ARDelta Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 First here are my new system specs. All of these components are new except for the PSU. Mobo: Asus P5N-E SLI CPU: Core 2 Duo E6850 (stock retail Intel cooler) RAM: Mushkin 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 dual channel HDD: 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA Video: nVidia 8000 GT PSU: Xion 600 Watt (Model XON-600F14T-201) OS: Vista Home Premium Here's what's happened/happening. I assembled the new components and wanted to install my OS which was XP at the time on the new hard drive. My XP disc is an upgrade so it had to be able to detect my previous installation before it would install. To allow that, I had my old IDE drive with XP installed on the system as well. The XP install successfully detected the previous installation and would begin installing on the SATA drive. The system would do it's first reboot during the installtion, but it would hang after completing the reboot and then after a few moments it would shutdown. It was just like someone pulled the power cord. I was able to repeat this problem many, many times. After much agony, I ended up purchasing Vista Home Premium and installing it on the new SATA drive. It went well except for the hoops I had to jump through to get my Vista upgrade to install a clean hardrive, but that's a topic for another thread. I held off installing any games or other apps until I worked through installing of the Vista and driver updates which I have done over the course of several days. Everything seemed to be OK until that viral campaign started on the official GR website. I hopped over there to check it out and about 30 seconds into the first video my PC shuts down. Again, just like someone pulled the power cord. I tried watching the video a few more times with the same result. I decided to install GRAW 2 and see if it would run. It gets to the end of the intro video then ...boom, boom, out go the lights. I fired up the Asus Probe program so I could keep an eye on my voltages. I then went back to watch the viral campaign video. The voltages seem fine, but the CPU temp immediately begins to climb. It starts off at 49C and quickly gets to 69C then the system shuts down. I downloaded and ran CPU Stability Test, and had the exact same problem. The temp climbed to 68C within ~30 then I aborted the test. Any ideas? Is it just a cooling issue? All fans are working, and I am running the system with the sidepanel off. At "idle" and routine surfing, the CPU runs at 49C. The motherboard (northbridge?) temp runs at 44C and does not go up when the CPU temp does. On a seperate note (possibly related?), Vista occassionally reports that my display driver stopped working, but was restarted. All thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruin Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 Sounds like you have a Fail-Safe in your mobo. You should be able to change the temperature at which the mobo cuts power in your BIOS. You can raise it a bit if you want... I think my failsafe is 100*C, not sure, I've never seen above 70*C. Try that. Raise it to 80*C and keep an eye on it before. Also, get "Core Temp" - one of the most accurate CPU temperature monitoring programs out there. Most programs are inaccurate as much as 10*C! Wow. Core Temp isn't perfect, but it's the best - free. Boot up, run your PC, do your normal jazz and see how it reacts. Keep Core Temp running from when you boot until your PC shuts off. Then you can open its log file next time you start up and see what the temps did. While you've got the case open, make sure all the fans are spinning, there's no dust, they're all blowing the right direction, and everything is fine. I'm assuming you're using an old case and fans, so just do some routine maintenance on it. Best place to start IMO. I'm sure someone wiser than I will be along soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoQuarter Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 Are all voltages in the green (no red-no klaxons) in PC Probe II? Which BIOS revision did your MoBo ship with, and if it was an outdated version, have you given any thought of flashing it- with caution? http://support.asus.com/download/download....SLanguage=en-us Is there any trace of the XP abort on your new HDD, possibly conflicting with Vista, or hanging up your ForceWare version? Not that you haven't decided to, or done so already, but a complete system tear down, just to make sure everything is seated tight and correct, might be in order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowmanUK Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 It sounds very similar to what happened to me when I built the system I'm using now, an amd 3700 chip with stock heatsink and fan, the heatsink didnt seem like it clipped in properly and I wasnt really happy with it, system fired up great and idled at a lowish temp but as soon as it had to work the temps rocketed up, if I were you I'd take the heatsink and fan off, clean all the areas, apply some more thermal paste then try reseating it, if it wont sit properly i'd look into a new heatsink and fan combo, they usually work a lot better than the standard stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutlink Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 Double check your CPU voltages in your BIOS and make sure they aren't jacked up. That happened on my old X2 4800+ and caused it to overheat a lot. Another thing you can do is take off your CPU fan, clean off the thermal paste, and reapply it (preferrably with something decent, like Arctic Silver). Re-seat your CPU and put the fan back on, see if that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHaired Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 as already suggested: re-check the thermal paste and use a good one, like Nutlink's suggestion. Too much thermal paste can also lead to heat problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted March 31, 2008 Author Share Posted March 31, 2008 Thanks for all of the replies. I checked the CPU heat sink and fan and found that it wasn't properly seated on the motherboard. During the initial build, I had a heck of a time getting all 4 mounting posts to seat properly in the holes on the motherboard. (Don't know why I didn't think to check that myself. ) Now at idle the CPU is running 37C, and after 30 minutes of CPU Stability test it was holding steady at 47C. In respose to your questions: All voltages are greeen in PC Probe II. One of the first things I did after assembly was upgrade the BIOS to the latest from Asus's website (sorry don't have the version # at the moment). Also, there's no trace of XP on the new drive, I did a complete reformat after the failed XP installs. Now however, the problem with the display driver stopping is getting worse. I've googled around and this seems to be a fairly common problem with 8800 series cards and Vista. Sorry, I'm at work at the moment and can't report which driver version I'm running. I've tried some suggested registry tweaks, turning off UAC (user access control), and turning off the Aero theme/interface but no luck. Has anyone else had this problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpl Ledanek Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 try this free programs: Core Temp Real Temp CPUID Hardware monitor Thermal paste Artic Cooling MX-2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHaired Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 Now however, the problem with the display driver stopping is getting worse. I've googled around and this seems to be a fairly common problem with 8800 series cards and Vista. Just a shot: Some guys here in Denmark solved that issue by removing the S-Video cable before installing the drivers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted March 31, 2008 Author Share Posted March 31, 2008 Just a shot: Some guys here in Denmark solved that issue by removing the S-Video cable before installing the drivers. I don't have an s-video cable connected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCO*AFZ* Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 Make sure the molex extra power suppliy connectors for your video card are plugged into dedicated power cables. If it can't get the voltage it needs, it will dump. The power supply must be able to provide enough power. If you did not install them from the get go your card could be damaged The Vista drivers from nvidia are fine. Get Ntune from the Nvidia website. Bring up nmonitor. Look at the temperature of your card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 The graphics card is connected to a dedicated cable. The cable has no other connectors on it except for a second pci-x power connector supposedly for SLI which I am not running. NTune reports GPU temp as 64C at idle. I ran nTune's stability test for the GPU for 10 minutes an completed 60 cycles. The GPU temp got up to 69C. I'm about to run nTune's stability test for all system components. BTW, voltages are reported as follows using ASUS PC Probe II. VCore = 1.36V +3.3 = 3.39V +5.0 = 5.00V +12.0 = 12.10V Bios version is 0901. Thanks for all the replies. Keep em comin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCO*AFZ* Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 The graphics card is connected to a dedicated cable. The cable has no other connectors on it except for a second pci-x power connector supposedly for SLI which I am not running. NTune reports GPU temp as 64C at idle. I ran nTune's stability test for the GPU for 10 minutes an completed 60 cycles. The GPU temp got up to 69C. I'm about to run nTune's stability test for all system components. BTW, voltages are reported as follows using ASUS PC Probe II. VCore = 1.36V +3.3 = 3.39V +5.0 = 5.00V +12.0 = 12.10V Bios version is 0901. Thanks for all the replies. Keep em comin. Your card is right a little warmer then my GTX but not bad. You have the latest driver from nvidia for Vista correct? Go to www.guru3d.com and grab driver cleaner professional. Uninstall any version of nvidia you have through programs and features in the control panel. Run driver cleaner. Select everything nvidia. let it remove it. Restart. install driver fresh. Also grab latest nvidia chipset drivers for your platform from www.nvidia.com. They are usually way newere then asus has. Chipset as in mainboard drivers. Oh and on your mainboard... you do have the 4 pin power connector on (besides the main one) (from the power supply to the mainbord) It is only needed when extra power is drawn such as game playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 NTune stabilty test of all components completed 57 passes in 10 minutes on the second try. The test terminated unexpectedly a few minutes into the first try and I got a message that the display driver had stopped responding. Somewhere along the way I got confused on my Forceware driver version and I installed 2 different versions, nTune reports it as 169.25. I'll grab driver cleaner professional and reinstall the latest driver per your recommendation Roco. I'll do the same for mainboard chipset drivers. And I do have the extra 4 pin power connected to the mobo. At least I got something right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrowmanUK Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 All trial and error nailing the problems mate, the main one is you've got the cpu on properly now, one thing at a time eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 One thing at a time indeed, Crowman. I completed the uninstall, clean, and reinstall of the nVidia Forceware drivers. Now have v174.74. Also, installed nForce mobo drivers v15.08 (for Vista 32 bit.) I wasn't able to remove my previous nForce drivers through Control Panel - Programs and Features because they weren't listed, therefore I didn't attempt to clean out the old drivers. I simply installed the new ones. At any rate, the problem did not get any better. I fired up GRAW 2 and began to see artifacts after ~30 sec, then Vista reported that the display driver stopped working. I'm beginning to wonder about my 8800GT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpl Ledanek Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 try to use DriveCleaner...good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCO*AFZ* Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 try to use DriveCleaner...good luck He did (previous page)... driver cleaner pro. I'm starting to think you may have a bad video card. Artifacts ... Are they like flashing pixels and such? Do you have or know anyone with a pci express video card slot you could test this card on? i Hate to say this but maybe it's time to call the video card manufacturer. It sounds like when you get to the point of maybe using over 256mb of your video ram, it craps. Possible bad memory on the card is what it sounds like. Ntune's stability although 3d isn't as intense as per say GRAW2. What brand card is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 In GRAW 2 the artifacts start out as green splotches, but then it totally goes to pot and I'll see wireframes and all kinds of crazy psychedelic shapes and colors. The card is EVGA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruin Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 IIRC, eVGA is lifetime warranty, might want to swap the cards out with eVGA, like Roco suggests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 I still have a bootable XP drive, so i'm putting it in place of the Vista drive. Then after I get all of the correct drivers installed, I'll test the video card/drivers and see if they fail in XP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruin Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 If it helps... I have an eVGA 8800GTX running just fine and dandy on Vista Ultimate 64bit. Good luck Delta, you'll get it sorted soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCO*AFZ* Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Yeah i have an Evga 8800gtx. They usually are the bomb and i have seen very few failures... but a warranty exchange sounds warranted. Update us on how it goes in XP I'm also using Vista 64bit business and was using 32bit about 2 months ago. No issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHaired Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Have you tried with the card in the other slot? Did you upgrade to SP1 that includes hotfixes for Nvidia cards? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARDelta Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 Well, the card tanked in XP as well. The one thing I haven't tried is putting the card in the other slot as GreyHaired suggested. I'll give that a shot when I get home tonight. It should work in the other slot, but it won't have full PCI-e x16 bandwidth, correct? The mobo had spceific instructions about installing single PCI-e x16 graphics cards in the #1 slot. And yes, I have Vista patched to SP1. Again, thanks for all of your posts and comments. I'll let you know how the slot-swap goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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