GPU or Motherboard issue?
By
Flameshot,
Posted on: 2011-02-28 21:59 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
I'd look at replacing the power supply first, from the description.
Make sure all drivers/BIOS/firmware are up to date and not conflicted.
Turn on boot logging and look for problems.
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I replaced the PSU about a month ago. Do you seriously think that's the problem?
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Originally Posted by Starcloud
I'd look at replacing the power supply first, from the description.
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We'll see....
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They're all up to date.
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Originally Posted by Starjammer
Make sure all drivers/BIOS/firmware are up to date and not conflicted.
Turn on boot logging and look for problems. |
We'll see....
Could be a PSU. I tend to follow that assumption as well. As just about everyone here will tell you, the PSU's are all about the amperage on the 12volt lines, and less about the maximum wattage of the unit. Is it a good brand? plenty of power to run that graphics card and those drives all at the same time? 
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It's an Ultra 550W. It was originally meant to tie me over as I wanted to upgrade my entire machine, but clearly that was a mistake. If it is in fact the PSU.|
Originally Posted by kangaroo120y
Could be a PSU. I tend to follow that assumption as well. As just about everyone here will tell you, the PSU's are all about the amperage on the 12volt lines, and less about the maximum wattage of the unit. Is it a good brand? plenty of power to run that graphics card and those drives all at the same time?
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Specs on the machine are as follows, maybe it'll give some insight on wattage etc:
Core2 Quad 8200
4GB DDR2 RAM
Gigabyte GTS 250
1xIDE HDD
2xSATA HDD
And an LG Optical Drive running off IDE as well.
I'd gladly buy a better PSU if that's all it is.
We'll see....
if its the same one as the one im thinking of, it has 30 amps on the 12v line, should be PLENTY for your current system. Not sure if I should say thats unfortunate or not.
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Quote:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...sku=ULT-LSP550|
Originally Posted by kangaroo120y
if its the same one as the one im thinking of, it has 30 amps on the 12v line, should be PLENTY for your current system. Not sure if I should say thats unfortunate or not.
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That's the one I bought.
We'll see....
The PSU looks decent, and should have had plenty of power.
The fact, however, that your video card is locking up *and* your SATA drives are intermittently falling offline seems to me to indicate a power problem, more than anything else. It could, however, be an intermittent short in the motherboard somewhere.
I'm inclined to suspect either data corruption or a driver conflict.
Can you check you don't have multiple drivers installed for the same component also try disabling the on-board video when you are using a seperate card, if you are running any other cards try changing them to a different slot if possible and try reseating your video card.
Would also be worthwhile running a disc surface scan in case that is failing - which may impact either the driver itself or your disc cache file.
Similarly try running a memory test such as Memtest to eliminate any problem with a failing memory strip.
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Quote:
Thanks for the suggestions. A few things first, I'm very really savvy so a lot if what you've said has already been tried. I don't run onboard when a card is installed and vice versa. There are no duplicate drivers installed either. There's only one PCI-e slot, so can't try another with the card.|
Originally Posted by Gaia
I'm inclined to suspect either data corruption or a driver conflict.
Can you check you don't have multiple drivers installed for the same component also try disabling the on-board video when you are using a seperate card, if you are running any other cards try changing them to a different slot if possible and try reseating your video card. Would also be worthwhile running a disc surface scan in case that is failing - which may impact either the driver itself or your disc cache file. Similarly try running a memory test such as Memtest to eliminate any problem with a failing memory strip. |
When attempting safe mode, it stalls on CLASSPNP.SYS. I've researched that error in the past only to find none if the solutions work as it can pertain to any number of pieces of hardware. If I enable onboard graphics and remove the GTS 250, she fires right up.
I took that opportunity to uninstall the nvidia drivers and used Driver Cleaner as well. I shut down, reinserted the 250 and it stalled again at the animation. I haven't checked the memory yet. The motherboard is an ASRock G31m-S in case that helps.
We'll see....
Bit of an update.
I ran a memory test, everything was fine. I've run hard drive tests using SeaTools a few times, everything is fine. I also reflashed the BIOS in case something was corrupted, that didn't resolve anything.
I've decided to try reinstalling Windows. If it will let me of course. Trying to boot using the DVD with the graphics card plugged in doesn't appear to work at the moment either.
During this process, I'm removing my IDE drive entirely (My 2 SATA drives have been strictly storage up till this point). Going to use one of them to install Windows and see if getting rid of the old technology entirely does the job. I may have to install Windows using the integrated GPU and then add in the GTS 250 after.
If I have any further difficulties, I'll have to look at replacing the motherboard as I suspect it's the cause of my headaches. It's possible the PCI-e slot is borked.
We'll see....
Do you have an older PCI-e video card with lower power requirements that you can test in that slot?
If you do, and it still hangs, it's likely the motherboard. If you don't, then it's the power supply, is what I'd strongly suspect.
Another update...
Windows is freshly installed but I haven't put the card back in yet. I did see something odd though. The event log has a kernel error that says power management features of the processor have been disabled due to a hardware firmware error and recommends I update said firmware. Any guesses?
We'll see....
Latest update....
So I got my hands an nVidia 216 to test, it doesn't need to connect directly to the PSU. The machine instantly booted up without issue. I took that to mean it was either the PSU or the GPU. So I went and spent a little cash >.>
Bought a 750w PSU and a GTX 460 Lol. Machine booted up fine recognizing the card no issue. Installed latest drivers and going to try the game now.
Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions, it's greatly appreciated!
We'll see....
Hey guys, need a second opinion.
I occasionally have an issue with my machine and tonight it's escalated.
Sometimes while the Windows 7 logo is animating, it would freeze and I would have to manually turn off the machine. Eventually, after a reboot or 2 it would boot up fine. Tonight however, it wouldn't. So I did a bit of research (I had researched this in the past as well) and found that when I take my graphics card out of the PCI-e slot, and use the onboard video it fires right up without even a hiccup.
Now, I know it seems obvious that the video card is the culprit. I'm just having trouble believing this to be the case. The card has run fantastically up until this point and there isn't anything out of the ordinary that's taken place for it to take a poop like this. Drivers were up to date, temperatures were perfect.
One of the other reason's I believe it may be the motherboard is because my 2 drives connected through SATA periodically disappear. Sometimes mid-use. I'll most times have to restart the machine manually (and of course have an issue with it hanging in the process a few times). I used to just unplug/replug the SATA cables when the machine was off and 9 times out of 10 that would work.
I guess I'm just confused, there's clearly more than one issue going on which indicates the motherboard. Or the GPU has pooped the bed and it's causing all kinds of other issues, for months now.
Anyone care to try their hand at this before I go off and buy a new video card?
We'll see....