Weird Video System Issue with 750i ftw MB

Stormblade

Senior member
Nov 10, 2000
265
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Hey all,

At first I thought what I was suffering from was the video corruption issue everyone was talking about but now I'm not so sure. What happens to me seems almost like the video subsystem gets unstable or something.

Give you an example of what happens. I run a dual monitor setup so I often have a game up on one and I'll have browser and other stuff in the other. The game I've been playing lately is WoW so I'll have WoW running. Now if I don't play any videos my system stays up for weeks. But let me try to play a video and I take my chances.

The video will play fine. I can watch it for a while and close it down and even watch another. But sooner or later my system will start to show instability. One symptom is my screen will randomly flicker. Another symptom is random graphic issues in the game I'm playing. From artifacts to random pauses in the video to full blown graphics freeze.

Now, if I don't do anything at all eventually I will crash. The system will either lock up or I'll get a BSOD. I can buy myself more time by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete which since I run Vista pulls up that menu screen and select start task manager. This seems to force it to reset my graphics or something. When the game itself freezes after having all the video issues I mentioned I can unfreeze it by doing the Ctrl-Alt-Delete thing as well.

Now, I don't run SLI mode most of the time but when I have it enabled it happens even faster.

At this point If I can't find out what is going on and fix it I'm ready to upgrade and replace motherboard/cpu/memory. But I'd really like to find out what is going on before I do that. It would really suck to find out that I still experience the problem after dishing out $700 to upgrade. If it's just the motherboard I'd be more than happy to just replace it.

System specs below. I'm not OC'd currently.

System:
OS: Vista Ultimate (32-bit)
MB: EVGA 750i FTW Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad
Graphics: 2 x Geforce 8800 GTS
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad - Black
Memory: 4 gigs A-DATA DDR2
 

jaggerwild

Guest
Sep 14, 2007
430
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Hey Stormblade,

What temps are you getting under load? CPU,GPU,NB? What cpu cooler are you using? Try using rivatuner to speed up the GPU fans..........
Post back
 

Stormblade

Senior member
Nov 10, 2000
265
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0
I don't recall the CPU fan but it was whatever came with the chip I think. According to my bios my CPU was at 47C and the MB was at 31C but of course that's not under load. But you got me to thinking so I did the following. I downloaded Rivatuner and set the fans to 100%. I also downloaded SiSandra Lite 2009.

Then I did what always causes the problem. I loaded up WoW. Then opened up a video and made sure I put the player on the same monitor as WoW. Right now it's just started with the occasional flicker. I went into SiSandra to get some information and what I saw has me worried and I'm not sure how much to trust SiSandra's values.

Under Temperature Sensor(s)

Board Temperature: 94 C
CPU Temperature: 53 C
Aux Temperature 32.5 C

I didn't see any place to view my GPU temperature but I can hear the fans going where I couldn't before. So maybe my problem IS heat related although I do find it odd that I can go for long hours without any issues but as soon as I try to play a video it causes these issues or maybe it just speeds them up. Hmm.
 

jaggerwild

Guest
Sep 14, 2007
430
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Yeah that never gives me good readings. 8800 GTS 320 or 640? Rev 1 or 2? For CPU temps I use real temp(best I ever had so I keep it).

Real Temp

Also you may want to use GPU-Z for the GPU, thay also have CPU-Z for reading voltage for the cpu.
Text

I think the rev1 8800 GTS640 were covered under warranty(if you still have one).


 

Stormblade

Senior member
Nov 10, 2000
265
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0
Originally posted by: jaggerwild
Yeah that never gives me good readings. 8800 GTS 320 or 640? Rev 1 or 2? For CPU temps I use real temp(best I ever had so I keep it).

Real Temp

Also you may want to use GPU-Z for the GPU, thay also have CPU-Z for reading voltage for the cpu.
Text

I think the rev1 8800 GTS640 were covered under warranty(if you still have one).

I don't have either the 320 or the 640. I have the GTS 512. GPU is G92 Revision A2.

According to GPU-Z 0.3.4

GPU Temperature: 51.0 C and 43.3 C
PCB Temp: 39.0 C and 39.5C
Fan Speed: 90% (3173 RPM) ( Listen to them spin)

Real Temp shows my GPU at 53 C
Load is around 25%

Under Temperature I see four values: 54 54 51 55
 

Stormblade

Senior member
Nov 10, 2000
265
0
0
Just an update. Since posting I have not shutdown. But since I triggered the issue my display has flickered randomly, pauses intermittently until the video freezes then the display goes black and then it comes back to start it all over again. It does this only when I trigger it by playing some video. doing it while WoW is running seems to make the degradation happen faster.