work out for me (both broke in one form or another) and now I've got a VF700 on my card. It idles around 53c with my same setup.

Anyways, the only reason I go on about heat is that it will eat your system alive even if you don't think its a problem. I had random freezing issues last year with my stock cooler due to overheating (goddamn Texas heat...).

Other suggestions :

Like mentioned disable NCQ
Try the 71.89s and see if they do anything
Try a single card
Check your IRQs, make sure you're not conflicting anywhere
Move your Audigy to a different PCI slot

I take it you loaded windows fresh on the Raid0 array, so I don't think a format will help unless you do Rollo's suggestion (process of elimination). Keep this thread updated, I'm interested to see the outcome.

 

[homercles337]

To the OP, not sure about your SLI problem, im not exactly an early adopter of buggy hardware thats really just overkill in the first place. However, you may want to pick up a third HD to back up your RAID0. Just a suggestion, good luck with the SLI problem

 

[malcolmmp]

My temperatures aren't the greatest, although I believe the Leadtek coolers (big huge copper deals) are quite a bit better than the reference coolers. For the sake of finding out if it was a heat problem or not, I tried hanging a fan right in front of the GPUs with my case's side panel off, and set up like that my 6800Us idle around 52c, which I don't think is too bad considering my thermometer is telling me it's just under 80f in here. On a side note, I'm going to have to come up with a way to make that kind of cooling a little more permanent. Either way though, I get the same lockups in the same spots regardless of cooling, so I really don't think it's a heat issue.

As I mentioned above, I disabled NCQ on the RAID channels in the device manager.
At the moment I'm using the 71.89 video drivers.
I tried a single video card and had no luck.
I can't find any IRQ conflicts. Windows doesn't show any problems in the device manager off the bat, and when I look deeper I don't find anything.
Last, I unfortunately don't have any other available PCI slots for the Audigy. The downside to the massive cooling on the Leadteks is that they don't leave much room for anything else.

I'll try running the machine without the Audigy though before I do a new install. In any case, I'll keep the thread updated.

 

[malcolmmp]

Homercles - do you mean setting up a RAID 0+1 array?

 

[thegimp03]

Did you turn off fast writes in the bios? What games are you playing? This might help. With that system you shouldn't get any hangs on games. It should be very smooth even on the highest graphics settings. I'm interested in what 3dmark03/05 scores you get.

 

[malcolmmp]

I looked around in the bios and I couldn't find anything about fast writes. IIRC, isn't that an AGP function? I can't say I'm any kind of expert on the topic though.

I'm actually kind of curious myself about how it'll score on 3dmark, but I want to get everything straightened out before I go benchmarking anything.

Well, if I don't hear of anything else to try by the time I wake up tomorrow, it looks like I'll be giving a fresh non-RAID Windows install a try.

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. It means a lot to have a little help when the going gets weird.

 

[Rent]

Have you tried taking the audigy out all together?

 

[ddogg]

this could be a malfunctioning motherboard....if possible try those cards on another system...since uve tried all suggestions here it could be a defective motherboard...
defective motherboards generally give these kinds of problems, locking up, restarting out of the blue etc etc

 

[malcolmmp]

Unfortunately I don't know anyone else with a PCI Express slot, so I can't test the cards on another system. I did try switching them though, and I have the same results.

At the moment, I've got a final exam on Thursday and a short essay due a little sooner. So I really shouldn't be taking on any big projects like reformats (or even any of the tinkering I've been doing already anyway), but that's not to say that I won't end up working on this some more.

I'll try running without the Audigy before I try more major stuff. As always, I'll keep this updated.

Thanks again everyone for your help.

 

[malcolmmp]

Well, just a quick update. I tried pulling the Audigy 4 card, and had Doom 3 wouldn't start without error. I didn't know the boot argument for safe mode, or if D3 even had one, so I popped the card back in, and then ran it with Eax 4 disabled. What do you know? No lockups. So apparently this appears to all have been some kind of sound card issue. I'm going to find out which audio driver I'm using for the Audigy 4, and either upgrade or downgrade to/from the beta on Creative's site. It never occurred to me that this might be a sound issue. I guess now the video forum isn't really the place, but if I find out anything more, I'll definitely post.

Thanks everybody