I am having issues with my BFG Nvidia 6800 GT OC graphics card. The computer has a tendency to crash usually to a black screen with no sound , color, or automatic reboot. The crashes only occur during ganes such as Battlefield 2, Doom 3, Painkiller, FEAR demo, and Need for Speed MW demo. When the crash occurs the computer fans still run; however, the fans and lights on the card will sometimes be off after the crash. Upon reboot there are never any error messages. Temps in the BIOS read at approx 52 C and the graphics card reads around 68 C Core temperature. I have considered the following reasons for the crash and have troubleshooted as follows:
Temperature - Since the crashes are so random, sometimes an hour into play, sometimes 5 min into play, I have a hard time believing this is the issue. Both the computer and graphics card manufacturer say the temps I have witnessed are normal.
Power - I replaced the original 250Watt PSU with a Mad Dog 350 PSU with 20AMPS on the 12V rail. This power supply 3 manual fan speeds. Crashes occurred during all three settings. I swapped this supply with a Power Win 450Watt PSU with 20Amp on the 12 V. The same types of crashes occurred. Could the issue be inadequate power on the 12V rail?
Anivirus - Norton Systemworks and Firewall 2005 - Antivirus auto-protect turned off.
Graphics card - Mad Dog PSU comes with a VGA HDD, connected graphics card to both that and then the molex connector, no change in stability. Swapped out the 6800 with a BFG 5900 XT OC, Painkiller ran slow with the same graphics settings but did not crash. Attempted to UNDERCLOCK the card using COOLBITS, games still crashed.
Memory: I added 512MB of Kingston ValueRam which I checked using MEMTEST. Test ran X times and memory passed. I have seen some stuff online about defragging memory - could this be a solution? If so how do I go about defragging?
Hard Drive - passed system test in PCDoctor and has been defragged.
OS - re-installed numerous times, issue persists.
Drivers: Currently using Forceware 81.98 for XP Media Ctr. and have tried numerous other drivers. I remove old drivers using control panel but have heard that remants of the old drivers could linger and cause issues. Could this be the problem?
Patches: All games have the lastest patches.
Please help!!!
HP m1160n
ASUS K8S-LA SiS 760/964
Athlon 64 3400
1 GB 3200 DDR SDRAM
HP BIOS 3.14
WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER
Temperature - Since the crashes are so random, sometimes an hour into play, sometimes 5 min into play, I have a hard time believing this is the issue. Both the computer and graphics card manufacturer say the temps I have witnessed are normal.
Power - I replaced the original 250Watt PSU with a Mad Dog 350 PSU with 20AMPS on the 12V rail. This power supply 3 manual fan speeds. Crashes occurred during all three settings. I swapped this supply with a Power Win 450Watt PSU with 20Amp on the 12 V. The same types of crashes occurred. Could the issue be inadequate power on the 12V rail?
Anivirus - Norton Systemworks and Firewall 2005 - Antivirus auto-protect turned off.
Graphics card - Mad Dog PSU comes with a VGA HDD, connected graphics card to both that and then the molex connector, no change in stability. Swapped out the 6800 with a BFG 5900 XT OC, Painkiller ran slow with the same graphics settings but did not crash. Attempted to UNDERCLOCK the card using COOLBITS, games still crashed.
Memory: I added 512MB of Kingston ValueRam which I checked using MEMTEST. Test ran X times and memory passed. I have seen some stuff online about defragging memory - could this be a solution? If so how do I go about defragging?
Hard Drive - passed system test in PCDoctor and has been defragged.
OS - re-installed numerous times, issue persists.
Drivers: Currently using Forceware 81.98 for XP Media Ctr. and have tried numerous other drivers. I remove old drivers using control panel but have heard that remants of the old drivers could linger and cause issues. Could this be the problem?
Patches: All games have the lastest patches.
Please help!!!
HP m1160n
ASUS K8S-LA SiS 760/964
Athlon 64 3400
1 GB 3200 DDR SDRAM
HP BIOS 3.14
WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER