Load Testing PC

[sinij]

I finally got fed up with AoC crashes, so I canceled and picked up BioShock. Great game, but it also crashes :( ! Well I am starting to suspect my PC. When I put it together I briefly tested everything, but this time around I need to find out what is wrong. I am not overclocking anything. Every driver and all firmware are up to date.


So far I tested

a) overnight memory test - passed
b) 30 minutes CPU test - I will set it to test tonight overnight

I need to test GPU and raid (HDDs), any suggestions how to stress-test these? Thanks!

[Trippy]

GPU I let it run the FF XI benchmark or 3DMarks set on a loop overnight. If it's still running when I wake up I figure things will be pretty stable (and I have had cards that have failed this test which I returned).

[sinij]

FF XI benchmark

Final Fantasy benchmark? O.o

[Trippy]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/download/media/benchmark01.html

Back in the day this thing was brutal -- it was worse than running EQ II on your machine

Dunno how it runs on something like an 8800 or 9800 GT these days.

Edit: oh hey they are up to version 3 now. Probably still a good stress tester then.

[Engels]

Do people get these strange diagonal lines across the FFXI demo? I get great FPS with my 8800 on the demo, but there's this near constant effect that I vaguely remember from the actual game when I played it, what, 5 years ago? FFXI seems to use a very different rendering engine than most western MMOs...is it an effect of it being a console port?

[Trippy]

Nope never seen diagonal lines before.

[sinij]

With FF XI benchmark I get Err Code =3 within hour of running it :( no idea if I just forgot to disable some sleep/power safe mode setting or video card is actually crapping out. I used to run 3DMark in repeat mode but cheap bustards disabled it in *all* free versions.

[Trippy]

With FF XI benchmark I get Err Code =3 within hour of running it :( no idea if I just forgot to disable some sleep/power safe mode setting or video card is actually crapping out.

Did you try both resolutions?

I used to run 3DMark in repeat mode but cheap bustards disabled it in *all* free versions.

Well crap that's annoying.

Do you have something like UT 3? I believe that can be setup to run demo benchmarks in a loop.

[sinij]

Ya I have UT3... I have to look into how to set it up into loop benchmark.

Prime was stable overnight, 2 cores 100% load. Processor got to 70C but no errors. So now I need to determine if this is OS or GPU instability.

[sinij]

I tried number of UT benchmarks and none of them let me loop it!!!

From what I observed crashes almost always happen well within playtime, never right away. It also doesn't ever blue screen, it just crashes to desktop. FF demo gives err =3 some-time into test run, couldn't find anything on error codes.

[Trippy]

What are the GPU temps like right before/after it crashes?

[sinij]

75-77C at max load, I have good air flow and additional slot fan cooling GPU. FF benchmark only gets it to 60C.

I run semi-attended benchmark test with FF. I think error 3 is related to going to power-safe mode (even if I disabled everything I could find).

[schild]

Wow. That's hot.

[Engels]

not for a gpu. that's on the high side of good.

[sinij]

I did "light" WinXP reinstall, where I just installed it on top of old one without wiping any drivers or settings first.

BioShock and Age of Conan still regularly crash to desktop. I think I will start looking into error messages, maybe it will tell me why.

Logs are:

The application, C:\Program Files (x86)\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release\Bioshock.exe, generated an application error The error occurred on 08/03/2008 @ 18:16:05.312 The exception generated was c0000005 at address 4E0B759B (d3d9!Direct3DShaderValidatorCreate9)

Faulting application bioshock.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module bioshock.exe, version 1.0.0.0, fault address 0x001bed69.

[Engels]

So now you know its something to do with shader handling, which suggests a gpu failure. Did you use a fresh driver set, or one previously downloaded?

[sinij]

I am re-downloading Nvidia drivers right now. I am also going to reinstall directx.

Reinstalled *all* Nvidia drivers and DirectX. I doubt it will help.


At this point my guess is that BFG overclocked my video card too much - shader error I am getting is probably related to shader clock speed and only shows up at full load.

[Engels]

You can download NTune from Nvidia that will let you underclock your Nvidia video card. May be worth a shot, but to be honest, I think the damage may already be done.

[CharlieMopps]

You need a clean install.

Download all your drivers, Firefox, Adaware, spybot search and destroy, put them all on a CD...

FORMAT

Reinstall windows
install everything off the CD

Install 1 game/benchmark that was failing prior to the format


try again

[fuser]

Also try ATITool, ignore the name as it works for all video card vendors. Will let you know your GPU temp and is built for stressing the card with artifact testing for reliability.

Check your vendor's website for downloadable diagnostic utilities to check the hard drives (Also your raid controllers diagnostics). If you want to bench the disks try something like IOmeter which has binaries for Windows/Linux.

[CharlieMopps]

I'd also like to add, I'd reset your bios to defaults before you reinstall as well.

You could have some mem timings off or something.

[Engels]

Ya know, I just realised that its a 64 bit OS...its probably worth reinstalling everything from scratch with the absolute latest drivers you can find for all components involved. 64 bit technology is still pretty new in terms of consumer products, and lord knows what compatibility issues are festering beneath the surface, just waiting for that one memory call to that one bit of address space.

[sinij]

Also try ATITool, ignore the name as it works for all video card vendors. Will let you know your GPU temp and is built for stressing the card with artifact testing for reliability.

Check your vendor's website for downloadable diagnostic utilities to check the hard drives (Also your raid controllers diagnostics). If you want to bench the disks try something like IOmeter which has binaries for Windows/Linux.

Thanks!

60 min of artifact scanning - no errors. Temp is stable at 79c. WTF could it be?

[Engels]

How much ram are you using? Its possible that only on games that use every inch of your memory are you getting errors, since the upper end may not be used by casual use. Burn a copy of Ultimate Boot CD and run a memory test, or find another bootable disk that has Memtest86 and run that.

I bring this up because just today I was troubleshooting a machine that had two gig sticks of ram, and one was bad, as in totally borked. However, it would boot to the OS and run just fine till you ran something that took more ram to run. Then the program crashed, and occasionally, BSD.

[lac]

The application, C:\Program Files (x86)\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release\Bioshock.exe, generated an application error The error occurred on 08/03/2008 @ 18:16:05.312 The exception generated was c0000005 at address 4E0B759B (d3d9!Direct3DShaderValidatorCreate9)

c0000005 is a memory access violation. It's either poorly written software (that accesses memory where it shouldn't) or a hardware RAM defect as mentioned above. If you have multiple sticks of ram, try booting up with only one and see if it solves the problem (alternate as necessary). The memtest Engels suggested is very good too but can take quite some time.

[Engels]

My experience with Memtest86 is that if its a seriously broken piece of ram, it finds it in the first few seconds. I think that regardless of what phase the test it is in, it populates each stick of ram right out the gate.

[fuser]

The application, C:\Program Files (x86)\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release\Bioshock.exe, generated an application error The error occurred on 08/03/2008 @ 18:16:05.312 The exception generated was c0000005 at address 4E0B759B (d3d9!Direct3DShaderValidatorCreate9)

Faulting application bioshock.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module bioshock.exe, version 1.0.0.0, fault address 0x001bed69.

Try http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6356

[sinij]

My experience with Memtest86 is that if its a seriously broken piece of ram, it finds it in the first few seconds. I think that regardless of what phase the test it is in, it populates each stick of ram right out the gate.

Memtest was first thing I run - overnight and it was all fine.

[Engels]

well fuck

[lac]

With the hardware checking out alright, it looks like you are down to software.
If you still want to spend time and energy on this I'd recommend a fresh windows install in a different folder (without wiping your harddisk so you can still revert to your current os later). Upgrading it with the latest drivers and patches and seeing what that does for your gaming stability.
It's quite a lot of work but it will get you a squeaky fresh windows installation. It's something I do every six months just to stop windows from cluttering up and getting gradually slower. Pretty much all software will run without the need to reinstall but you will lose most your settings.

[Engels]

Alternately, you could use a single cheapo empty hard drive to install a baseline OS rather than gumming up your current config.

Have you uninstalled the graphics card drivers and run a driver cleaner app, then rebooted and reinstalled? I ask because Nvidia, for example, is notorious for leaving old driver files operational despite the driver update, and if one of those is corrupt, you'd not see an improvement.

[fuser]

Have you uninstalled the graphics card drivers and run a driver cleaner app, then rebooted and reinstalled? I ask because Nvidia, for example, is notorious for leaving old driver files operational despite the driver update, and if one of those is corrupt, you'd not see an improvement.

This man speaks the truth!

DriverSweeper is one of the best little utility's for this.

 A friend was playing around with his nvidia card's multi monitor handling with his LCD tv and eventually put his computer in a state where past the Windows XP bootup logo the video card wouldn't display on his desktop LCD. Tried to reset it 20 different ways with safe mode, removing the driver, registry settings, reinstalling a driver and it never worked. DriverSweeper fixed it and put the computer card back into a VGA driver/mode and reinstall of the drivers worked flawlessly.

[sinij]

well fuck

My sentiments exactly.

[sinij]

Have you uninstalled the graphics card drivers and run a driver cleaner app, then rebooted and reinstalled? I ask because Nvidia, for example, is notorious for leaving old driver files operational despite the driver update, and if one of those is corrupt, you'd not see an improvement.

I will try DriverSweeper.

[Trippy]

You really should reinstall WinXP from scratch.