GPU Woes?

[therianthrope]

Hello everyone!

After assembling my system, my new rig POSTed first time I powered on, installed OS, everything went great. Now that I've had some time using it, I've been seeing some... quirky behavior.

System:
Windows 7 Home Premium
Core i5-750 CPU
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro MOBO
4GB (2x2GB) G.Skill Ripjaw CL7 RAM
Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 GPU
Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB HDD
Acer x223w Monitor

If you need other specs, let me know.

1st. This happened a couple weeks ago, I was Personalizing my desktop and when I went to fiddle with the screen saver, I had a system crash BSOD. It cycled through and did a self restart so fast that I couldn't write anything down at the time. However when it rebooted there was a summary file which I got the following from (after dlding some Microsoft translating program):

Problem Event Name: Blue Screen
OS Version:6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
BCCode: 116
Related File: atikmdag.sys

I googled around and it seems like this (atikmdag.sys) has been a problem with Radeon cards for a looong time. Anyway, I downloaded updated drivers for the GPU and never did touch the screen saver settings since... I should probably do this to see if it's a persistent problem... but I haven't had any BSOD since.

2nd. I get glitchy graphics things occurring periodically. Like white glitched graphics lines, horizontally through the login screen and desktop, which if I "Refresh" the desktop will either shift around or completely dissappear. I've also had glitchy graphics in games, periodically. Not unheard of I know, but worth noting.

3rd. I think the situation was I just brought the system out of sleep mode, and a little dialogue box popped up from my system tray and said something to the effect of "graphic card drivers
failed to initialize but recovered" or "graphics drivers something bad and have recovered" ... I went to right it down but the bubble auto-disappeared.

4th. I just tried to start up Oblivion (yes, I still play that, the MODS make it a 100% different game) and had a complete system crash. Auto-restarted, windows error recovery asked if I wanted to start in safe mode, I started in Normal and it came up fine and gave me nothing.

Are these patterns familiar to anyone?

 

[notty22]

If you can successfully play games and have had only those few glitches over XX? amount of time, then I would say everything is normal. Did you set the voltages for your memory in bios or check that they set themselves correctly ? When windows is running if you have a memory fault it more than often happens with your video card/driver. Because your always working with the gui.

 

[wa1]

then u might want to try with the older driver that came with the card...
Don't forget use Driver Sweeper.

 

[therianthrope]

Thanks for the response guys!

@notty - I have had the system up and running for just over 2 weeks, is that a normal failure rate? I understand there could be some growing pains but it just makes me nervous... I have had the 4th-type occurrence (crash and asked if I wanted to start in safe mode), at least one other time I believe but I don't remember the circumstance, it may have been with the BSOD...

I have not checked or set the voltages in the BIOS, I'll have to give it a look although I really don't know what I'm doing in that department. I do know the RAM is 1.6 V... I assume that is what I should look for in the BIOS?

@wa1 - I got the BSOD with the original drivers, although I didn't get the glitchy horizontal lines with the original drivers. And I didn't do an uninstall before I installed the new ones, however, after I continued to have problems with the updated drivers, I did uninstall everything and did a fresh install of the updated drivers.

And right now actually, I'm getting glitchy black lines in my browser window. The glitchy lines are pretty common especially after bringing the computer out of sleep mode.

 

[4745454b]

Sounds like a video card problem to me. (I don't use suspend/hibernate with desktops. I've NEVER got it to work right. Something always seems to fail to wake up.) The card could be bad, or you have a weak PSU. I noticed you didn't list one, so I'm assuming your reusing an older one. If its not supplying the power that it should it would be the problem. Stress the card with ATItraytool and see if it artifacts.

 

[jay2tall]

What power supply do you have?

I was just going to ask that. I didn't see it listed, and have a suspicious feeling we may not be surprised. Usually when specs are listed and it includes a high end graphics card the PSU specs are RIGHT next to it. Since it is not listed I have a feeling it did not seem that important to the OP and the requirements may have been overlooked. But I could be wrong. That was just the psychological side of me analyzing the post. I think into things WAY to much sometimes.

 

[jay2tall]

I have had not issues with Vista at all or ATI drivers. When I tried to crossfire (2) 4870's and the top card would over heat. I would get the "your display driver has stopped responding and has recovered" message and would boot me out to windows. Sometimes it would lock up the system though.

 

[therianthrope]

Cooler Master HAF 922 Case
OCZ Stealth Stream X 700W PSU

sorry I knew I was forgetting something

 

[therianthrope]

Oh, and I did check my RAM voltage in BIOS and it was showing 1.556V which they were listed as 1.6V when I bought it.

I did discover the BIOS had some auto-OC setting set to "Turbo", which while I'd like to do some overclocking someday I know nothing about right now, and since I just have the stock fan on the CPU which I intend (once I find an LGA1156 block) to move my water-cooler over to it. Anyway, I set the OC setting to "Good Performance" (there was also "Better Performance"), no glitchy graphics with this so far but I've only booted a couple times with it set as such.

Also, I have ASUS PC Probe II to monitor my temperatures fan speeds and a set of voltages, I've never seen the temp go over 52, however I don't really know what the voltage boxes are on it, they are listed as follows:

+3.3V = 3.42
+5V = 5.23
+12V = 12.26

Do those extra decimals mean I'm stressing my PSU at all?