Help - Video Card/PSU/Software issue?

[niko_12]

I have had this custom built rig for about 3 years now, I have a E6600 Core 2 Duo, P5N32 SE Deluxe Mobo, 2 gigs of corsair xms 800 mhz ram, an evga 7900 GT and a 550 TruePower 2.0 antec PSU.. I need help because as of 2-3 weeks ago I have been getting the BSOD (with the nv4_dsp.dll error) and only while playing certain games.. I re-installed my graphics drivers by removing the old ones and re-installing with 260.99 but that didn't do anything except make it crash more often from what it seemed like... but then I found out about Driver Sweeper, removed the graphics and chip-set drivers, went into safe mode, used driver sweeper and installed 260.99 and the newest chip-set drivers asus had on their site via the .exe

My problems disappeared for a couple of days, played my games peacefully with no BSOD but then it started happening very rarely, maybe once a day even if I'd spend 10 hours on the computer... the reason I'm here is to get an opinion as I have no idea what might be causing this anymore. Should I just say screw it and purchase a new video card? maybe the PSU is becoming old and the capacitors are going bad? (I read that it happens with age to PSU's naturally somewhere) Any feedback would be greatly appreciated because it is becoming annoying to have to reboot the computer so often for no reason and I don't know where the source of the problem is!

One thing I noticed is when i re-installed my chip-set/graphics drivers my computer seemed to be running more smoothly than before... for example it was more responsive with opening programs and not just loading graphics, and now it seems to have returned to it's old state which I thought was just because the PC was aging

If anyone could help and wants me to post some kind of data some program gathers I will gladly do it and it will be very much appreciated and thank you!

 

[bystander]

Have you monitored the temperatures of the card? It's quite possible it's over heating due to a fan going bad, dust bunnies, or the heatsink came loose.

It is possible the PSU is bad too, but first check the temps of your card. Try downloading GPU-Z or MSI Afterburner.

 

[niko_12]

Under load it's running at 80/81 C when it's not under load it's between 50-60 C according to nTune monitor. Should I try removing it from the mobo cleaning it out and tightening the heatsink and fan?

 

[bystander]

It should be ok at those temps.

Did you change anything prior to it starting to have issues?

 

[niko_12]

Not that I can think of. No hardware changes, I might of downloaded a game or two and by the way I thought I should add that once I gave it a clean-up and tightened the bolts on the video card connected to the heat-sink and fan it hasn't crashed on me yet but also another thing is that it almost always would crash while playing World of Warcraft and for some reason when I hit the windows key to see my task bar. I do play other games that load the gpu just as much but none have caused this crash so far except WoW. Any ideas?

 

[bystander]

WoW has lots of updates, and if you are like most WoW players, you have lots of mods. Often times a WoW update causes problems with your mods, sometimes enough to cause crashes. I'd make sure you update all your mods, and try disabling any out of date you can try adding them back as you test the stability of your system.

 

[niko_12]

WoW has lots of updates, and if you are like most WoW players, you have lots of mods. Often times a WoW update causes problems with your mods, sometimes enough to cause crashes. I'd make sure you update all your mods, and try disabling any out of date you can try adding them back as you test the stability of your system.

Hey thanks for all your help the BSOD is no more after I removed it from the slot, gave it a vacuum clean, and tightened everything on the card (it's been a week without it).

I didn't have any mods for WoW but thought I might add that today one of my memory sticks went bad either after I went into my motherboard settings for my p5n32 se deluxe and set the AI Overclock settings to N.O.S. or just didn't notice it had burned out which would make sense because the last couple of days I had noticed a huge decrease in performance for my PC as going from 2gbs to 1gb is significant these days. Just wondering if the ram could of caused my BSOD error even though it said nv4_dsp.dll error?