Multiple problems of unknown source, help greatly appriciated

[Kazha]

Well, all in all, I have a number of problems, and for ease of reading
I'll try to present them in a logical fashion. My system is entirely
homebuilt, and it's specs are as follows
CPU: Pentium D940
RAM: 1GBx2 DDR2-667 Running in Dual channel interleaved mode
Mainboard: Asus P5LD2, latest BIOS
GFX Card: Asus EN7900GT 256MB, using newest Nvidia drivers
Sound Card: Creative audigy 2 ZS, using cd-bay ...thing.
Speakers: Klipsch promedia 2.1
Monitor: Viewsonic VA1912wb, running at 1440x900@32bpp, connected
via DVI
Power supply: TT 500w, dual 12v rails

My apologies if I neglected some relevant point, kindly ask me for
the information if it is nesessary. So, my difficulties first
manifested themselves as odd graphical issues, specifically, an
idividual polygon in a model or terrain in a game would seem to
'detach' and be moved far away. I have heard that this can be caused by
faulty cooling, however, I've run the same games with tempature
monitoring, peak temp was 55 degrees centigrade, and artifacts
persisted. I've attempted to reseat the graphics card, and checked the
power connectors to no avail. Now, with the progression of problems,
I've had games (World of warcraft, TES: Oblivion) crash entirely,
either as a black screen then reboot, or a irretriveably frozen cursor
resistant to ctrl alt delete. There also have been artifacts in POST,
that is, single, miscolored pixels, usually red or blue. Regarding
trouble shooting I've done, the main program that's given me benefical
data has been BurnInTest, which reports an extreme number of
errors(roughly 25% of the 'operations') in the 2D graphics test, as
'Video ram corruption' however, zero in 3D test. Additionally, I've
noticed that the address from which is being read will come up in the
'value recieved' colum, that is, 'x00 couldn't be read expected: x0a
recieved: x00'. This makes me inclined to think that it is a program
difficulty rather than the hardware, although, I'm at my wits end, and
very likely going to RMA the card soon.
My second problem is that, when switching between a full screen
application(usually WoW, but also occurs with oblivion) , and another
application or the desktop, I get a highly grating, loud noise through
my speakers. It seems almost as though there is a short somewhere, but
I don't know how to go about diagnosing that, or if it is even the
problem. I've updated the sound drivers to their latest version, seemed
to have no impact. The sound is not uniform, lending credence to it
being a hardware difficulty. I occurs without music playing in the
backround and with music playing, the only noticable diffrence is that
when music is being played, it is louder. Once again, I've checked all
of my connections, to no help. I haven't any futher clue what the
problem is for this one.
Any and all help would be greatly appriciated. It is worth noting,
that until after the problems had arised, I had been using a 400W
powersource, with a single rail, and an adapter for both the 6 pin
pci-e, and 24 pin mainboard connectors. Additionally, in my house, the
electrical system is rather mecurial to begin with, lights dimming
under load and the like. I wish to know if that could have damaged my
hardware. I haven't overclocked my machine significantly at any point
in time, I had a 5% overclock as per BIOS for a time, but didn't
mantain it because it had no real benefit as far as I could tell. To
reiterate, any and all help would be appricated. Thanks for your time.

 

[JAD]

Well, all in all, I have a number of problems, and for ease of reading
I'll try to present them in a logical fashion. My system is entirely
homebuilt, and it's specs are as follows
CPU: Pentium D940
RAM: 1GBx2 DDR2-667 Running in Dual channel interleaved mode
Mainboard: Asus P5LD2, latest BIOS
GFX Card: Asus EN7900GT 256MB, using newest Nvidia drivers
Sound Card: Creative audigy 2 ZS, using cd-bay ...thing.
Speakers: Klipsch promedia 2.1
Monitor: Viewsonic VA1912wb, running at 1440x900@32bpp, connected
via DVI
Power supply: TT 500w, dual 12v rails

My apologies if I neglected some relevant point, kindly ask me for
the information if it is nesessary. So, my difficulties first
manifested themselves as odd graphical issues, specifically, an
idividual polygon in a model or terrain in a game would seem to
'detach' and be moved far away. I have heard that this can be caused by
faulty cooling, however, I've run the same games with tempature
monitoring, peak temp was 55 degrees centigrade, and artifacts
persisted. I've attempted to reseat the graphics card, and checked the
power connectors to no avail. Now, with the progression of problems,
I've had games (World of warcraft, TES: Oblivion) crash entirely,
either as a black screen then reboot, or a irretriveably frozen cursor
resistant to ctrl alt delete. There also have been artifacts in POST,
that is, single, miscolored pixels, usually red or blue. Regarding
trouble shooting I've done, the main program that's given me benefical
data has been BurnInTest, which reports an extreme number of
errors(roughly 25% of the 'operations') in the 2D graphics test, as
'Video ram corruption' however, zero in 3D test. Additionally, I've
noticed that the address from which is being read will come up in the
'value recieved' colum, that is, 'x00 couldn't be read expected: x0a
recieved: x00'. This makes me inclined to think that it is a program
difficulty rather than the hardware, although, I'm at my wits end, and
very likely going to RMA the card soon.

I would first check DirectX install
Then BIOS settings for Video/agp/PCIx
Also video driver settings Glide/directx/ fast writes/ smartgart (ati only?)
etc.

My second problem is that, when switching between a full screen
application(usually WoW, but also occurs with oblivion) , and another
application or the desktop, I get a highly grating, loud noise through
my speakers.

MANY video 'game' problems can seem to be video/graphics problems but are
actually sound problems. Using FX or 5.1 surround in a game can be the
culprit. IRQ sharing difficulties are rare these days but not impossible.


It seems almost as though there is a short somewhere, but

I don't know how to go about diagnosing that, or if it is even the
problem. I've updated the sound drivers to their latest version, seemed
to have no impact. The sound is not uniform, lending credence to it
being a hardware difficulty. I occurs without music playing in the
backround and with music playing, the only noticable diffrence is that
when music is being played, it is louder. Once again, I've checked all
of my connections, to no help. I haven't any futher clue what the
problem is for this one.
Any and all help would be greatly appriciated. It is worth noting,
that until after the problems had arised, I had been using a 400W
powersource, with a single rail, and an adapter for both the 6 pin
pci-e, and 24 pin mainboard connectors.

PSU poor PSU's always getting strained beyond the norm......If I understand
you correctly, this is not a good idea for a heavy gamer these days.



Additionally, in my house, the

 

[Paul]

Well, all in all, I have a number of problems, and for ease of reading
I'll try to present them in a logical fashion. My system is entirely
homebuilt, and it's specs are as follows
CPU: Pentium D940
RAM: 1GBx2 DDR2-667 Running in Dual channel interleaved mode
Mainboard: Asus P5LD2, latest BIOS
GFX Card: Asus EN7900GT 256MB, using newest Nvidia drivers
Sound Card: Creative audigy 2 ZS, using cd-bay ...thing.
Speakers: Klipsch promedia 2.1
Monitor: Viewsonic VA1912wb, running at 1440x900@32bpp, connected
via DVI
Power supply: TT 500w, dual 12v rails

My apologies if I neglected some relevant point, kindly ask me for
the information if it is nesessary. So, my difficulties first
manifested themselves as odd graphical issues, specifically, an
idividual polygon in a model or terrain in a game would seem to
'detach' and be moved far away. I have heard that this can be caused by
faulty cooling, however, I've run the same games with tempature
monitoring, peak temp was 55 degrees centigrade, and artifacts
persisted. I've attempted to reseat the graphics card, and checked the
power connectors to no avail. Now, with the progression of problems,
I've had games (World of warcraft, TES: Oblivion) crash entirely,
either as a black screen then reboot, or a irretriveably frozen cursor
resistant to ctrl alt delete. There also have been artifacts in POST,
that is, single, miscolored pixels, usually red or blue. Regarding
trouble shooting I've done, the main program that's given me benefical
data has been BurnInTest, which reports an extreme number of
errors(roughly 25% of the 'operations') in the 2D graphics test, as
'Video ram corruption' however, zero in 3D test. Additionally, I've
noticed that the address from which is being read will come up in the
'value recieved' colum, that is, 'x00 couldn't be read expected: x0a
recieved: x00'. This makes me inclined to think that it is a program
difficulty rather than the hardware, although, I'm at my wits end, and
very likely going to RMA the card soon.
My second problem is that, when switching between a full screen
application(usually WoW, but also occurs with oblivion) , and another
application or the desktop, I get a highly grating, loud noise through
my speakers. It seems almost as though there is a short somewhere, but
I don't know how to go about diagnosing that, or if it is even the
problem. I've updated the sound drivers to their latest version, seemed
to have no impact. The sound is not uniform, lending credence to it
being a hardware difficulty. I occurs without music playing in the
backround and with music playing, the only noticable diffrence is that
when music is being played, it is louder. Once again, I've checked all
of my connections, to no help. I haven't any futher clue what the
problem is for this one.
Any and all help would be greatly appriciated. It is worth noting,
that until after the problems had arised, I had been using a 400W
powersource, with a single rail, and an adapter for both the 6 pin
pci-e, and 24 pin mainboard connectors. Additionally, in my house, the
electrical system is rather mecurial to begin with, lights dimming
under load and the like. I wish to know if that could have damaged my
hardware. I haven't overclocked my machine significantly at any point
in time, I had a 5% overclock as per BIOS for a time, but didn't
mantain it because it had no real benefit as far as I could tell. To
reiterate, any and all help would be appricated. Thanks for your time.

Have you run memtest86+ from memtest.org ? That is a free memory tester
for main memory. The download will format a floppy, and there is also
an ISO for making a bootable CD. You boot the system with memtest86+
and it tests all the memory (every last byte). Run the test for two
full passes, at a minimum. That could take a couple hours.

The second test you can use, is Prime95 torture test option (mersenne.org).
Prime95 does a computation with a known answer. Prime95 can test the
memory and the processor at the same time, and is a more sensitive test
than memtest86+. But unlike memtest86+, Prime95 can only test the
amount of free system memory, and cannot move the OS out of the way and
test that memory too.

If those tests are uncovering problems, that could result in corrupted
graphics.

Otherwise, it could be something simple, like the cooler on the
video card not making good contact somewhere. Say one of the
memory chips isn't touching whatever cooling is attached to it.
Have a look at the video card, for a physical problem.

Video card memories have been known to fail. There have been
batches of bad cards, where, for example, a lot of the customers
all see problems after 3 weeks of usage. The Nvidia 7800-7900
cards have had problems at the rate of about 10% or so. If you
aren't making any progress with diagnosis, then consider trying
the warranty on the video card. For the 7800/7900 series of cards,
you should be shopping for a video card with a good warranty, instead
of one with a fast core clock.

Paul

 

[Kazha]

Ah, your suggestions are appricated, I'll give them a shot as soon as
possible and get back to you. Thank you very much.