Strange instability issue - time for a new PSU?

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daws0n

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
111
Hey everyone,

My desktop PC has had intermittent stability issues since installing a new GPU last year (HD 6870, replaced a HD 5770)... What happens is the computer will hard freeze (no cursor response, unable to change lock states on keyboard), but if music is playing via foobar it will continue to do so. Within a minute or two of this frozen state control can be regained like nothing has happened... Sometimes the systray will notify that AMD graphics display driver were not responding and have restarted, but most of the time no messages occur at all. II have had this fault for months now through various Catalyst versions, and have lost no data due to these crashes but it's very annoying at times!

My first instinct is "faulty PSU"... It's an old Seasonic S12 600w that's served me very well through 3 upgrades - it's seemingly still going strong. I tried to induce a PSU related crash today, running prime 95 and furmark on full resolution for the past hour 0 problems.

So, I'm a bit stumped on this one. Should I fork out the cash on a new PSU and take or chance, or do you think the problem may lie elsewhere?

Any thoughts/comments much appreciated :)
 
If P95 and Furmark were stable, then I would be inclined to think that your problem lays elsewhere. A 6870 system will never pull more than 450 watts from your power supply unless you have a dual-CPU system.

You might have faulty drivers, you may have graphics problems, you might have a virus, or any wide range of possible problems.
 
This card has been a major PITA for drivers - it's very unstable with some Catalyst versions IME. When I first installed it I was going to RMA as I couldn't get it to render any 3d at all! Only a full driver uninstall + driver sweeper and the latest catalyst suite would get it running OK. Are the 6870s known to be problematic with drivers?

Computer is 100% clean for viruses/malware, RAM has been replaced/upgraded through out problem so I guess that leaves the mainboard or possibly the operating system as the next possible culprit.

Specs:
i5 750 CPU + cooler master aftermarket cooler
2 x 120mm zalman case fans
MSI GD-65 version 1 motherboard
Powercolor HD6870
Asus Xonar STX
Seasonic S12 motherboard
SSD + HDD
2 x IDE optical drives
 
Playing Darkness II on full settings no problem, but still getting this crashing every so often... Mostly during web browsing firefox...

Have looked into it some more and it appears to be a TDR issue - the GPU stops responding for anything up to a minute, and then recovers. Sometimes I get a notification of this in the systray, but not all of the time.

Currently messing with hardware acceleration features/GPU 2d clock speeds to see if it can be tamed.
 
I had a problem similar to you.. I at first assumed my ram, checked individual sticks and ran an iso of memtest86+ for several passes each.. all passed.. I lost all hope until i looked in device manager/system devices and saw all my chipset drivers weren't installed at all, even though I know they "did" install because windows said it ''did'' haaa. I didn't have any yellow flags on my chipset drivers but i right clicked on any of them properties - then looked on driver, they were no drivers. So try this, it won't take as long as testing ram & you can get it out of the way. Systems do weird things with no chipset drivers
 
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