Time for a new PSU?

Hey,

I have an earlier post asking about ram, i ran a test and my ram passed 100%.
I also only have a 430 watt Power Supply and when ever i play a game with both sets of ram in my screen freezes or goes blank and my G15 LCD doesn't show any apps only "G15".

My Specs:
W.D. 320gb sata HDD
Seagate 500GB sata HDD
Gigabyte 4870 OC edition GPU
Gigabyte EP45 - DS3 Mobo
E8400 CPU
2 LED fans and 1 regular fan
4x 1GB 800mhz DDR2
I have had my PSU for over a year and the issue only happens in Games.

I found a Coolermaster Extreme Power 500watt PSU in my price range.

Thanks

 

Any reason for suspecting the PSU? It could be other things.
Have you kept an eye on temperatures, for example?
How's the video card?

 

They all stay pretty cool. A while back i used GPU-z and my temperatures didnt go past 60 C, multiple friends of mine said that its probably and one of them had this apparently happen.

thanks

 

Any chance of borrowing a PSU from one of those friends to see what happens?

 

They're clan mates, and they live too far away and wouldn't want to lend me their capable psu. I am on my way to MSY to see if i can get my hands on Coolermaster Extreme plus 500watt tomorrow.

Thank you for your help.

 

OK. Interested to know how it turns out. :wave

 

What make and model video card do you have?

Sam

 

I'd suggest looking at a OCZ or a Corsair PSU since they are a little bit more but well worth it.

 

I have the Gigabyte 4890 Overclocked Edition

 

I dont have enough money, and i cant wait a month or two to get the money. In my next upgrade I will deffinately upgrade to a better one like OCZ or Corsair. The coolermaster extreme power plus should hopefully do the job.

 

Ok, so i bought a the new power supply. 30min after playing Warhead with everything maxed out......speakers screeching, and monitors blank.... please. I need help.

 

Nasty stuff!
Maybe time to start thinking about the video card...
And since you mentioned:

,
do you have the PC overclocked? If so, maybe that's the problem and you should trying winding it back a bit.
(Make sure the card and everything else are well-seated also - just as an afterthought.)

 

The Card is secure, I have no idea on how to wind it back from overclocked. I also checked my temps, CPU stable at 45C and in Warhead maxed 50C and my video card was at around the same temps. I also took out my second DVD drive and still no changes. I looked through my Event log and there are multiple Kernel-Power issues but i think that is from having to hard restart after the freeze.

 

Not my forte, so hopefully someone will jump in.
However, if you're familiar with BIOS settings, have a look in there. In mine, under Advanced Chipset Features is FSB Over Clock by... Mine is set to zero.
Take note of the setting if you change it, in case it doesn't work and you need to change back.

 

Could under clocking or what ever the opposite of overclocking is, solve my problem or be an idea to try?

 

I'm thinking of setting it back to ... standard clocking... I suppose you could call it.
Anyway, yes, that's what I'm suggesting you try.

 

OK, I am going to install 3D mark vantage to test my PC after I have under clocked my GPU to stock 850Mhz from 900Mhz and restarted. no real harm could happen from under clocking.......right?

 

I quickly tried 3D mark vantage before under clocking and it seemed to work fine..... does this rule out the GPU?

 

No real harm SHOULD happen... but we're talking about computers here. rolleyes At the very least, you should be able to reset it if anything goes wrong.

 

Ok, I am thinking again about the video card because I ran 3d mark Vantage all maxed out and it all went smoothly except for some bad FPS here and there.

 

I am having other thoughts if the problem could be with in the motherboard. I have been reading some other forum posts over the net and people asking if their Mobo has failed. most people reply with "check the capacitors etc.." also they mention replacing the CMOS battery....I know where the battery is but could it have anything to do with my problem and what is CMOS?

 

As I understand it, CMOS is a chip that saves certain info and settings for your computer (such as the time).
Resetting the CMOS solves some problems, but I don't know if it would fix yours.
To reset, you just take out the CMOS battery and keep it out for a couple of minutes, then put it back.
Replacing the battery doesn't mean getting a new one unless yours is running low - which you can usually tell, I believe, if the time starts running slow (you won't know this if your time is being corrected via the Internet, of course).

I think I'd go for the GPU before the MB, but one can't be sure.

 

What can I do to test to GPU? I have checked the temps and they're fine and it runs fine in 3d Mark. also back to ram.....If I only have 2 sticks in games run fine but i cant play new ones with high graphics unless I have the extra ram in. could cleaning the slots of my ram help? apparently using a thin paint brush to clean the slot and an eraser to clean the stick of ram.

 

Some interesting stuff here about testing - but the third post also talks about backing off your Over Clocking (OC) to get a game to run:
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia-dri...e/310559-best-apps-test-gpu-oc-stability.html

It might be tricking you. It conks out when you have extra RAM in, but that is the same time as you're playing the more-intensive games... so it's not necessarily the RAM.

I didn't realise you had extra RAM. How many slots and sticks do you have? How big?
Do all the sticks match perfectly? You can get problems if they don't.

I wouldn't worry about cleaning unless you have a lot of dust in there. Can you see anything on the connectors? Dust? Dirt?

Have you tried different combinations of stacks and slots? If everything works with any combination of two sticks and two slots, you wouldn't think it was a dirt problem.

Make sure you touch something metal before poking about in there - and preferably don't work on carpet. Static electricity issues.

 

I have 2x 1gb sticks of Kingston which is my original sticks and I recently got 2x 1gb patriot ram and a guy at MSY said they should work together. They are also both 800Mhz i read something about they all need to be the same 5-5-5-15 2.2v or 4-4-4-12 1.8v (i don't understand this).

 

@ . If you start seeing random artifacts and or it restarts. Back her down a couple of notches.....I found out that Crysis doesn't like any OC at all


the crashes also happen in Modern Warfare 2 and I havent played it in anyother games(I dont have any other games installed since I just re-installed windows 7 but made it 64bit(and it also happened before I re-installed windows))

 

Those are your RAM timings (which as far as I know are set in your BIOS - where the overclocking is done). You can read a fairly reasonable article on them here - mentions some other interesting stuff, too - related to what you are doing.

I don't know if those RAM sticks will work together under stress. That MAY be your problem, but I'm not about to argue with 'the guy at MSY' (what's MSY? )
There will be some people on this site who may be able to better advise you. They tend to turn up at night (my night, that is). As for me, it's now 12:35 am, and I have a 3 hour drive to a funeral in the morning. Would you excuse me if I depart please? I need some shut-eye. Hopefully someone will look in on this and pick up the thread. I am wondering about that RAM mix though.

(I might have one more look in before hitting the sack).

 

Can I change the ram timings? If so how?
Also, thank you a lot for helping me so much.......your excused
It is the Plympton MSY in SA
That gets me thinking about them not working well under stress because i can watch movies and brows the net etc... but gaming for 30min causes the crash with no warnings

 

Neighbour!!!:wave
I'm actually heading in your general direction tomorrow - going to Bendigo.
Must be getting close to your bed time as well.:zzz

Your motherboard manual should tell you about changing timing settings. It's a pretty big subject. This site mentions it, as well as resetting the CMOS.
I think there's an Over Clocking forum on the Major Geeks site as well. You could try posting there.

Good night.:zzz

 

Goodnight, I'm going to check my Timings and and read the Mobo manual (night time reading) I will be fiddling around with it all week. Hopefully I can get it to work before Thursday (cant go on PC on Thursdays and on Friday its when my clan games and Crysis wars is this weeks game)

 

Ok, i think I might have fixed the problem...
I put each brand together

|| ||
|| ||
|| || <- Kingston next to each other and the same with the patriot ram
|| ||
|| ||
|| ||
|| ||

The reason I think it fixed it is because I was able to play Crysis Warhead Maxed out all morning and I just finished it. Thanks a lot for all of your help GCwest!

 

WOOHOO!!! Excellent work!! :celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate
Funny thing is - that was to be my next suggestion - as soon as I got back to my computer (helps to sleep on it sometimes). It could be just a necessary thing to do (having them together), but I wondered if it could also have to do with hyperthreading technology (HTT), which works with RAM sticks in pairs. So I was going to ask you if you have HTT running (it tells you on the black screen that comes up on boot, and you can also see it in Task Manager>Performance tab>View>CPU History. If "one graph per CPU" is there, you have HTT operating.)
I'd be interested to know if you do have HTT running.

 

Just a little correction. Hyperthreading runs totally on a compatible processor and makes 1 core into 2. In this case I think you mean dual channelling the RAM.

 

Thanks for the correction Collinsl. I only know enough about it to be dangerous, and it's a while since I read up on this (excuses, excuses :-o).
So I guess what I should have said was that dual channelling might have been the problem (not HTT), because the computer was attempting dual channelling with non-matching RAM sticks? Do you know how likely an explanation that is? Is there a way to check if dual channelling is enabled? Do you know how to turn it on and off?

 

The ram is running dual channel.

I know this isn't the right section to ask this question but whenever I play Crysis Wars and I join or create a match the sky and some other objects have really bright colors, sometimes if I'm outside in the game the screen goes white and I can partially see the gun.

 

G'day again.
I have just read that the MB sets up dual ch itself, and it seems you can't turn it on or off.

 

BTW, it is starting to look very much like this dual channelling was the problem, with your RAM set up as it was. You'll see in that link (previous post) that there is a fair bit of emphasis on the need to set your RAM up the right way if you have DC.
Good night again. Work tomorrow.:wave:zzz

 

4GB is showing, If I didn't have 4GB I wouldn't have been able to play Warhead all morning maxed out(It needs a lot of ram compared to the original Crysis)

I was using some custom maps which this happened in but it originally happened in some of the stock maps.

 

That thought did cross my mind.

Still wondering about your graphics card.

Don't you have to go to school?

 

There is a little thing I like to call.....Holidays!

Yeah, I had something a bit like this with my old VGA card. except it was kind of different....all of the textures were replaced with a different texture (all objects loaded the wrong texture) I have played Crysis wars on this VGA card before and it has worked fine. I also have tried to install older drivers....I also reinstalled to the latest driver.

 

There is a little thing I DON'T like to call ENVY!! (but I think I'm suffering a little from it at the moment :-o)

Hmmm... what about your monitor and monitor drivers then?

 

Monitor Drivers???
If it was my monitor wouldnt it effect my other games?

 

Good point, I guess.
You mentioned earlier that you checked your temperatures, and they were OK. Do you have a temp monitor on the GPU? Could that be overheating? Does it have a dedicated fan, and is that running OK?
I suppose an easy test is to note if the graphics problem is there from the start, or does it start after some time (like when the card has had time to overheat)?
P.S. Your English teacher would want me to point out that it's 'affect'.

 

It seems to happen randomly I guess... But it only happens in Crysis wars. I just played a bit of MW2 and that was fine and so is warhead. Also I don't see how Crysis wars could cause my GPU to overheat, Its less hardware hungry then CoD4 ;P

 

Have you checked to see if anyone else is having this problem (searched the Net)? It might be a problem with the game software, which may disagree with some hardware.

 

I was searching the net all last night and I couldn't find anything to do with what is happening to my PC. I think that if I just restart the game once it starts to do that it seems to fix it but in the original maps it seems to work fine for now.

 

Interesting. I wonder if it would be worth reinstalling the game software.:confused

 

I re-downloaded it (I got it from steam) and re-installed it and it was still the same.

 

OK. Have you been to this site - a few interesting ideas there:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/255211-33-problems-hd4870-crysis-warhead-crysis-wars
Maybe you need to try overclocking:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4537395_gigabyte-mainboard-ddr-mhz-ram.html
There must be a way!:confused

 

As you said in a later post, dual channelling is controlled by the motherboard. RAM sticks MUST be matched in speed, size, and SHOULD be matched in brand and revision as well, although the brand and revision are less important.

If you motherboard has 4 RAM slots, then they should be coloured in pairs. As long as you hve matched sticks in each slot of the same colour, dual channel should run for that slot pair.

Also, most monitors do not have/need drivers as the VGA/DVI/HDMI interface is a standard and any equipment connected to it should run fully.