X1800XT Can't finish 3DMark05 demo

[knownalien]

it runs fine, till you get to that airship and water dragon. It runs it fine the 1st time but then tries to run it a second time at 1 frame per second and just freezes the whole computer. as best I can tell the vid card is sending a temperature reading of 81 celsius to the ATI control panel I have in the background running. When 3Dmark loads a game I can sneak a peek at the temp of the video card if I position the window just right.

 

[RichPLS]

Post the temps, I would be interested.

Assume you have good airflow in case, what is cpu temp?

 

[Rugger]

It would seem that you are running into an overheating issue...

How well is the HSF seated on the GPU? Fan running?

 

[knownalien]

my case is uber cooled, fanwise. I have the Antec P180 case. It has 2 180mm fans bringing air in and 2 180mm fans taking air out. And to boot, it has an 80mm fan blowing right onto the graphics card itself. The heat sink and fan on the card itself appear to be seated firmly.

If you put your hand behind the graphics card's vent you can feel the hot air rushing out, and rather fast. So the fan is working and running. It is getting air. And it is getting hot. Apparently too hot. Something here is amis.

p.s. idle temps for the vid card itself are 57-60 celcius. CPU = 29 and the mobo 30.

 

[knownalien]

ran the test again, but when it repeated the airship test (why does it repeat that one?) and it was going at 1 FPS I aborted it. Within a second I recorded the temp on the vid card at 71 celcuis. not in the hot zone. The CPU was 40 celcius. The mobo was still at 30 celsius the whole time because of all my fans. I can't figure out why it runs thhat ONE test twice.

?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Are you running the benchmark or the demo?

The demo wouldn't be a VPU issue as it's a movie of the benchmark.

The benchmark portion you are talking about is the CPU tests.

Check your system RAM.

 

[knownalien]

i did check the ram. in fact, my two sticks show errors on test 5 of memtest. I am quite upset about it. So I took one stick out and ran memtest and it seems fine. With that single stick I was still getting the same problem. It happens whether I hit benchmark or demo.

 

[liquidpaper007]

it could be your cpu heatsink seated incorrectly.

 

[knownalien]

but the cpu temps are showing within tolerance. I mean, no higher than 40 celcius. Also, I put my finder on the heat sinks, after grounding myself, to feel if anything is too hot. nothing is. I can only touch the underside of the vid card . . . the metal X-bracket that supports the HSF on the other side and it is warm to the touch, but at no point did it get hot enough where you would have to pull your finger away. My old Radeon 9700 pro DID get that hot.

 

[knownalien]

I have the free trial version. it is the newest one and doesn't nee the patch. I hit "Run 3D Benchmark.

What I am wondering is why it runs that particular benchmark twice in a row? The airship and dragon? It runs fine the fisrt time then it reloads itself in a crappy resolution and then goes a blazing 1 frame per second!!!! It's called the Canyon Flight test and listed as a "game test" as opposed to a "CPU" test.

 

[liquidpaper007]

the 2nd test is using software rendering thats why it looks so ugly.

 

[knownalien]

why do YOU think my system is freezing/hanging at that point???

 

[pickxx]

I would think 1 of 3 things


1. PSU, can you play games? have you tryed to play games?

2. RAM, try putting your ram in different sockets...find a mix that works (thats how you fix memtext test#5...lol try the other Dual channel slots)

3. What do you have running as background tasks? list EVERYHING you have running? someimes weird prgrams will stall....i have had problems with F@H and some Norton crap messing up my games

 

[knownalien]

I would think 1 of 3 things


1. PSU, can you play games? have you tryed to play games?

2. RAM, try putting your ram in different sockets...find a mix that works (thats how you fix memtext test#5...lol try the other Dual channel slots)

3. What do you have running as background tasks? list EVERYHING you have running? someimes weird prgrams will stall....i have had problems with F@H and some Norton crap messing up my games

1. I can play Morrowind and Battlefield 2 till the cows come home, though at times I do get freezing in Morrowind, but that game is notorious for that. My particular PSU was very powerful for its day and since it is not powering 2 graphics cards it still is. I have only added a RAID 0 array and 120 mm fans to my system.

2. I am down to one stick of RAM that passes memtest86. It is in slot 1.

3. taskmanager has no running applications when I try and run the benchmarks.


if I can scrape up $150, I can test the RAM by itself. I can probably test the CPU too, but I cannot test the video card per se because this is the only mobo I have that has PCI-e.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

3. taskmanager has no running applications when I try and run the benchmarks.

Not applications. List the processes.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

My thoughts:
1) That graphics card sounds like it's running way too hot. I'm thinking RMA.
2) If this is an upgrade, did you fully clean the old drivers, switch to VGA drivers, and then install new drivers?
3) Are your mobo chipset drivers the latest and greatest?
4) Have you flashed BIOS?
5) Do you have a dualcore CPU?
6) Are you sure that your PSU is doing a good job?

 

[knownalien]

a lot!

 

[knownalien]

My thoughts:
1) That graphics card sounds like it's running way too hot. I'm thinking RMA.
2) If this is an upgrade, did you fully clean the old drivers, switch to VGA drivers, and then install new drivers?
3) Are your mobo chipset drivers the latest and greatest?
4) Have you flashed BIOS?
5) Do you have a dualcore CPU?
6) Are you sure that your PSU is doing a good job?

1) I am not sure it is way too hot. I have to call ATI and ask them what is too hot. RMA is going to blow because I doubt they send me a brand new replacement.
2) since I got two new raptors, I can tell you that XP is a fresh install.
3) the chipset are the newest ones so far as I can tell. I got them from Asus's website for my mobo, but it would be a lie to say there isn't some confusion in looking at their downloads.
4) I have flashed the BIOS from DOS to one that is just below the only one that carries a warning. I flashed to (not that it will mean anything to you) 1006, but not 1007 because it says to update the Chipset drivers to a specific version which does not appear to correlate with the version numbers offered for my mobo.
5) no
6) PSU's do go bad, but mine should have enough juice to run my system. is it going bad? Tough to tell. At idle, I do not like some of my voltages. Here they are

3.3 = 3.18 idle
5.0 = 4.57 idle
12 = 11.52 idle

those seem low, but mu PSU carries 24 amps on the 12+ rail. Not great but not bad.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Well it sounds like you've done everything right. So that's always good.

(Personally, I'd have probably Ghosted my old HD contents onto the new HDs, but that's because I hate reinstalling a million programs. M$ should really have a utility to copy an install over from an old HD.)

That really only leaves two concerns. It seems like your card is running hot, and your PSU doesn't look too peachy keen. Maybe the card is allowed to run that hot though, I'd check with the manufacturer. But your PSU ... if those are idle voltages, then it's possible that with the right load your system might not have enough power. Do you have any software to log your voltages so that you can see if they reach some critical point right before your system fails? Have you tried torture testing your PC with software like Prime95? The PSU should be enough, I'd think, but maybe it's defective. You never know. (Especially when quality companies like Antec are lately having disturbing quality control issues.)

 

[knownalien]

Well it sounds like you've done everything right. So that's always good.

(Personally, I'd have probably Ghosted my old HD contents onto the new HDs, but that's because I hate reinstalling a million programs. M$ should really have a utility to copy an install over from an old HD.)

That really only leaves two concerns. It seems like your card is running hot, and your PSU doesn't look too peachy keen. Maybe the card is allowed to run that hot though, I'd check with the manufacturer. But your PSU ... if those are idle voltages, then it's possible that with the right load your system might not have enough power. Do you have any software to log your voltages so that you can see if they reach some critical point right before your system fails? Have you tried torture testing your PC with software like Prime95? The PSU should be enough, I'd think, but maybe it's defective. You never know. (Especially when quality companies like Antec are lately having disturbing quality control issues.)

i think I am going to try running Prime95. I'm interested in this ghosting concept you mention. Know of a good prog that does it? How much space you need? Will it prevent you from having to do a clean install of XP? I've got plenty of space for a Ghosting I think.

I have to call ATI today.

As for the quality issues of Antec. Boy tell me about it! I bought their top of the line PSU (the HE 550 watt) and the think just kept shutting off. Come to find out that many are having this issue too! It's so bad that I am sticking to another brand.

One curious thing I noticed today: My CPU should be running at 1.5 volts but it stays well below that . . like 1.28. I have Cool n Quiet enabled, but I Have yet to see those voltages go higher even though my CPU clock speed may reach 2.2 Ghz.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

i think I am going to try running Prime95. I'm interested in this ghosting concept you mention. Know of a good prog that does it? How much space you need? Will it prevent you from having to do a clean install of XP? I've got plenty of space for a Ghosting I think.

Norton Ghost. Oh, sure, there are other programs that do the same thing, but I've been using Ghost for years. It's so nice to just copy over an old drive onto a new one, plug the new one in, and boot right up. Plus it's good for backing up your hard drive.

As for the quality issues of Antec. Boy tell me about it! I bought their top of the line PSU (the HE 550 watt) and the think just kept shutting off. Come to find out that many are having this issue too! It's so bad that I am sticking to another brand.

Yeah, I'm super pissed. I used to love Antec, but they're just royally f'ing up lately. It's gotten to where I don't know if I could even trust them with a new purchase. But then so many people don't have any problems. :? It's so confusing.

One curious thing I noticed today: My CPU should be running at 1.5 volts but it stays well below that . . like 1.28. I have Cool n Quiet enabled, but I Have yet to see those voltages go higher even though my CPU clock speed may reach 2.2 Ghz.

It could just be that your sensor isn't very accurate. Or that it's supposed to do that. But it could also be that your PSU is just undervolting your whole system. (Which it kind of looks like, since every one of your rails is under.)

 

[knownalien]

prime95 kept the CPU voltage to just below 2.5 so it must have been Cool n' Quiet dropping the voltage that low. so the CPU appears to be fine, though I never really doubted anything was wrong with it . . it's a real workhorse.

 

[knownalien]

ATI tech cupport says that 80 celcius is not dangerous. so it can't be the card.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Really I don't think it's VPU temps that are the issue. The point you are having trouble with is the CPU rendering stage of the test.

I would start running a few other tests (prime error tells you that's not good) like PCMark, etc.

I know the Antec PSUs were causing issue in the GF5800/R9700 era but that was for far lower power. However if the power draw is fluxating that may be enough.

As for morrowind, yeah annoyingly enough Morrowind runs smoothest on W98SE and Win2K, but is unstable with XP and ME (isn't everything unstable with ME?).

If anything's out of 'stock' settings then roll those back first before testing/tweaking for a fix.

 

[knownalien]

well, then I'll run more CPU benchies. as for the Antec, they make great PSU'sm but their 550 HE 20+4 pin PSU is very unstable. So much so that I am frankly shocked that Antec hasn't recalled them.