Massive Computer Problem! All Help Appreciated!

[CrusaderCon]

For the past month, I have had issues running the any sort of graphic intensive program or any games what-so-ever, and even though the problems were once minor crashes they have progessively gotten worse and are now massively f@(&ing with my computer and pocket change...

I'm running an ATI Radeon HD 4870x2 from VisionTek.

Problems:
At first, just crashed occasionally in a game like Call of Duty: World At War or Battlefield Bad Company 2, but it has gotten much worse over the month until now I have trouble even starting my computer!

The crashes have been happenning more recently then usual and now I was getting the (Display Driver FX has crashed and has successfully been recovered) Error back to my desktop. But to top it off, about a week after this increase in frequency, I wouldn't just crash back to my desktop, I would crash intirely and the whole computer would reboot.

Well, this made me just go, "WTF!" Until, a successor of destruction had decided to mess with my computer. It came along and not only would it crash and reboot, it would now not even let me activate any games (.exe), and when I would try it would intirely implode on itself and have the screen go crazy with random colors everywhere, then crash and reboot!

Well, this was really bugging me now and I serverely wanted an answer now. So, I decided to search for an answer in google, but I had one problem with that method. Now, the crazy colors and crashes on the monitor were appearing at startup and 90% of the time I couldn't even load up Windows 7 and logon, making my machine practically a vegetable.

At this point I was kind of screwed, and didn't have much else to do, but use my slow 1gb Ram VAIO laptop now. I looked around on google and found multiple things like my issue, but not a single fix that would work. For instance, driver updates, hardware temperature, and reinstall windows 7.

So far, I have self-concluded that the issue must be either the Hard Drive or the Video Card. Though, I thought that my RAM may have been incompatible with my GIGABYTE motherboard based on the memory compatibility list on their website, but I ordered new RAM that was listed and still no luck.

At this point I'm at a standby, and looking for any help possible.

Thanks,
CrusaderCon.

My Full System Specs:

Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3R LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750

Vigor Monsoon III LT Dual 120mm Fan CPU Cooler Socket 1366 Ready

MASSCOOL G751 Shin-Etsu Thermal Interface Material

VisionTek 900250 Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB 512-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Thermaltake Toughpower 850W

Old RAM: Kingston HyperX 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop - Memory Model KHX1333C7D3K4/8GX

New RAM: OCZ Gold Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 2000 PC3-16000 Low Voltage Dual Channel - Memory Model OCZ3G2000LV4GK

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

EDIMAX EW-7728In 32bit PCI Wireless 802.11n Draft 2.0 PCI Card

(2) - SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223L LightScribe Support - OEM

Rosewill RCR-IM5001 USB2.0 75 in 1 internal Card Reader w/ 3 ports USB2.0 Hub / eSATA port / Extra silver face plate / Molex Power

Hanns·G Hi-221DPB Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor

Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000

Steelseries 61001SS 3.5mm/ USB Circumaural 5H V2 Professional Gaming Headset

 

[hunter315]

What do you have in the way of spare parts to test with? Do you have a low power GPU that you could swap in, or does one of your friends have one that they would let you borrow?

I dont think the HDD is a likely cause, random colors are unlikely to be caused by a hard drive. A power supply issue seems more likely to me, there is also the potential that it may have damaged your GPU, so what i would do is see if someone has a low power GPU and PSU that you could borrow to see if you can boot, if you can and dont have any issues with it then it was either your GPU or PSU.

 

[4745454b]

Probably just a fried card. Starts off slow such as crashing to desktop, and moves onto artifacts (the crazy colors I'm assuming.) when trying to load windows. The card is shot.

As hunter says, do you have any spare parts? Odds are that if you put a different card in there you'll be able to use the machine again. Borrow one from a friend or buy one cheap off Craigs list for the test.

 

[claykirk13]

I agree with hunter. I've never known a hard drive to make the screen go crazy. Perhaps the combination of powerful video cards is overcharging your psu. I'd check to make sure the psu you're using supplies enough power to keep your graphics cards fully functioning. It'll usually say on the box the graphics card comes in or in the directions or online. Check to make sure the Watts the PSU supplies is at least at the minimum required for a crossfire set-up like that.

 

[lowriderflow]

Above are definately correct... do some swapping and testing as it could even be your motherboard. Seems like a video card issue... did you monitor the temps of your card? Do any overclocking... if you know the temps your GPU was running at it'd help to determine what happened.
You could also try reseating your video card heatsinks/fans with some new thermal paste... like arctic silver 5. Makes a big difference, especially if your thermal paste is cooked

 

[CrusaderCon]

No overclocking. 76 degrees celcius usually on full load. Yes, it has plenty of power I checked that before I bought it and the Thermaltake Toughpower 850W PSU.

ATI Radeon HD 4870x2:

System Requirements: 650 Watt or greater power supply with one 2x3-pin PCIe power connector and one 2x4-pin PCIe power connector is required (1K Watt with two 2x3-pin and two 2x4-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode)

 

[CrusaderCon]

@ claykirk13. Also, for the record. It isn't two ATI Radeon HD 4870's with a crossfire bridge. It is a single card called the ATI Radeon 4870x2, which contains two physical 4870 GPU cores. It displays it in the CCC as a Crossfire setup, but in a way it really isn't. I it just one really strong card.

 

[CrusaderCon]

Also, my bad. The reason I suspected the Hard Drive was that I wasn't even able to start Windows 7 sometimes and I was receiving bluescreens too occasionally.

 

[CrusaderCon]

Plus no, I don't have a spare card to put in the case. I guess I will need to try and find one.

 

[jsc]

Don't be so quick to discount the PSU as the source of your problems. An 850 watt PSU definitely should be able to power your system. But it is a ThermalTake.

 

[claykirk13]

Okay, sorry about that. I'm not familiar with that card. It still sounds like a graphics card problem to me though. If you say the PSU can handle it, I believe you. What I'd do (pretty much what everybody else said) is try to get ahold of a graphics card you know to be working so you can test it out. Also, if you can trade out PSUs (maybe borrow a friends), that should help isolate where the problem is coming from. IMO, I doubt it's the PSU, but I wouldn't want to discount anything.
I've seen problems like this when a graphics card overheats or is underpowered.

 

[CrusaderCon]

K, I'll try to look for a GPU & PSU that I can get my hands on and test them both out.

 

[Griffolion]

Agree with graphics problem, more specifically graphics memory problem. You can confirm this by looking at the type of BSOD you're getting.

Could be a RAM problem also if the BSOD you're getting says 'paged fault in non paged area'

Swap and check parts.

 

[CrusaderCon]

Bluescreen Errors Analysed So Far:

STOP Error 0x000000A1: PCI_BUS_DRIVER_INTERNAL

STOP Error 0x00000116: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

 

[CrusaderCon]

Best answer selected by CrusaderCon.