BSOD using graphics rich apps

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Hi all,

I have reently been getting blue screens when playing some graphics rich games, including TOCA race driver 3, LOTR Battle for middle earth, Need for speed most wanted, dungeon siege 2.

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 00018790, parameter3 b979b79c, parameter4 00000000.

Is the stop message i get in the Event viewer, with no driver problems listed in the blue screen.

I have run memtest86+ a total of about 100 times on my RAM, with no errors. Temps inside the box seems ok, with the CPU topping out at about 55C.

Hard drive is a new seagate baracuda. I have 1024Mb PC3200 Crucial RAM (2x512 sticks), an nVidia 6600 128Mb AGP graphics card and the processor is an AMD Athlon xp 3200+, Power supply is a 400W with 17 amps on the 12v rail.

Minidumps are attached. It is a recently formatted system, so only 2 dumps are available, the crashing is not immidiately repeatable.

If anyone can help this would be much appreciated, i have my suspicions but confimation would be useful.

Thanks

Terra_Nova
 
I dont read minidumps but I suspect this is the source of your problems.

Power supply is a 400W with 17 amps on the 12v rail.

What brand PSU? if it is a cheapo generic then that is most likely the source of your troubles. run speed fan to check the stability of the voltage rails.
 
Hi iss,

Thanks for the reply, it isnt the most well known of brands, an 'eagle' on inspection. I had a look at fanspeed, the charts showd that the voltage dropped to 11.5 on the +12v rail, this is a drop of about 4%. of course there was also no crash. After doing some research is seens there is a recommended 20+ amps for most new graphics cards. So i guess this could be the issue. is it likely to cause the 1000008e error? If so then i like this line of enquiry alot more, as i dont fancy replacing the gfx card just yet! Still if anyone can shed any light on the minidump, just to rule out the gfx card i would be most appreciative.

again thanx iss
 
Like I said I Dont read mini dumps. one of the whiz's like howard will probably be along shortly to read it for you. cheap power supplies are about the number one cause of system crashes and quirky system behavior. if you have access to another PSU you could try that.
 
I dont have access to another PSU, well not one with the 4 pin molex that my board needs anyway. it does seem a little odd that the voltage fluctuates so much, ill test it thouroughly tomorrow. My original suspicion was the gfx RAM was bad, though that would suggest a more uniform crashing pattern, as it would happen every time an address was read to or written from. I have no probs with buying a new PSU though, certainly, of the 2 id rather replace that than the gfx card. I hear Antec make prety decent PSU's.
 
Antec's are excellent. I run Antec or PC Power&Cooling in all my systems.
 
OK after some fairly thourough testing, ie, running as much gfx rich apps as possible, and by idling it, my +12v voltage NEVER goes higher than 11.8V (im guessing this is bad) and the lowest was 11.49V. The -12V rail never got to -12v either. This was without causing the crash though (and i did try pretty hard). though with a -.5V off the expected, im tempted to go out and get an new psu, cos that dosent seem right to me! I found this PSU

Antec SP-400PGB

Could someone confirm that this would be an acceptable replacement? I dont want to replace an underpowered PSU with an underpowered PSU.
 
Sometimes when pSU's go bad they dont just fail outright. they start fluctuating the voltages on the rails and this causes many unexplained system behaviors. but there is also the possibility of catastrophic failure that can destroy computer components.

Personall I would go witht he Antec true power series. starting at the true poweer 430 as the base, but I would get the truePower 480 myself or the Neo 480 which is expesnsive but every bit as good as the PC Power&Cooling PSU's at half the price.
 
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