2d artifacts and crashing

Martinni

Honorable
Jan 8, 2013
3
0
10,510
Thanks for taking the time to read. I will give as much detail as I can.

I am running an HTPC from spare parts and leftovers from upgrades.

Asus p5qpl-am mobo
Intel dual core processor. 2.4
2 gig ram
ATI HD 5770 1gig
LG blu-ray drive
1 seagate 1tb hard drives
2 WD 2TB hard drives

The pc was running fine in ubuntu 11.0 with the onboard video, but I upgraded my tv to a 3d plasma. For 3d to work you can't run off of VGA so I installed the 5770. Ubuntu didn't have the best tie with the card. It wouldn't play 1080p files with hardware accelleration turned on. and in software mode it would take up 100% of the cpu and frame rates would drop. So I installed Win 7 instead.

Installation went fine but I started noticing artifacts on the desktop and in XBMC when sitting at the home screen. Video playback was fine. After the movie file finished playing and it went back to XBMC home screen the computer would freeze, video would crash but i could still hear the computer respond when moving through the menu, or it would outright crash and require me to reboot. Once after letting the computer sit over night with the screen saver running, as soon as I moved the mouse Explorer would crash, recover crash in and endless loop.

I downloaded ATITool and did an artifact scan with no issues.
I downloaded Memtest and ran it for 50 minutes with no errors.

I know most of the issues are video related but this card was in another computer and working without issue until I installed it in the HTPC. Would an underpowered PSU cause these types of problems? I always thought a bad/underpowered PSU would just shut the computer down.

Any ideas would be helpful. My next step is to remove the 5770 and see if it stabilizes, and try the 5770 back in its original machine to see if I somehow damaged it during the transfer.

 
could be a few issues. i would run cpu-z see what speed your mb set the ram at. make sure look at the cpu-z spd tab for the speed the ram can run at. most older mb use 667 or 800 speed as max standard speed. also adding some ram will help..may be starving the system with low ram. power supply have a wattage rating the output (max) is not what you have to look at. you have to look at the 12v plus line. have to make sure the wattage and amps will hold the video card and the cpu. loks like online the max wattage of the 5770 is 110w. so look at your ps make sure the 12v line is great then 110w and 10 amps.
 

Martinni

Honorable
Jan 8, 2013
3
0
10,510
So removing the video card did stabilize the pc. As the card worked fine in my other machine I ordered a new PSU. With the new PSU and the video card installed, everything is working fine again.