Help, e6400 stable... except in games!

[anixon]

I've got the following configuration:

e6400 @ 3.0ghz (375 x 8, 1.32vcore)
MSI P6N Sli-Fi
OCZ Platinum XTC 2x1GB PC6400 4-4-4-15 (auto 1.9v?)
BFG 8800GTS 320mb OC 550/1600
Onboard sound
Scythe Mine HSF, P180B, Seasonic S12 500w

My cpu is overclocked to 3ghz and I've stressed tested it... I did memtest overnight probably about 18hours and I've run orthos overnight as well... around 12 hours or so. My temps at idle are around 44-48 and at load 55-58.

I'm running windows vista 32bit with the latest nvidia 158.18 drivers. My problem is that Dark Messiah kept randomly crashing... hard locks. need to reset. I tried to look for fixes for the game because I know it was very buggy. I couldn't find anything that worked and then I gave up. But I just dismissed it as an "I can't play that buggy game" scenario. However, I recently put Battlefield 2 on my machine and it's also randomly hard locking. Maybe after 40-45 min. it will just freeze. So there's definately something wrong. But like I said orthos and memtest seem fine.

I tried upping my vcore in the bios from 0.0250+ to 0.0375+ but no luck. Does anyone know what could be causing these lockups? My next guess was maybe my Northbridge was getting too hot... because the Scyth Mine allow air to pass over it... I think my northbridge is usually around 50-53 at load (or so i'm guessing, as I assume it's temp1 in Speedfan... I don't know where else I would fine this temp. Note: My processor temps I read in CoreTemp and TAT)

Any help is appreciated. This is driving me nuts!! I can't play any games. :confused:

[ghost6303]

could also be a vista bug, vista seems to have some very strange and erratic 'quirks' (read: major flaws). what power supply you have? i could also be bad line voltage. have you tried lowering your overclock to see if it still happens?

[BlessedBullet]

I had a ton of crashes with the beta drivers in VIsta. When I rolled back to the first signed Vista drivers that where released, everything worked fine.

[TheRapture]

could also be a vista bug, vista seems to have some very strange and erratic 'quirks' (read: major flaws).

That's kinda a bad tip....it's not Vista, rather, it is most likely a crappy NV driver....

[roaf85]

Applications run in a control environment in Windows. If you are getting BSOD it is most likely some sort of hardware error. If it results from software it is because it has corrupted some sort of driver etc.

[dnottis]

STALKER is the same way in Vista. I think it's Vista.

[anixon]

I'm not getting BSOD. Just image/sound/mouse freezes and I can't do anything with keyboard. All I can do is press reset or power button. There's no error messages or anything.

Damn VISTA! Sigh, I was already used to vista but it's totally worthless if you can't run any games or anything.

I'm going to try to maybe install the latest signed drivers as suggested above, that seems like the most plausible solution at the moment.

[anixon]

could also be a vista bug, vista seems to have some very strange and erratic 'quirks' (read: major flaws). what power supply you have? i could also be bad line voltage. have you tried lowering your overclock to see if it still happens?

I've got a Seasonic 500W powersupply. I think that should be enough for my config. I'd prefer not to lower my clock, I feel I 3.0ghz is very mild and I don't want to be running lower. But if the signed drivers don't work then I'll probably give that a try.

After that, I'm thinking maybe my northbridge is too hot. It gets scorching, I can't put my finger on for more than maybe 1 sec. I've ordered a little 40mm fan, but it hasn't arrived yet. But I'll try that when it comes so maybe it will make a difference.

[ghost6303]

mild or not, to test if thats your problem drop it down. if it still does it then its not clock-related. im not saying you have to keep it lower then that. and whats the actual temp of the northbridge? you can check in bios under hardware monitor.

[Dethred]

Try lowering your clocks to stock, and if that doesn't work then RMA the card. If that doesn't solve it, then its a software issue probably. If it is, just sell the thing and get a different card or ATi.

[trxjw]

mild or not, to test if thats your problem drop it down. if it still does it then its not clock-related. im not saying you have to keep it lower then that. and whats the actual temp of the northbridge? you can check in bios under hardware monitor.

Yep. At least at stock speeds you know it's not the OC thats giving you problems. One less thing to get in the way of your search.

FWIW my friend also had several of his games (BF2 included) locking up with a 8800GTS in Vista, his machine is a 939 system though. We couldn't figure it out, so we wiped out the Vista install and installed XP Pro. Been 3 weeks an no lockups at all.

[anixon]

SWEET!! I solved it. It was the beta drivers. I just finished playing 2.5hours of BF2 with the 100.65 drivers and I didn't have any problem. :-D

[anixon]

Sigh, nevermind BF2142 just crashed on me... will try to go back to stock speeds tommorow and play... hopefully it will work... then maybe I'll try overclocking again when the fan for my northbridge comes... if that doesn't work, i'll try upping different voltages on my overclock. If that doesn't work... I'll cry. :(

[ghost6303]

If that doesn't work... I'll cry. :(
sound like a plan

[clayton006]

When I was overclocking with my rig in the sig, orthos and memtest would go for days.
When I'd launch a game it would hard lock, not so much BSOD.

I found that I had to up my ram voltage (didn't OC the ram because it was unlinked, but it was too low for stock timings from the SPD) and my northbridge voltage. Once I upped these two, it puuurred like a kitten :D