Solved BSOD when gaming

[demongorgan]

cant argue with this i guess

Hello David,

As per your request for a more suitable tool than 'FurMark' for testing your Radeon R9 290X graphics card, 'Unigine Heaven' was run for two hours with no errors, artifacting or any other issues that were reported by yourself, following this test 'Unigine Valley' was run over night for 18 hours which, again, produced no abnormal results or malfunctions, finally I tried restarting the system several times, running a basic 3D graphics test for two hours and making sure various figures were normal about the Graphics Card such as temperature and voltage in 'GPU-Z', which they were. Therefore I must conclude that there are notable issues with the Graphics Card itself.

Thanks,
Phil Morris

Operations Supervisor

Aria Technology LTD

 

[essenbe]

Well, I guess you can't as long as you believe they actually ran those tests. I presume the last statement is a typo, "there are notables issues with the card itself", I assume it was meant to say there are no notable issues. However, that leaves you in a bad position and having to figure out why it won't run on your system. The tests they ran are good tests and some of the same tests you ran, and had bad problems with.

If it were me, and it's not. I would try to borrow an known good power supply that is a good size for your system and card, and re wire my system with it. I would disconnect all other drives except the one you have Windows installed on, or a spare you know is good. I would do a clean install with the card connected, install drivers from your motherboard's web site, run all windows updates, but not install any updates for hardware, install the Graphics card driver using custom settings, with the clean install box checked and install only the graphics driver and the PhysX driver. That will insure you that there is nothing that will affect your system and everything is clean. I would install only the bare essentials to make the system serviceable. Run Windows updates until there are no more, then run those tests that they ran and see how it works. Install no software that is not absolutely needed. Make the system as clean as possible for testing. You can find download links for almost all benchmark tests here http://www.sevenforums.com/benchmarks/312922-download-links-all-benchmarks.html . You will notice that Ungine Heaven and ungine Valley that they ran are GPU only tests. If you run those tests and the card does OK, next I would run Firestrike which tests the GPU + CPU. At the benchmark link I gave you will see the leader boards for each of those tests, but do not compare your results with them. Those systems were heavily overclocked on the CPU and GPU. I would like you to set everything in your system to default values, with just the ram set to manufacturer's specs, the sata controller set to what you want and the boot order set. That should be the only changes from optimized defaults which should be set in bios first. Don't install any software that could possibly cause a conflict with anything else. Use the default ie browser and install Microsoft security essentials as your antivirus, for now at least. It has never been known to cause a BSOD. See how that works.

 

[demongorgan]

i will do as soon as i get my card back. i dont know why the latest amd 14.6 drivers cause my pc to fail to boot though. i've googeled it but found no one else with the problem. after install it just loops the boot logo. untill i restart and choose system restore

 

[essenbe]

Open a elevated command prompt ( click start, type cmd in the search box, right click on the cmd entry and select run as administrator) in the black box that opens, copy/paste sfc /scannow. If you decide to type it, notice the space between the sfc and the /. It is a system file checker which will scan your system files and attempt to correct any missing or corrupt files. What we want are the results to say windows found no integrity violations. If it says files were found but could not be repaired, close the box, reboot and run it again. You may have to reboot and run it three times for it to repair all system files. If it can't repair them after 3 reboots, let us know.

 

[demongorgan]

Running now. Although I don't have the drivers installed at the moment as the integrated hd3000 dosnt support them.

 

[demongorgan]

"windows recource protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them"

Rebooting and running again.

 

[demongorgan]

ok got the graphics card back. and tried using a smaller screen (from a 47" to a 19") and it still resets. i also checked gigabyte website and the card is compatable. which led me to thinking.

since i've not been using the card the system has been great, but now the cards back in i've noticed haning.. and the normal restarts that always happen. i've checked the specs of the card and the minimum psu required is a 750w. and my psu is a 750w. could the shutdowns, restarts ect be due to the gpu drawing the power leaving not enough for other components?

i have £90 in he bank and can only afford a xfx 850w psu or a gigabyte 990fx motherboard. which one should i chose, or has higher percentige of fixing the issue.

thanks

 

[essenbe]

Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, it's a toss up. I do have a lot of confidence in the Corsair PSU, but they can go bad too. But, to be perfectly honest, it's a toss up. But, if it were me, and it's not, I would go for the board.

 

[demongorgan]

but would the 750w be adequate enough to run all my components as well as a gpu requiring 750w? i'e been pondering on this all day at work. you've got vasts amount of more experience than me, so i will go with what you suggest

 

[essenbe]

don't do that, I've made a lot of mistakes in my time. But, when they say what power supply the recommend, they are usually talking about the whole system. I don't know of a GPU by itself that uses 750W. I have a 780 Classified, and it only pulls 300W max.

 

[essenbe]

According to this your card has a recommended power supply of 750Watts but the card itself only pulls 250Watts.
Radeon R9 290 VTX3D X-Edition PC Gaming Graphics Card Hardware For Game System Requirements
Just the first link I found, I don't use that site.

This site also lists the TDP as 250W
http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.p...deon-r9-290-x-edition-gets-custom-design.html

 

[demongorgan]

ok so motherboard it is thanks for sourcing that information for me. just tried lowering the power limit by 20% to see if it makes a difference. as the polar oposit is +20% voltage limit for OC which gives the max TDP for the card and stops throttling. figured it was worth a go whilst looking up psu's, but after reading your reply i think i will just go mobo instead.

 

[essenbe]

Again, Don't do so just on my word. Sure, I have a lot of experience, but I've made more than a couple of mistakes along the way. In all honestly, just like I told you before, it's a judgment call. It really could be either one. But, just looking at the odds, you have a quality power supply and a fairly low end pretty cheap Motherboard. Having said that, there's no guarantee that the PSU has not gone bad and there is nothing wrong with the motherboard. I can't and don't want to spend your money for you. In the end, it's your decision. There is no clear evidence either way. I just trust the PSU more than I do the motherboard.

 

[Britton30]

As Steve says with all the testing you've done you're at a point where only a replacement of something may tell you what is bad/wrong.
With the possibility of a board or PSU, the only way to be sure is to replace one. I'd bet it would be the board too, PSUs don't commonly fail, but is possible, even a new one.

Steve and I have both made our share of mistakes. I've replaced a board when in fact I had a bad GPU or RAM stick.

 

[demongorgan]

i appreciate all the help and time you have put into this. i was just unsure of which route to take. i found a sabertooth 990fx for £68 wich is pretty good. was just after your opinion, the decision to choose the mobo over the psu was mine so no worries. but wit it being a 50/50 thing it just seemed like a difficult choice to make. well. it will either make thing better or it will be the same lol. but even if things stay the same, it means i can sell the old cheapo mobo and then know for sure its the psu.

 

[Britton30]

Good choice on the board I think. I have an Intel Sabertooth and it is very solid and stable.

 

[essenbe]

Well, if you look on the brighter side, if there is one when spending money. If it is not the mobo, then in the end you will have a lot better mobo and PSU. A lot better rig all together. At least, that's the way I always felt about it. Just be sure and check all the user reviews before you buy a new board. Don't take them at face value, but you can usually read reviews and tell who know what they are talking about and who does not. Plus, more people will make a bad review than will make a good one.

 

[demongorgan]

i like the sabertooth performs really well, great for oc and really like the color scheme. be just like having my old rig again

*edit*
its just a pity the z87 comes with thermal armor. always wondered why intel get the best looking boards. but then maybe its just the amd way of keeping prices down.

 

[Britton30]

I have my doubts about how really useful the Thermal Armor is, but it looks nice.

 

[demongorgan]

sabertooth all installed. all drivers updated, latest bios ect.. but the pc exploded

only kidding... everything seems to be working fine. was a bit apprehensive to write this at first but after a week of testing and no restarts. i would say fixed but i don't want to jinx it lol.

thanks for all your help over the last month or so. couldn't have done it without you.