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Cause of crashes in 3d?

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Could my mobo be the problem?

My computer is locking up and sometimes BSODing 10-30 seconds into any graphical benchmarking or game. It will sometimes freeze while loading a benchmark(3dmark2003)/game(Oblivion/CoD2), and it will always freeze within 30 seconds of loading. All the freezes require a hard reboot. The system runs fine when browsing/playing movies/MS office work.

System:
P4 805D 2.66ghz
Asus P5ND2 Sli
Patriot 2x1GB sticks of DDR2-667 (PC2-5300)
Antec Neo HE 550 Watt power supply
XFX Geforce 7600GT
SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series HD160JJ 160GB
LGA GSA-H10AB DVD Burner

I have tested with another power supply (430watt) and another video card (XFX 6800XT) and had the same problem. I have tried Windows XP Pro x64, and three clean installs of Windows XP and get the same freezes. I have tried using each stick of memory seperately in the various memory slots, and still get the freeze. The memory did have 3 errors in Memtest86+ over a 3 hour period, all during the same test. However, on the 2 passes before and after I have not been able to get the errors to show again. The system just completed 16 hours of prime95 with no errors. Drivers are the 91.31 for the Video and 7.15 nforce4 for the chipset. It has not crashed on a memory or CPU benchmark once, despite dozens of runs.

Any ideas on what to do next? The only thing I can think of is to RMA both the Mobo and RAM. Thanks for reading this novel!

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My first guess is not enough power. From your system description, you normally have a 550 wt. If you don't get enough power with that, testing with a lower power psu, 430 wt, will just repeat the not enough power problem. Your ram may have a problem, and if you can RMA it, do so. At the same time, I don' think its causing your BSOD.

When you're just browsing, doing MS office stuff, etc, the graphics card isn't taking much power. Its when a game or 3Dmark is used that the power drain goes up, and that's when your problem appears. So the PSU is the first place I'd look for the problem. Either your present psu isn't putting out what it should, or your draw is such that you need closer to 600 wt.

Last, you mobo could be part of the problem, but I don't think so in this case. Call tech support on it and verify that. If they say RMA, then do it and see what happens.

Power: By rights, I'm not running the system in SLI, so I imagine 430 should be enough to power it (I had the 430 initally, bought a 550 to be sure power wasn't an issue). The video card is only drawing power through the pci express slot, so that limits it's draw to 75watts if I'm right. I have removed one stick of RAM and unplugged the DVD drive to try to lower power demand, but neither fixed the problem.


I can't see why that system would require even 500watts - can anyone with a similar system state what their psu was?

OCing:I have alterred ram timings to be looser trying to solve the problem, running at 5-5-5-15 now and increased voltage to 1.95, neither did anything to solve the problem. The problem started before I overclocked my computer, and I overclocked it to 3.0ghz for a day before reverting back to stock speed while waiting for the other video card.

I have decided to try reflashing my BIOS to the beta version to see if that will work, and reflash back to stock.
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yup it is definatly a mobo prob! had EXACTLY the same prob as you!striped down my system and found out it was my mobo all along. got a new one and everything worked great! i also a freezing prob that ended up to be my sound card so if you have one try takin it out before you go out and get a new mobo!

Update on this problem:
Reset CMOS, no change
Flashed BIOS to Beta version 0601, no change
Recieved another P5nd2 sli mobo - problem is better, but not solved:

It first completed a full run of 3dmark06 without problems (Score of slightly more than 3000). While loading the 3rd test on the second run, it froze. It will now no longer make it through an entire run, but it will get through multiple tests. Games are crashing within 2 minutes now, instead of 10 seconds. CPU seems to be hitting 70c before crash, possibly a heat problem? I'm about to start running another batch of memtest 86+ to check how the memory is doing on this board. Any more ideas?

NO, it's not your psu... maybe ram, video or cpu but...

I think it's heat... you see alot more problems during the summer with computers that were built and overclocked during the cool winter months. Rock stable with ambient temperatures between 15-22C then crashes when the ambient rises over 25C.

I suggest an after market cooler for your cpu and gpu. 70C is high, very high. You want to keep that under 50C if you can.

Good luck.

1) Have you tried using the non-beta video card drivers?
2) Have you tried using XP 32-bit edition?

70C for a CPU is very hot; did you apply the thermal grease properly? Is the CPU making good contact with the HS/F?

You should try using Arctic Silver. First, take off the heatsink, then clean off the existing thermal paste from the CPU and heatsink using isoproyl alcohol. Then put a tiny dab (1/2 size of a grain of rice) of Arctic Silver on the CPU. Use a credit card to spread that all around the top of the CPU, and then put the HS/F back on. Your temperatures should go down; if not, try an aftermarket HS/F.

You could always try messing with ram timings and voltages.... also, if you know anyone with a different brand of memory I would try it. I have had issues with memory working on some nf4 boards and being buggy on others. I know the controller is on die but I have seen it happen.
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