7950 killing my whole PC?

[Blarginator]

Hello, i am in desperate need of help, i recently bought a sapphire 7950 OC edition and put it in my rig, i at first noticed some coil whine and had i believe one crash in far cry 3 ( I attribute that to running it heavily oc'd for hours) But aside from that it was running smoothly, then 2 or 3 days ago i was just playing some Battle for Middle earth 2 and i crashed.. I restarted and tried again.. 10-20 mins in it happens again (full system failure, not just crashing to the desktop) so i restart and try some mw2, while playing im getting constant frame drops down to like 5-10 fps and a full crash within minutes, i try other games.. All with the same end result. Soo i decide to get a friend to test it with his rig(same result) while i put an old 6570 in mine. Games run very choppy but dont crash so on that front i assume that is the problem and plan on RMAing it. But after putting the 6570 in i now have white noise covering anything i try to play through the speakers! SO i assume its the 6570's fault sooo i swap the 7950 back in and the sound continues! I attempt to use my monitors speakers, they seem a-ok unless i use chrome in which case the sound is choppy. A friend of mine suggests it is the RAM so i run memtest, it does say the RAM is corrupt. (I do plan on buying new sticks) now, i am just crashing at random. So on my next startup i am informed that my HDD seems to be corrupt(not sure of the exact message, rather common just says it needs to clean it) soo i let it do its thing and now everything is extreeemely boggy. And any software that i try to run to get a grasp on if the card is defective takes literally minutes to even show that i have started it(EX:3dmark) So i am just totally at a loss:/ every component seems to be failing one by one (yes i have updated the drivers on everything) Vertical lines are evident for games like Far Cry 3, or BF3 please help.. My gaming wings have been cut and the crysis 3 demo is out!

just a recap of my errors

-Games crash my whole rig
-onboard sound seems to be shot(hdmi output works)
-overall speed EXTREMELY low
-hdd errors, ram erros, gpu errors.

Specs: Antec 650 earthwatts, M597 LE R2.0 mobo, FX 6300 (@4.4ghz w/h80) 8gb(2sticks) Patriot sector 5 1333 ddr3, sapphire 7950 OC(<--- all the problems started when he showed up >) 1st hdd 1.5tb seagate 5400rpm 2nd hdd 500gb seagate 7200rpm

 

[g-unit1111]

Does your motherboard support on board video? If it does try running your PC without the 7950 and see what it does. If it doesn't then take out the drivers and run Windows in safe mode and see what that does.

It sounds like it's an issue with Windows in which case you'll have to do a full format and reinstall the whole OS.

 

[lunyone]

My first guess is that you have a PSU issue, but you might also have a Mobo issue too. The vertical lines on the screen scream GPU issues, but if the PSU can't/isn't handling the load of the GPU, you might have a PSU problem.

Things I'd try:
* Run Memtest86 and Prime95 on your system and see what kind of results that you have (try it out on stock settings - NO OC's).
* If Memtest86 and Prime95 run fine, than try running your system on the same settings (NO OC) and see what you get.
* If you still have issues try a different GPU out on your system?
* Borrow a PSU from a friend (if you have that option) and see if that changes anything (hopefully it would be at least a 450w Quality PSU).
* Maybe your Windows install is having issues, but most of this should/could show up during the Prime95 testing.

 

[Blarginator]

It does not, but i have been planning on doing a clean install. god i hope its a windows problem

 

[jesse-2010]

I'm 95% sure it's not your GPU i've had two bad ones , first one was a 640MB 8800GTS Extreme version this GPU ended up with a memory leak due to over heating from the fan that stopped working completely ; second issue was a HD 5850 not sure exactly what was wrong but from the very start it would constantly crash in everygame it would show artifacts everywhere after i replaced each card the issues went away, but the GPU's never once caused the PC To ever crash ; now the only unrecoverable thing you can have from a GPU is when it's so undervoltage not only does it caues your display driver to stop responding but it's so far undervoltaged it actualy locks the computer up and you have to manually restart it , but when this happens you will see graphicaly stripped lines on your screen and it will stay like that (keeping ur pc on) until you restart it .

 

[jesse-2010]

I also gota say you are running a lot on that 650watt PSU , but without buying anything you can try downing the clocks down on everything stop overclocking completely CPU.GPU.RAM not getting enough voltage can easily all crash and that's not even counting if it's not getting enough wats from the PSU, especialy if this started happening with the new GPU it might of pushed your PSU over the limit

 

[lunyone]

I also gota say you are running a lot on that 650watt PSU , but without buying anything you can try downing the clocks down on everything stop overclocking completely CPU.GPU.RAM not getting enough voltage can easily all crash and that's not even counting if it's not getting enough wats from the PSU, especialy if this started happening with the new GPU it might of pushed your PSU over the limit

His PSU, in general, should be fine, but depending on how old it is it might make a difference. Antec 650w PSU's are generally fairly good, but he could have a bad one and not know it until now (more load on the PSU).

 

[jesse-2010]

You can test both the ram and CPU to see if it's voltaged enough , what you can do is get AMD overdrive and run the calculation test 0,1,2,3 test all at the same time this will test ram/cpu at same time . Even if it doesn't crash you should monitor your cores at CPU statis , if any of the cores ever drop bellow 100% this will cause a crash because it's stable but not for long periods of time. My computer would crash once a day or two days , i did this and now my computer hasn't crashed for the last 6 months a single time except when the dang power went out lol

 

[jesse-2010]

His PSU, in general, should be fine, but depending on how old it is it might make a difference. Antec 650w PSU's are generally fairly good, but he could have a bad one and not know it until now (more load on the PSU).

Yes not Ocing that PSU is plenty even if it's not the best model , but hes OCing liquid on CPU and he didn't even post the GPU clocks

 

[g-unit1111]

Yes not Ocing that PSU is plenty even if it's not the best model , but hes OCing liquid on CPU and he didn't even post the GPU clocks

I bet that's the root cause right there. Maybe try running your motherboard on default settings and see what that does.

 

[Blarginator]

could a bad stick of ram mess up my audio?

 

[Blarginator]

Did a complete windows and bios install and everything seemed so great but as soon as i launch a game its extremely laggy and crashes out within seconds. (black screen until i restart it.

 

[lunyone]

Did a complete windows and bios install and everything seemed so great but as soon as i launch a game its extremely laggy and crashes out within seconds. (black screen until i restart it.

If you follow some of my previous suggestions, you might be able to troubleshoot the issue down a bit. Like running Memtest86 and Prime95 on stock settings as a starter. My bet is you either have a bad mobo or PSU or maybe even both, but you have to try and figure out which it is. Also if you have a lower spec'd GPU you can try, you could try that too (assuming it consumes less power).

 

[Blarginator]

Yeah i did all of that. Currently running on a 6570 :l and i you think the psu us bad? or just not enough?

 

[lunyone]

The PSU should be PLENTY for your setup, so I would think that your PSU isn't working right. If you could borrow another PSU with the 6570 GPU and you still have issues, than I would say for sure your PSU is the issue. You didn't mention that you tried the options I listed, so that is why I restated my questions.

 

[Blarginator]

Well the 6570 runs games without cleanly.. Or as cleanly as it can after a 7950 lol. But the audio is still shot. I think the onboard sound is shot tbh... Unless ram could be the issue on that front. As i said before i can run sound through the hdmi no problem but if i try to hook the speakers up to the front or back audiojack i get some extreme white noise. And i know the speakers work because they work through the monitor no problemo. (On another note should i get a better mobo if i plan on getting an 8350? sabertooth perhaps?)

 

[lunyone]

Well if you have run the Memtest86 than you would know if your memory is bad, but it's starting to sound like maybe your Mobo might be part if not all of your problem.

On the lower-end I would look at something like this (assuming you need a new Mobo):

$90 - $10 MIRc= $80
ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

If you can afford something a bit more with a possibility of future proofing:
$150 - $10 MIRc = $140!!
ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS