Problems With New Computer - gForce 9600gt

Hello,

My friend has bought a new computer, a 32 bit quad core with ~4GB of RAM and a gForce 9600gt or maybe gs? But as I remember it's a GT and I think it has problems or maybe the drivers or something else, so thought to as astahost community for some experience, tried searching the Internet, but got a bit tired..

It's working great, as he does not like Vista, he has installed XP and drivers from CDs he got in the company he bought it and when he started to play new games after about ~10-30 minutes the screen flickers and some errors are outputted and you can see the BSOD (Blue Screen OF Death? Doom? as I know) and thats all so I suggested him to reinstall his drivers with the new ones from nVidia and asRock Internet websites, because the ones on the CD's could be outdated or buggy.. He did that, he even reinstalled XP, but with no luck, the problems still exists, through the nVidia panel he was turning off different options with the click box, like vertical sync and different stuff, he tried to do things in BIOS and other stuff he found on the net, but again with no luck..

And when I thought, maybe it's because when you play a new game, the graphics card is over heating? I touched it and it was quite hot, about 56 Celsius, but because the computer has a guarantee, we couldn't open the desktop box, I started to think that the cooler isn't spinning or something, problems with the hardware and people who badly put the computer into that condition? So could it be because of the over heating? He downloaded some program which can show temperatures for different devices and after loading windows, when playing a game for 10-30 minutes he saw that the graphics card temperature is about 78 Celsius.. and I think it's really to much for a desktop, especially for a hot day, the question is does he need to call the guarantee that they could fix it or make the cooler spin faster or spin always? Any suggestions? anyone had these kind of problems? with new computers.. :?

 

 

 

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The software that comes along with the nVidia graphics cards has a heat monitoring option. Also, it will show the temperature in different colors depending on how high it is. You should only trust the values shown by this tool. My 8600 GT shows a temperature of around 64 degree Celsius. The temperature goes up by a degree or two after playing a game (Devil May Cry 4) for 10 minutes or so. Although this might be because of the fact that the sides of my PC's cabinet are completely open.

Your friend should try playing the game in Vista to make sure its not a driver compatibility issue with Windows XP. If the problem still exists, then he can report the problem to nVidia.

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You need to figured out what causes the BSOD first. Did you get to see the message on the screen when BSOD? If not, you can goto
Control Panel\System -> Advanced (tab) -> Startup and Recovery -> Setting -> uncheck "Automatically restart"

That way when BSOD happen, it will stay put, then you get to see a message. Look for the text in the middle, something like "IRQL_NOT_EQUAL". That can help you narrow down your problem. BSOD can happen with anything, bad sector, driver, corrupted memory or bad memory module. At least narrow the problem, then you can carry out proper troubleshooting steps instead of trying blindly.

As for the gpu temperature, 56C idle is normal for 8x00, i guess it should be the same with 9x00. 78C under load is rather high, but shouldn't have cause the BSOD as well, cause as far as I know, the thermal protection only kicks in at 90C. The limit is around 110C. Although I wouldn't like my gpu to go anywhere near 70C, but that's the compromise for getting cheaper hardware. If you can affort more expensive video card, then you can get those with bigger fan. Well, I guess it's not that possible in your case as the pc came as a unit.

There's another possibility that you might want to look into. 4GB of ram, will only have 3.2GB available in XP, as that's the memory address space limit of XP (32bit).

Unless you find out about the actual cause of problem, don't go back to the shop yet. 2 things might happen if you do, 1, they don't even bother, or they would tell you that the hardware is mend to run on vista only. 2, they will try to sell you upgrades, since you said that the temperature was high, and if it doesn't solve you problem, it's you to be blame, because you suspect it at first. If you really want to bring back to the shop, tell them your problem, which is BSOD, don't tell them what you suspect might be wrong. Well, unless you knew the shopkeeper well and they are honest people to start with.

 

 

 

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It's not only on one actual game, it is on most games he plays.. the gfx card is supposed to work win win2000, xp and vista and as he said those games are xp friendly, the requirements are for xp or vista. :|

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Try running Windows XP 64-bit and/or Vista x64 to check if it's an out of memory issue or something related to that since as faulty.lee stated it could be because he's running 32-bit, thus not getting to use the whole 4GB. Also, remember the addressing issue gets worse especially when you have dedicated memory on your graphics card. For example if it has 1GB dedicated memory on your card, you have to further subtract 1GB from your 3.2 GB of addressable space. This is because your chipset might be 32-bit as well or the fact that you're running in 32-bit mode.

Also, can you post what type of RAM he has? I've had RAM issues before that lead to the system crashing out of the blue during gameplay. Like list the make/model.

xboxrulz

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I'll show my friend this topic and will post later.

He has 4GB of RAM and it's a DD3 and I don't really know what I can tell more about the RAM, I only know that it's not really 4 GB because of the difference with 1000 and 1024 bytes and as I know his hardware is 32 bit, I mean the CPU, so I don't think it can run 64bit? :?

I doubt he will want to buy Vista just to try that the game works

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The 32bit addressing issue wasn't as bad as your might have thought. Dedicated graphic card is not sharing it's memory with the system, so you can still get 3.2GB out of it. Unless if you're using built-in graphic card, which is not the case here. The 32Bit addressing issue only applies to ram, as the OS need to put program onto the memory, it need to access it from any location at any one time. Thus, with only 32Bit , it can only access within the boundary of 3.2GB. Anyway, that limitation only limits on the "accessibility" of the ram, not to cause a BSOD, unless the motherboard's chipset wasn't implemented properly.

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Well, he (or she) didn't provide any further details than the fact that his/her friend only got 4GB, an 9600GT and a quad core.

As for the addressing, I got it from here: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09...pc_swindle.html

(I know it's a Mac article, but knowing that PC and Macs are now very interchangable, there's really no difference when it comes to memory addresses.)

xboxrulz

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Thanks for the info xboxrulz, didn't know about MMIO before this. Lot's to catch up to everyday.

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Have you checked your power? Maybe you should have someone check the power supply and maybe your house or where ever you are at (in the world). Maybe you need a power conditioner or UPS above your power supply to make sure you are getting clean power. Another thing, from your comment you made it sound like this is a custom built machine. So it would lead me to believe that it could also be the computer store's negligence (the builder). Maybe they are doing something wrong or are using new parts or incompatible specs. Maybe that's why it will void your warranty. You should ask them if you can watch them troubleshoot the hardware. Then you'll see if they are using new/name brand parts. It also puts them on the spot. After all you paid for it.

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