GTX260 Video Artifacting/BSODs

[Shook]

 

[zezasu]

For you to fix the voltage in (what i know of gigabyte boards) is you have to allow the option for dram to be manual instead of automatic. Then it gives you options for changing ram voltage.

edit: forgot you changed boards, but everything should be the same. It would probably be where you can also overclock the cpu.

 

[TVeblen]

Hey Shook
Does Gigabyte use an AMI or Award BIOS?
In a modern AMI BIOS there is a "Ai Tweaker" tab where all the overclocking settings can be made. I don't know if an Award BIOS has the same thing. As Zezasu says, you could turn off the automatic settings adjustment to enable a manual override. If your memory is over-voltage it could produce errors. From what you say it sounds like your memory is being overclocked either due to some changes you have made or changes the automatic settings are making. Keep in mind that these auto-overclocking settings change dynamically- you change one and the BIOS automatically adjusts all the others to try and arrive at a stable configuration. So if you are running an overclocked video card, for instance, the BIOS may make overclock changes to the CPU, memory, or bus frequencies to compensate.

I would go to the GSkills website and look up the specs for your exact memory modules, then manually set the memory to those specs and see how it goes. You could also attempt to contact Gigabyte and ask if the behavior is normal and to get technical help to correct the settings if not.

 

[Shook]

I MIGHT BE ON TO SOMETHING HERE!

I just got back in town after being gone for 5 days. Turn on my PC and when first booted, I got an error before windows, that read RAM R/W failure or something of that nature. Then my pc has BSOD'd around 10 times since powering it back up. I do remember a couple months ago, I left it off for 4 days or so and got multiple BSODs then as well. I posted a new thread in the debugging section, link below. Any help will be appreciated!

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/72815-bad-ram-passes-memtest.html#post639603

 

[jr26]

Damn shook... Just paged through this thread. I feel for you man! Good luck!

 

[Shook]

Damn shook... Just paged through this thread. I feel for you man! Good luck!

We got pretty similar machines. Have any troubles with yours? Were you able to get the RAM timings correct in BIOS?

Haha yea i think I have came to the conclusion that the RAM is intermittently defective. Might take my MSI mobo back and buy some new RAM and try it out.

 

[TVeblen]

And I would suggest making sure that the memory you buy is right off the motherboard's tested and approved list. The exact product numbers. And buy a matched set!

 

[jr26]

Damn shook... Just paged through this thread. I feel for you man! Good luck!

We got pretty similar machines. Have any troubles with yours? Were you able to get the RAM timings correct in BIOS?

Haha yea i think I have came to the conclusion that the RAM is intermittently defective. Might take my MSI mobo back and buy some new RAM and try it out.

I've had zero issues with this system. Its almost 2 months old. Ram though with this board automatically runs at 1333. I've boosted it to its 1600 before but I couldn't get the timings where I wanted them so i've left it @ 1333 and still runs great. I built the exact same system (except case) for my dad and his hasn't had any issues except for the driver reset warning twice while browsing the net. Never had it while gaming. It hasn't happened for a while though last I checked.

Only thing i'd consider odd is his ram scores 7.5 on the WEI and my ram (exactly the same) scores 7.3.

All I can suggest is make sure every single hardware driver you have is up to date. I know you've probably heard it a million times but it is important to check and double check. As far as the GTX 260 i've been running the 196.21's since I installed it and they have worked good for me. I tried a few others but imho I get the best performance with the 196.21's. As mentioned above also bad ram can cause all kinds of issues regardless if it has much to do with it or not. So i'd try that if your able to first.

 

[Shook]

Damn shook... Just paged through this thread. I feel for you man! Good luck!

We got pretty similar machines. Have any troubles with yours? Were you able to get the RAM timings correct in BIOS?

Haha yea i think I have came to the conclusion that the RAM is intermittently defective. Might take my MSI mobo back and buy some new RAM and try it out.

I've had zero issues with this system. Its almost 2 months old. Ram though with this board automatically runs at 1333. I've boosted it to its 1600 before but I couldn't get the timings where I wanted them so i've left it @ 1333 and still runs great. I built the exact same system (except case) for my dad and his hasn't had any issues except for the driver reset warning twice while browsing the net. Never had it while gaming. It hasn't happened for a while though last I checked.

Only thing i'd consider odd is his ram scores 7.5 on the WEI and my ram (exactly the same) scores 7.3.

All I can suggest is make sure every single hardware driver you have is up to date. I know you've probably heard it a million times but it is important to check and double check. As far as the GTX 260 i've been running the 196.21's since I installed it and they have worked good for me. I tried a few others but imho I get the best performance with the 196.21's. As mentioned above also bad ram can cause all kinds of issues regardless if it has much to do with it or not. So i'd try that if your able to first.

Oh yea I've triple and quadruple checked all the drivers, 20 different times. Taking out the MSI board tonight and putting the GIGABYTE board back in. Then gonna return the board tomorrow and get some new RAM. But I have the sneaky suspicion that MicroCenter isn't going to have RAM that is on my mobo's support list.... But I wanna buy it to try so don't really wanna go Newegg...

 

[Shook]

WELP, SOLVED! BAD RAM....... Bought some OCZ ram and will be RMAing my G.Skill


Thanks for all the help guys!!

 

[jr26]

Good to hear!

 

[TVeblen]

Congrats Shook.
But I am curious: did you run Memtest86+ on that GSkills memory and it passed?
How about Prime95?

 

[adt]

Congrats man, I'm having the same problem as you. Could it be my RAM too?

 

[Shook]

Congrats Shook.
But I am curious: did you run Memtest86+ on that GSkills memory and it passed?
How about Prime95?

Yea TVeblen, I did run memtest86+ on my G.Skill RAM. Ran both sticks together for 10+passes, no errors. Then ran each stick individually for 10+passes and no errors. But with the cold boot problem that was giving me blue screens was pointing to RAM. I'm going to RMA my G.Skill and then might have some DDR3 to sell if anyone is interested....

P.S. didn't run Prime95

 

[TVeblen]

Good to know. We rely on progs like that to avoid these things. Kind of disappointing that we can't rely on Memtest.

 

[xile2010]

Can't go wrong with OCZ thats all I'll ever buy again.. I have it in all my machines and not 1 bad stick since I started using it..