P35 DS4 Rev 2 - crashes under load

[Xer0daze]

Hey folks. I really hope you guys can help me out here, cuz I've already pulled out all my hair looking for a solution for this. I have a Gigabyte P35 DS4 Rev 2 board paired with a C2D E6750, currently running at the stock 2.66GHz. I'm also running a pair of 2GB G-Skill PC6400 CL5 (1.8v) ram modules at the stock 800MHz speed. I have a beefy PSU and aftermarket cooling for both the CPU and Video card. Temps stay around the 30C mark for my proc and never more then 40C under load for my GPU.

My issue is that everytime I try to play newer games... Crysis, Battlefield 2142, Company of Heroes... anything, my system will crash. Usually via BSOD if in XP, but I also get "The Display Driver has Stopped Responding and Recovered" in Vista (basically windows catches the BSOD before it happens and resets the video driver).

Now, I'm running everything at "auto" in my mobo bios. Changing these settings from AUTO results in a red flashing message in the bios stating that my system is not properly tuned and may be unstable. Regardless, I've tried adjusting some settings for fsb voltage and playing with my DDR speed (cranking everything way down to 667) and I still experience the crashes.

So far I've replaced everything in this computer at least once. I've gone through 3 total G80 series cards (2x 8600GTs and finally the 8800GT), 3 total motherboards, 3 pairs of memory (Corsair, OCZ, and now G-Skill brands), bought a new PSU, aftermarket coolers, and re-installed both OS's multiple times. Tried all flavors of available forceware drivers (including beta drivers). I am at a loss here, and I do not see any official support forums for Gigabyte...

Has anyone had any experience with this mobo? Is anyone out there using similar parts? Does anyone know what I should look at as far as voltages or timings, etc to increase stability? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[dagger]

I use the x38 version of DS4, so it's probably different. But with everything at stock in auto, it should run fine. If you went through 3 motherboards already, it's unlikely that all of them are faulty. So, which parts didn't you change? Powersupply? CPU? How stable is cpu under prime95? How much does powersupply rails output fluctuate under high load?

 

[rsetter1]

Please describe "beefy PSU"

 

[samfms]

hey,
on gigabyte P35-DS3R boards and G-skill 800MHz memory some people have to bump the memory voltage to 1.9v for stability. You might want to try that. +0.1v for the ram is well within the operating specifications.

Good luck

 

[MrCommunistGen]

Yeah... what PSU are you using?

-mcg

 

[level101]

I'm using the GA-P35-DS4 with Pentium D 925 @ 3996MHz (12x333MHz)
Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4 RAM @ 2.1v 4-4-4-12

everything runs great, haven't had any problems

I picked my RAM from the gigabyte QVL

 

[Xer0daze]

Using an OCZ 750 watt PSU (4 +12v rails 24a)

As far as parts I did not change as of yet... The only part that has not been replaced in this system is the DVD-R drive, monitor, mouse and keyboard and the case itself. Everything else has been swapped. I am at work at the moment but when I get home I will try bumping the ram up to 1.9v... It has been suggested that I may want to bump up my northbridge voltage just a bit as well, but I do not see a setting for that in the bios (I am using the 11/30/07 bios for my mobo). Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

On a side note, I want to thank everyone for the quick replies. I've posted on hardware forums for G-Skill, Microsoft, Intel, OCZ, and Corsair about this problem and nobody has offered me any real assistance. I even have an open ticket with Microsoft that is eight weeks old and has been escalated to the executive level support, but again... I have yet to receive any real help from them so far. To get so many replies back in such a short period of time on this forum is awesome. You guys rock... hopefully you can help me solve my problem!

 

[Crazy-PC]

If you changed 3 mainboards and some display cards already, the probability for all these 3 mainboards and display cards in problem are very low. Let's advise what is the model and brand name of your "Beefy PSU", it would be possibility the source of problem for your system crashes under load.

 

[Xer0daze]

Sorry, the first line in my reply describes my PSU. Here is a link to the PSU on newegg...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341008

It should be more then suffucent for a single 8800GT and 2 ram modules.

 

[dagger]

Sorry, the first line in my reply describes my PSU. Here is a link to the PSU on newegg...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341008

It should be more then suffucent for a single 8800GT and 2 ram modules.

Yes, it should be more than enough. But keep in mind any piece of hardware can be defective. How stable is power output on the rails under load? You should be able to monitor this on a number of motherboard monitoring programs.

 

[Xer0daze]

Thanks... I'm running the ram at 1.9v now and things seem to be running a bit better. Haven't had time to give it a real lengthy test, but I did run Crysis benchmark with all settings maxed @ 1680x1050 for 30 minutes or so with no crash, which seems to be a bit better then before. Hard to tell for sure though, I will have more time to test tonight. I'll actually load up a saved game and try to play for a couple of hours. I will report back soon and if I am still not stable I will post my PSU stats from everest, system Info, or cpu-z.

 

[Xer0daze]

It appears that kicking the DDR up +.10v has done the trick. I feel like a heel for not trying that before. I made so many configuration changes over time, I must've just lost track of what I had tested. Regardless, I've run Crysis benchmark successfully for 99 consecutive runs testing both CPU and GPU. So it appears that vista is quite stable. Thanks again for all your help, especially samfms. You guys rock.

 

[samfms]

Glad to have been of help.

Enjoy your computer man!

Frag away!!!!!!!

 

[Crazy-PC]

Glad to have been of help.

Enjoy your computer man!

Frag away!!!!!!!

Thanks you too, your reply on this problem may be also helpful for me. I may try to overclock my E2220@GA-P35-DS3L to 3.6GHZ to see if stable with RAM +0.1~0.2V than normal, this system is now only stable and is overclocked to 3.2GHZ of Bus Freq 266MHZ with the RAM speed to 1066 while existingly not stable if Bus Frequency @300~333. It is certain that the problem maybe due to I never use additional effective cooling when overclocking but minimum I can get more trial point to try.