Think my card is taking a dump?

[Avalon]

Ever since I bought my Radeon X1900AIW in August, I've been having the occassional glitch or crash in some games, namely DOD. For a while I just dealt with it, since the problem was infrequent, and I just attributed it to steam/valve.

Well, lately my games have been crashing more and more often to desktop, and now even the original natural selection (old game) crashes, and Oblivion causes my monitor to lose video signal. I booted up the system once last week and was greeted with a blurb of artifacts. I checked to make sure my fan was still working on the video card, and restarted. Never saw the artifacts again.

Now, my video card has been at stock the entire time during these issues, and I've got fan speed manually increased in ATT to keep the temps down (which usually don't peak past 70C fully loaded). I can run any 3dmark as many times as I want without a hitch, and let RTHDRIBL run all day long without issue, so I'd tend to think the card was fine.

Might be time to get a new card
Oh wait, an 8800GTS doesn't sound too bad right about now

Rig:
AMD Opteron 144 @ 2.5
2x512MB Mushkin Blue UTT @ 215 2-3-3-8
DFI Lanparty Ultra-D/SLI
ATI Radeon X1900AIW
Enermax 460w PSU w/35A @ 12V
2 Hard Drives
DVD-RW, Floppy
Fans fans fans

What do you guys think? Card taking a dump, software issue, power issue, or something else?

 

[TheRyuu]

Return everything to stock speeds then try again?

I mean, if this is your excuse to get a G80 based card then by all means, continue

 

[Avalon]

I am and have been at stock speeds. Read the third paragraph
But yes, this does sound like a good excuse to upgrade my system for the new year.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: Avalon
I am and have been at stock speeds. Read the third paragraph
But yes, this does sound like a good excuse to upgrade my system for the new year.

Yea but look at your rig.

Rig:
AMD Opteron 144 @ 2.5
2x512MB Mushkin Blue UTT @ 215 2-3-3-8

Looks overclocked to me.
It may not just be a video card problem so you have to return your ENTIRE rig to stock.

Then we'll go from there.
If you absolutely know without a shadow of doubt that it's a video card problem? Then get a 8800 card
Or just RMA your 1900AIW

 

[Avalon]

Oh, whoops. Looks like it was me that wasn't reading correctly. My apologies.
I'm 100% positive my CPU + RAM overclocks are stable. The CPU can do 2.9 prime stable, and the memory is good up to 240Mhz 2-3-3-8.

I suppose I could give it a try, but a system OC doesn't really seem to explain why my monitor loses video signal.

 

[thilanliyan]

PCI-e bus frequency locked? That could cause video problems couldn't it?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: thilan29
PCI-e bus frequency locked? That could cause video problems couldn't it?

Should be on an Ultra-D. How could I check?

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Avalon

Originally posted by: thilan29
PCI-e bus frequency locked? That could cause video problems couldn't it?

Should be on an Ultra-D. How could I check?

You can manually set the speed in BIOS can't u?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: Avalon

Originally posted by: thilan29
PCI-e bus frequency locked? That could cause video problems couldn't it?

Should be on an Ultra-D. How could I check?

You can manually set the speed in BIOS can't u?

Of course, and it's set at 100, which is where I left it.

Now I'm sitting at complete stock.

 

[Avalon]

Games are still crashing at stock.
Also, a bit more details of my system:

Running the 6.5 Cats, but have had this problem with the 6.6, 6.7, and 6.9 Cats as well. I've also got an SB Audigy 2 ZS that I forgot to list.

 

[ronnn]

I assume you have been using driver cleaner between drivers. Anyways I would do a fresh install on another hd or partition. Install the newest ati drivers and newest audigy drivers. Than if still doing it - rma the card.

 

[xtknight]

Maybe the combo of CPU+GPU is drawing too much power. RTHDRIBL doens't stress the CPU much, does it?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Maybe the combo of CPU+GPU is drawing too much power. RTHDRIBL doens't stress the CPU much, does it?

Nope. Perhaps I'll let RTHDRIBL and P95 run overnight tonight and see what happens in the morning. I had assumed my 460w Enermax could handle a rather simple setup, but I guess we shall see.

 

[jim1976]

Avalon I suggest you do the following m8..

1. Check your ram for instability and set it by spd if you use it manually for O/C or use safe timings
2. Do a clean format. Sometimes a conflict in DLL libraries can cause serious issues
3. Update your bios. Sometimes addressing issues can exist with some cards
4. In general test your overall system performance.. Your problem might not be directly related to gpu

 

[Avalon]

Jim, appreciate the advice, but my rig is solid (minus the gaming issues). It's passed many hours of prime and many more folding.
There is a possibility that I may have to do #2 (LOL). It's been a while since I've formatted this machine. Other than that, I'm good to go for #1, #3, and #4. If it comes down to it, I will format.

I'm currently running prime95 and RTHDRIBL in tandem, to draw as much power as possible out of this rig. An interesting thing I've noted is that while watching speedfan with RTHDRIBL in full screen and P95 in the background crunching, my 12V line drops fairly low, and my PSU temps are getting rather hot (50C as opposed to 40C typical).

Before when I previously had a 7600GT in here, speedfan would read 11.96v idle and 11.90v load with RTHDRIBL running. Now with the X1900AIW, I idle at 11.90v, and with both RTHDRIBL and P95 running, the 12V rail dips to 11.74v at times. Now I realize these are software readings, and not to be taken as accurate, but the relative change being read does show there is a drop going on. Perhaps I really am stressing my PSU? I really find it hard to believe, but back when I had an olden rig, this same situation was happening, and replacing my PSU with a beefier unit actually solved my problems.

I'll let RTHDRIBL and P95 continue to run overnight, and hopefully they produce a crash of some sort so I know power is the problem. Else, I guess I'll just format. Thanks for the help so far everyone.

 

[n7]

You are a very knowledgeable user here already, so i don't see much point in mentioning the obvious things, though i would stay stock till you get it figured out, as over time, "rock solid" OCs have tendencies to change.

Couple things:
PSU crapping out.
It shouldn't be, but it certainly could be an issue.

Other possible is video card overheating (regardless of what temps read as), which is actually my first guess.

Oblivion is disgustingly hard on GPUs.

My buddy just built a C2D system w/ an X1950 Pro, & i went to help him OC.
I left that night with him running his E6300 stable @ ~3150 MHz.

Next day he's complaining Oblivion is crashing, so he assume it's CPU/RAM instability, & lowers OC.

Nope.

Turns out fan speed on his HIS was too low, & even though temps weren't that high, it was crashing.

Soon as he turned up the fan via ATi Tool, all was well.

I'd crank the fan up w/ case open, & see what happens

 

[Avalon]

I've got my case open now, but my GPU fan speeds are already manually set high via ATI Tool and my other fans in the system are on high. One thing is curious is the PWM area on the X1900AIW. It doesn't get any cooling and ATI Tool is reporting 85C+ on them under load.

I got back to the system this morning and RTHDRIBL was frozen with the error message "Could not reset the Direct3d Renderer". I'm going to try to let that run by itself again without P95 now. If the same thing happens, I'm going to get one of the living room fans and put it in front of my open case, then try again.

 

[Avalon]

Alright, I've let RTHDRIBL run for almost 12 hours, and it wasn't having any problems when I got home from work a few minutes ago and checked it.

When I had RTHDRIBL + P95 going at the same time, it died sometime between 3 and 5 hours. Next up:

1) P95 by itself.
2) Format.