mrplow3147

Hi everyone, I've got a problem that I am having serious trouble diagnosing. My computer is locking up during more stressing games (HL2, LOTRO... pretty much any newer game). It was also locking up recently while watching a video through an internet player (CBS player). During these lockups, the computer shows no signs of slowing down, it just freezes and usually the last fraction of a second of sound loops continuously until I restart. Here's the rundown on things that I know:
It should not be memory related as I have replaced the previous sticks with known-working sticks and the problem still occurred.
It shouldn't be video card related as this was JUST sent to me a month ago after having a defective card before it (I also think the internet player situation rules that out as well).

So here's the list of my specs:

Windows XP SP 3
Rosewill 550 Watt Power Supply
ASUS P5ND2-SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition ATX Intel Motherboard
OCZ Gold Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Dual Channel
EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA
Intel Pentium D 2.8ghz


Any help would be greatly appreciated!

koala

Hi, welcome to TSF

I wouldn't use a low quality Rosewill 550W with an 8800GTS. Enter your full system specs into this power calculator and set Capacitor Aging to 25%. Click the Calculate button, then add 30% to the total to allow for PSU inefficiency. Post back with this figure.

Make a note of your temperatures and voltages in BIOS. Then restart Windows, run PC Wizard and leave it open on the desktop. Take a screenshot from the 'Voltage, Temperature & Fans' window during gameplay after a few minutes by pressing alt-tab to switch back to the desktop. Post back with the BIOS info and the screenshot so we can see how your system copes under stress.

Are your chipset drivers, device drivers, MS updates and DirectX all up to date?

What was the problem with your last graphics card? Was it defective on arrival or did it gradually go bad over time?

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mrplow3147

The recommended PSU Wattage was 440W, then with 30% added to that, it came to 572 watts, so that could be one problem, but would an insufficient power supply cause a freeze? Or would it shut down the computer completely?

All of my drivers are up to date, so it shouldn't be any of that...

And my last video card (was the 7900GTX) just never worked right from the beginning. It would act up a lot more sometimes than others. I sent it in and received the 8800 from evga. (which is why my power supply isn't the greatest as I wasn't expecting to need to run an 8800)

The temp info I will be gathering, I'm going to shut down for a bit to get a good reading from the cpu.

koala

Insufficient power is one of the main causes for freezes, crashes and lag in games. The usual recommendation for an 8800 is a good quality 650W with plenty of +12V amps.

You just need to give it a few minutes to cool down, then boot into BIOS and get the temperatures and voltages. To get accurate in-game temps/volts readings, play fullscreen for about 10 minutes with plenty of activity going on, explosions, etc.

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TSF Folding@Home Team 85015 - details here

mrplow3147

Ok, here are the readings I have:
After a boot I had these:
CPU Temp: 43 C
VCore: 1.26 V
3.3V: 3.31 V
5V: 5.02 V
12V: 11.77 V

After stressing for a few mins:
CPU Temp: 61 C
VCore: 1.25 V
3.3V: 3.31 V
5V: 5.03 V
12V: 11.19 V

dai

your cpu temp is jumping and your 12v line is falling away
if the temp goes any higher redo the paste with some arctic silver
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_s...structions.htm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...corsair%2b650w

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mrplow3147

So after looking around, I was wondering... is there any way to be certain that it's my power supply before going in for a $100 purchase that may not even fix the problem?

dai

see if you can borrow one to check with first

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