Possible hardware problem

[Konovalov]

I recently installed Lockon Flaming Cliffs 2 on my new system. Right off the bat I had problems where the sim would freeze and there were problems in the form of graphics flickering and artefacts. Everything started off fine but after a few minutes things started to deteriate.

 

Here was my orginal thread in the FC2 section:http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1045411#post1045411

 

I have since removed my Nvidia drivers 260.99, used driver sweeper from 3D Guru to remove any remnants while in Windows safe mode. I then installed older drivers 257.21 but the same problem persisted. I can only conclude that it is not a driver problem.

 

My system is as per my sig below. I recenlty built a new rig. The new parts were the core components such as motherboard, processor, memory, and a new hard drive. What I kept over from my old system were the Seasonic M12 600W PSU (installed in old system December 2006) and the graphics card EVGA GTX260 (installed in old system early 2009). The old system was a Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz CPU which I had overclocked from 2.4 up to 3.2 for about a year. Could it be that my PSU that I carried over from this time is failing or not delivering reliably juice to GPU? Or could it be my new tri-channel RAM. Not sure which direction I should look in? :helpsmilie:

[EtherealN]

Unfortunately, the easiest way to test most of those components is to replace them, which at best would require you to have a friend you can borrow some from. But flickering and artefacts could very well be overheating in the graphics card - when I push my 9800, especially it's memory, to the hotter realms that's what I get. The time aspect you are seeing would also give extra credence to this hypothesis since you are seeing very similar things to what I get when I overheat my card "on purpose".

 

You could try blowing through it with compressed air - over some two years of use you can catch a lot of dust in the internal plumbing of those cards which can make it easier to overheat them.

 

Also, before proceeding I would definitely recommend pulling absolutely everything back to stock. Get the CPUID HardwareMonitor application (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) and collect as much information as possible on the temperatures there, especially during use (run some games in windowed mode and see if there's any temperature spikes associated with the artefacts).

 

Unclean juice from the PSU should manifest as bluescreens and/or sudden shutdowns, not graphical flickers. At least from my own experience of PSU issues.

[Atomic978]

They have also power supply testers all over that are not expensive that you can buy and it will tell you if your power supply is going bad.

[Succellus]

I would concur with what Ethereal said.

 

I don t know about the overheating, but each time i have problem with grafic card it translate on artifact tearing and video freeze.

 

Take of your card, clean the dust with air blower, and/or a brush not made of nylon to avoid elestrostatic energy.

If you can/if enclosed unscrew the fan and clean it.

While cleaning the card check for oxyded (greenish) sold. It may be the case.

Mount it again. then do as Ethereal did, run windwed while running a monitiring program to check for overheat.

[Konovalov]

Thanks guys for the tips. When I get home tonight I will have a look. :thumbup:

 

Also, before proceeding I would definitely recommend pulling absolutely everything back to stock. Get the CPUID HardwareMonitor application (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) and collect as much information as possible on the temperatures there, especially during use (run some games in windowed mode and see if there's any temperature spikes associated with the artefacts).

Everything in the system is at stock except for the graphics card which is factory overclocked mildly.

 

It's an EVGA GTX260 Superclock model and I think I will need to remove the black plastic shroud off it just so I can clean it properly. Sadly I don't think I can just remove the plastic shroud. I will have to remove the whole heatsink undoing the screws. Not a big deal. I'll just have to clean the chip and reapply TIM to it before remounting. Will check also to make sure card's fan is spinning and so on. I'll report how I get on.

 

Hopefully it is something as simple. Come to think of it I also have a spare Nvidia 7900GS card lying about so I could pop that in and see if it runs ok apart from being on the slow side. :hmm:

Edited December 1, 2010 by Konovalov

[EtherealN]

Ah, doh on the OC thing - I've been readin a lot of comparative looks at i7 920/930/950 overclocking lately and got their stock clocks mixed up. My bad.

 

Regarding cleaning, if you just get hold of some compressed air you should be able to get it cleaned without removing the shroud, but how easy it is to get access to that is of course hard to say - I am fortunate enough to have compressed air in the warehouse.

 

On the 7900GS, that would be great for testing that as long as it's a PCI-e card, though if I remember right it should be. (That was the big crossover generation if I remember right - I bought a 7600 around then and had to troll the markets a lot to find one with on an AGP board for the system I had at the time.)

 

With luck, however, the HWmonitor application should be able to report temperatures for the graphics card. (For my 9800 it does give me a reading for the core.)

 

Good luck. :)

[Konovalov]

I have conducted a 12 hour stress test of my system using Prime 95 Blend test (tests some of everything, lots of RAM tested) and everything was fine there with not a single error came up and CPU temp not over 60c.

 

What is a good program to stress test my graphics card?

[Succellus]

I ve yet to find a compressed air source that clean moistured, then dried agreggated dust as a brush does.

[Succellus]

Look in this section of the forum there are some mentioned, especially when overclock is mentioned. I m too lazy to seek it for my new build system right now...Maybe tomorrow maybe this weekend... who knows.

[Konovalov]

I reckon it is definately the graphics card causing the problems. The card is an EVGA GTX260 55nm Core 216 SSC Edition. Being an SSC Edition it is factory overclocked with specifications being Core 675Mhz, Shader Clock 1453Mhz, and Memory Clock 1151 Mhz. I completely overlooked this as it has been in my machine for a couple of years now. :doh:

 

Anyway in game at the overclocked settings the GPU temp never really went over 60c. This lends me to believe that it isn't the core that is the problem but rather something else like the GPU memory. I conducted a simple test by returning the card to stock GTX260 levels (Core 576Mhz, Shader Clock 1242Mhz, and Memory Clock 999 Mhz) and what do you know. I managed to fly quickstart in Blackshark for 40mins with not a single stutter or graphical glitch. I think I will still open up my case and inspect the card. My guess is there may be dust clogging up the card somewhere. I'll report back on my findings. :)

[Konovalov]

Finally sorted

 

After trying all sorts of things over the last few weeks I resorted to re-formatting my hard drive and started from scratch. Thankfully it appears to have done the trick. Hopefully the problem doesn't reappear. Here is to a great 2011 and hopefully many more DCS modules to come. :)