Why does my card keep doing this?

[DaddyB]

When I play america's army for a little while my computer locks up and a bunch of verticle lines of various colours pop (see image below) up on my screen, sometimes the audio keeps going, sometimes it loops. It has happened in UT2K3 a few times (no suprise since its the same engine) but in Army Ops in will keep happening reboot after reboot after about 10 min of play. The strange thing is it only happens sometimes, a while ago I tried to play about 5 times and that kept happening but if I try to play tomorrow I will be able to play for hours on end.

This happens regardless of weither the card is OC'd or not so Im sure its not related to temps and I have tried various Via 4in1s. I have tried setting the AGP voltage to default, 1.6V and 1.7V, I have also tried setting the M/B BIOS to AGP 2X and AGP 4X. I have even tried moving PCI cards around (only have NIC + sound) to change the IRQs.

Its hard to troubleshoot because as I said somedays I can play for long periods and sometimes it will just lock up while playing, then I reboot and restart the game and it locks after 10 min again...ect. The CPU is 100% stable and my temps rarely go over 44c, case les then 30c.

The card in question is an ATi AIW radeon 8500dv with Corb and ramsinks running cat 2.3 drivers (newest), 300W PSU, the rest of the system is in sig. Other games run fine (morrowind, dungeon siege, RTCW) even UT2K3 runs perfectly most of the time (its had this problem maybe 3 times). Could it be the card is bad or a driver isuue or just something wrong in the game's code? Most of the time it runs great its maybe one night every two weeks that it just keeps locking up.

Im really annoyed and am considering putting the ATi HSF back on and asking ATi for a replacement if the problem doesnt go away with the next set of catalyst drivers. This is a picture of what happens, (that black part is just the refresh rate thing that happens when you film a monitor or TV):

 

[MospeadasDark]

Tried clocking the proc back to default speed?

Could be a PSU that cannot supply enough clean power. Esp with the newer, more demanding games.

 

[DaddyB]

No i havent tried clocking the CPU back, Im running at 151 FSB so the AGP bus is at about 75.5mhz, I figured that wasnt too high but Im gonna try playing again in a min and if (more like when) it locks up again Ill set it back down to 133. My cpu is unlocked so maybe I'll have to raise the multi and keep the FSB lower cause i know the cpu itself is good.

The PSU thing crossed my mind cause I know my voltages are a little low to begin with (+5V runs at about 4.75 idle, 4.6 load). Its just strange that the problem comes and goes.

Oh well Im gonna try to play AA and Ill post back after I lower the FSB and play.

 

[Yodums]

Yeh, when you said 300watt PSU, that could very well be your problem. I think it isn't supplying the thing enough power since they do take up alot of power and having to move on with the 12v connectors. Take out the card making sure your grounded and inspect the card. Last time I would get left over artifacts from previous images and the cause of this was a strand of hair stuck to the sticker. I hope Arctic Silver isn't on the card either.

Yodums

 

[DaddyB]

I really dont want to replace the PSU but I think Mospeadas' idea about lowering the AGP bus will fix it. Actually I had some major artifacting before due to AS epoxy on the RAM but I cleaned it up with acetone and a toothbrush and havent had problems like that since. Now the RAM sinks are just held on with thermal tape. Im sure thats not the problem, especially now...

I tried it at 133 FSB and played like 5 games (ran fine) then I quit and clocked it back up to 150 and it did that after about 20 seconds of playing so I think the AIW card just cant handle that high of an FSB. That sucks I really wanted my RAM running at 300mhz, oh well. so Im going to up the multi and lower the FSB and im pretty sure it will be OK. I have run prime 95 for more then 90 hours at this speed/fsb so Im sure its not the cpu therefore it must be that AGP bus.

Well Im off to do some math to figure out what FSB/multi to use. Thanks for the help all and Ill post back when im back up to speed, running at a lower multi and able to play AA: Ops.

 

[DaddyB]

Well Ive tried 144x12 and 138x12.5 and both still make my card crash, the only setting that works is the default 11.5x133. So now Im stumped. I didnt change the Vcore when running at default (left it at 1.85V) so the demand on the PSU should be the same at default or OC'd. I didnt try 133x12 or 12.5 but Ill give that a shot tomorrow if the card is still crashing.

Anybody have any ideas? Think the card just cant handle any OC of the AGP bus anymore? Im really starting to think the card isnt 100% stable, right out of the box the card would (and still does) get the ocassional blue screen while running 3D mark and the longer I have this card the more trouble it seems to give me.

 

[asw7576]

AGP 66.7MHz

I have this problem before when playing in games at FSB 145.

I have to run at FSB below 135 when playing games. Maybe my VGA is not good at any AGP speed over 66.7MHz.

Strongly agree with Yodums's opinion about 300watts PSU. I think is too weak for AMD system above 1.5GHz

 

[DaddyB]

Well I played a few hours at 133x12.5 and it ran flawlessly but im not happy about running at the default FSB or running at only 1680mhz (motherboard runs at 134.5 when set to 133). So I guess my options are modding the L10 bridges to allow me to run at 133x13 or buying a new video card and putting this one in my dell or sending this one back to ATi to get a replacement... that sucks.

Again, Thanks for the help guys.