f13.net forums - Help me fix/repair my computer!

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July 21, 2025, 06:55:16 AM

we're back, baby

So, my PC that I got about 2 years ago seems to have some serious issues.

Until about 2 weeks ago, though, never had a problem. I may have had a verrrrry occasional lockup, or a super-rare bsod stop error over the past couple of months (less than 1 a week, heavy use, well, heavy use after work). I either had the default drivers on it, or I upgraded tham back when one of the settings caused crashes in Terrokar forest after a WoW patch - but I think I just turned the WoW settings down, cos I hate fucking with drivers when a PC is working properly. Changing drivers always seems to fuck something up.

2 weeks ago I went on a break from work for 2 weeks. I installed Fallout 3, high settings.

I found the game crashed on me quite very frequently. Mostly it just shit itself after 5-30mins and dropped me back to the desktop, sometimes it ran for hours with no problems. Sometimes it was a complete lock-up, requiring the reset button.

A week ago I picked up the F3 DLC disc, installed it, repatched it. After this, I seemed to get more issues in the game - GUI elements hashing up, weird texture-mapping issues, etc. (Not in the new fallout areas, in the areas I had been playing anyway). After a couple of days, and a bsod-stop error, I decided to upgrade to the latest drivers.

This seemed to help, briefly, but I still had some issues. Vertical "lines" appeared on my screen at one point, but went away after a reboot. Played on and off for a couple of days, and

Played Titan quest with my friends this Wednesday evening/night, and while I was up getting a drink, they said my GUI/display "messed up", the lines appeared, and the game bsod-stop errored.

After rebooting, the Mobo screen had lines through it, the bootup text was all fucked up, and the desktop was again fucked.

I turned the thing off. Left it off for 30mins+. Took it out the back and gave it a good blow-through with the last of my can of compressed air.
Turned it back on, and it again ran fine. We played TQ again for awhile.

Thursday I played F3 for most of the afternoon with fewer crashes than usual. No problems. PC left on overnight downloading. Friday I didn't do any gaming, and just had the pc on doing background stuff (video edit rendering) on and off all day. In the evening, I decided to throw on F3 for a brief inventory check. It froze after about 5 seconds, had to reset button it.

And now the PC is fucked.

Booting up, I have vertical lines on the mobo screen, the bootup (dos-type) text is messed up, vertical lines appear on the dektop. I have stripped the drivers off, reinstalled the latest ones, stripped those off, reinstalled the ones from disc, used Driver Sweeper from Guru3d to nuke all the NVIDIA drivers' leftovers from it (as well as AGEIA PhysX) - It even found ATi display drivers on my PC which I stripped (WTF were they doing there?)

It briefly looked ok when I initially removed the latest drivers and reinstalled the ones from disc, I was able to set the desk back to 1600x1050, but it froze when I started to rearrange my icons (on the second icon). After that, it was back to fucked up.

So, my thoughts are - check the temperature - which utility from where should I use? (I dont want any malware, etc)
See if I can adjust the fans to maximum -
Check the various temperatures of my cpu/gpu/etc - again, which utility?
Try Omega drivers?

update - after the BSoD reboots "do you want to tell microsoft about this problem?" I turned the hardware accelleration off, and now, with no video drivers installed and the video card "not recognised", I have the pc running okay. Well, obviously video looks shit, and I can't play games, but the vertical lines are gone and it booted up more-or-less normally.

update - so I reinstalled the NVIDIA drivers, and installing them reset the screen to 800x600. It seems to be rebooting okay.
Of course, with hardware accelleration off, it's clearly still not a great result. I guess I can slowly increase the HA until it's fucked again, then scale it back by one notch. I can probably use the pc for work, but not games.

edit-update - re-installing the drivers from disc this time has also bumped up the hardware accelleration to max. Computer seems ok so far. I'm only going to use it for work for the next few days - no gaming on it till the work is done. I'm going to assume the fucked up graphics driver/card issues haven't magically gone away.

edit-update 2 - I had it sitting idle for 30mins or so while browsing on this comp. I then went over there, and had it hang up within 2 mins of trying to browse f13. Turned the hardware accelleration down by one notch. Seems to browse ok now. Clearly there are big issues.

This is the PC:

WD 320Gb 7200 16Mb Cache SATA 2 Hard Disk:
WD 320Gb 7200 16Mb Cache SATA 2 Hard Disk:
Pioneer DVR-212D SATA DVD Re-Writer (18x/8x Dual Layer Black):
Lite-On COMBO 52XCDR, 32XCRW, 16XDVD, BLACK:
Corsair DDR2 2GB PC-6400 (2x XMS2 1GB) TWIN2X2048-6400 RAM:
GIGABYTE NX88S320H-B-RH 8800GTS, 320MB, 320bit, GDDR3, 2xDualLinkDVI-I, TVOUT, HDTV:
1.44Mb Floppy Disk Drive (Black):
Microsoft Basic Black Value Pack PS/2 (OEM):
Windows XP Home OEM
Build with warranty
Intel CORE 2 DUO E6600/ 2.40GHz/ 4MB CACHE/ 1066FSB/ LGA775:
Asus P5B-E motherboard:
Thermaltake Matrix Black Case with 430W, VD2430BNS (2x120mm fans):

So, assuming that it is the death of my video card, I will need to buy a new one. Prices are in $AU, and these are two of the cheapest places to buy from. That's just how it is in this country, so don't get bent out of shape or link stuff from NewEgg etc. Not an option.
My choices are pretty much from these:

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/default.php?page=1&cPath=26
http://www.cpl.net.au/greenguide/20090711-web.pdf

Obviously I want something just as good, or if not, better. Also, reliable is good.

Fallout 3 runs hot or uses all of the ram (causing it to be hot).

Sounds like your video ram is going bad. I bet if you underclock the video ram and/or GPU the problem would go away. As long as it is able to boot into windows and run the underclock utility before it eats itself.

I had a video card with a similar problem. Underclocking it would fix it so it was usable but better off just getting a new one.

How would I do this? I will get a new one, I just can't afford it for a week or two, so I'll just use the pc for work until then, but still need it stable to do so...

Also, looking around the AU$300-ish price range from those links at most. Like I can go $340ish, but not into the $500-600 range.

??
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=37690
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=38246

Sounds like your video card got at least partially cooked--texture issues and vertical lines are a fairly common symptom. It may be fine until you try to use the damaged bits of it (e.g., using the 3D accelerator functionality or more of the video RAM).

If at all possible, it's worth popping in an old video card or borrowing one from someone else to try to make sure that nothing else on the system is bad. Sometimes just re-seating the card can help, and you can check for obvious signs of damage like char marks or burning-plastic smell once the card is pulled.

It might be a RAM issue as well; using memtest+ overnight should spot anything (if so, also try re-seating the RAM or pulling half of it before replacing it all).

As for temperature monitors, there may be BIOS settings to let the system alert or halt at certain levels; that can be a coarse-grain way to judge the temperature w/out any additional software. Otherwise, look for any motherboard-specific software (the last one I used was from Intel).

My gaming system is somewhat similar to yours (2 GB RAM, same processor, but Intel DP965 motherboard and older 7950GT video card), and it can *almost* handle Oblivion on max settings at 1600x1200 with some optimization tweaks and grass-polygon mods. I'm a bit afraid to try Fallout 3 on it as I expect I'd have to drop settings a fair amount, and I had to drop settings a fair amount to play Mass Effect. I only have a 550W power supply so getting a GT2xx (260/275/285/295) may not work reliably; watch out for that if you want to step up in video cards unless you do a power supply + video card upgrade.

Fuck. So basically, playing F3 killed my graphics card?

Unfortunately I have no other video cards of this type, and neither do any of my local friends.

I'll try that memtest utility overnight.

Any ideas on how I can best get Fallout 3 to not kill my replacement video card, once I get it?

Can probably find something here to underclock it with. I haven't used any of those for years but you might try RivaTuner. They are all made to overclock but usually they let you slow it down below normal too.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=13

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=38756

I like that one. Its a modest upgrade for you, and its relatively inexpensive, even in AU

I know it plays Fallout 3 just fine on 'standard' resolutions (max being probably 1680x1050) because its what my GF uses on a machine that's less powerful than yours (a CoreDuo).

That;s not bad, though I don't mind something in the range of the other two I linked if it'll get me a nice performance increase. My only fear though is F3 (or Crysis, or whatever) cooking the new card (whatever one it is).

nVidia offers it's its own nTune which I use to underclock my 8800 GTS 512. It integrates into nVidia Control panel.

The 8800 never worked with the clock speeds they shipped it with. I just drop both memory and core by about 50MHz and it works fine after that. If you want nTune to apply the settings automatically, you need to save the setings into a profile and then create rule that loads them when windows starts.

I wouldn't worry about it, unless you have bad air circulation in your case (you shouldn't, not with that case) OR the ambeint outside temp around the case is warm, like over 80F/27C.

Video cards go bad for any number of reasons, up to and including bad manufacturing, cheap ram, poor cleaning and poor stock cooling. Why yours went bad has little to do with the game. Games do not really break cards...You can push cards to excessive heat which in turn will reveal poor manufacturing, but all things considered, the conditions you describe should not have overtaxed your card that much in terms of performance.

Gotta remember. Fallout3 is basically Oblivion, a game that was originally designed around the 6000/7000 series cards.

Quote

The 8800 never worked with the clock speeds they shipped it with

I had not heard that. If you had issues, it may depend on which revision. My 8800GT has been just fine (after installing an aftermarket zalman fan).

using nTune, it tells me that my GPU is at 64C right now. Does this seem a bit hot, considering the PC is basically idle?

Can't figure out where the underclocking options are...

That temp is a bit hot, but nothing out of the ordinary. GPUs are rated to hit the 90s before the downthrottle to protect themselves. As I said earlier, I don't think you had a heating situation, or an over-taxing situation (an 8600 should have been just fine with F3), but a bum card situation. It happens. Don't go all neurotic on us!

Holy fuck you have some wonky stores over there.

But anyway, that Gigabyte card should be able to handle anything you throw at it; I have a similar card from XFX.

However, make sure you have the PSU to power it properly, and enough case clearance to fit it - my 260 BARELY fit behind the HDD cage, though your case may be larger.

Perhaps an obvious question, but have you blown the dust out of the card's heat sink & fan? A few dustbunnies can seriously overheat a memory chip or two on the card.

Quote from: Azazel on July 10, 2009, 11:58:10 PM

Fuck. So basically, playing F3 killed my graphics card?

Remember in EQ2 where you had to sell from your house and be online. Well i left my ATI 9700pro on one night and cooked the card on me. Your lucky mine wouldn't post at all.

It happens ACK!

Quote from: Azazel on July 11, 2009, 12:21:23 AM

using nTune, it tells me that my GPU is at 64C right now. Does this seem a bit hot, considering the PC is basically idle?

Not for an 8800gt mine ran around that temps and with 3d gaming closing in on 100c. Thats with the screaming little fan they put on the paliat i bought. I replaced the whole heatsink and fan with a single heatsink with no fan which cost $20 CAD. but it dropped the idle temp ~20c and the full 3d temps are down 15-20c. Thats with no fan on the heatsink, just ambiant airflow in the case circulating (some slow quiet 120's spinning x5).

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=105

Quote from: Strazos on July 11, 2009, 10:25:19 AM

Holy fuck you have some wonky stores over there.

Ha! Let me introduce you to some very popular stores ...

MSY: (yes that is an actual major shop website) Method - Find product on Engrish PDF, come to one of our shitty damp warehouses run by Taiwanese soup nazis, queue for an hour, no online ordering, no delivery (it's popular because it's crazy cheap). A third party volunteer auto-converts their PDF into a searchable database called MSY but readable.

Fluidtek: Holy FUCK, I've been to this place and it is the ultimate soup nazi setup. Everyone lives in fear of the owner, who was having a yelling argument with someone at the door when I arrived. No online ordering, no categories on the website, just everything listed on one page! Queue out the door.

Computer Market: For all your Engrish needs, "Computer Market On Line (Australia) is first and biggest Australia on line computer store since 1996," written that way since 1996 too.

Quote from: Strazos on July 11, 2009, 12:44:39 PM

lol

OMG. I just clicked on that on the computermarket site. Goes through to a site selling something called "water skipper". Click on their main featured product and you get http://www.waterskipper.info/ and a saga on the top of the page:

Quote

On Line Marketing (Australia) Pty Ltd Taking Legal Actions Against Auqaskipper Australia Pty Ltd
Andrew Maciver ( Mobile # 0424 950 199) - The Director of Auqaskipper Australia Pty Ltd (Registered as 1 Junction St. Strathfield NSW 2136) signed a purchase agreement of buying domain name www.aquaskipper.com.au, after treaty obtained the domain mane, he has no intension to pay the owning amount, On Line Marketing (Australia) Pty Ltd had filed a legal court action to claim Andrew breach of contract, and the court demanded Andrew to pay about $3000, on 23th Jan 2008 Sheriff officer has searched his registered company address and his mother told the sheriff officer her son - Andrew already ceased trading - but as you can see, this web site is still up and running so I suggest any one do not buy any products from him and his company as his company already ceased trading (as his mother told sheriff officer).

Not to derail the derail, but I feel your pain Azazel.

My evga 8800 gts 512 did the same damn thing this week. Mine's probably about 3 years old. And the way they're designed, even if you are diligent with cleaning, every random bit of dust gets stuck in a spot that you can't get to and evidently will eventually completely block the airflow. And no compatible cards in my personal tech graveyard.

Using a nearly 10 year old Dell laptop 'til the new parts arrive.
Go Go Inspiron 4000!

To Azazel:

It's impossible to say whether or not the cards mentioned here will give you a significant increase in performance without knowing the games you play (beyond Blood Bowl, since I don't think anybody has bothered to benchmark that one), the resolution you run at and the graphic settings you like to use (e.g. which flavors of AA and AF you like). The best thing is to look at lots and lots of benchmarks and do some "interpolation" (cause it'll be rare that you'll find one that'll exactly match your machine with only the GPU changing) to figure out which cards, if any, would give a good performance boost at your budget range.

See here for a previous discussion of this:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14149.msg649352#msg649352

hurm..

I use 1680x1050 as much as possible - I'm wanting it to smoothly run things like UT3, CoD4 (and the upcoming one), Crysis, Fallout 3 etc on settings that are as high as possible. Stuff like WoW, Titan Quest on max, LotRO as high as I can crank it (keeping the res to 1680x1050 though).

Basically I want to run the latest stuff decently or better, and I figure the older stuff should followingly run fine.

I did look up some benchmarks on Tom's the other day, (and again now) in this article
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-radeon,2326-8.html
and it seems that the GTX275, 896MB does pretty well in the price/power ratio compared to the 8800 GTS 320 that I have (which is still recent enough to nbe included, albeit, right down the bottom as far as the benchmarks go). Of course that doesn't take into account the rest of my hardware vs their hardware and bottlenecks and stuff I don't fully understand.

So this one might be my best choice. Hopefully. (?)

I've been looking at that very same GTX 275 card, because it appears to pack a whollop at that price (209 on newegg right now). Problem is that it is too freaking big. I can probably deal with the length, but I'm not sure if I can deal with any two slot card, as it appears that it will interfere with all my SATA connectors. Even if it doesn't, they put the damn 6 pin connectors on the side of the card, ensuring that I'd have to remove a hard drive to plug it in (and it still may not fit). In other words, make sure it'll fit your case. For reference, I have an 8800GT that fits no problem.

Quote from: Azazel on July 13, 2009, 09:44:56 PM

According to Nvidia's official site, the GTX 275 requires a 550W power supply. I don't think your 430W will do it (and I found my case has a 500W power supply, otherwise I'd be taking measurements to get one of those myself...)

Wattage doesn't mean jack shit. Try to find the required amperage @ 12v and see if your power source can supply that figure.

Well, you have to figure out the total expected peak amperage of your system. It's kind of a pain, as Trippy taught me, so it's easier to just splurge on a good PSU.

Hell, if you're building a nice system, you should splurge on a PSU anyway.