BSODs

[neubspeed]

Hi,

First time on this board, and first week on my new nforce board. HL2 and CS Source are crashing on me after 15 minutes with memory hex errors all the time. When I change my AGP Aperture size to above 64MB I get BSODs and restarts in XP SP2. The DEP is disabled and so are fast writes. In Farcry I get the game closing without any errors after about 25 minutes. I've run Prime95 to about 20 hours without failure. Using 66.93 forceware drivers are latest nforce drivers on the Nvidia site. I've attempted to start without my Audigy, and then without any sound at all, and the error still comes up. Nothing is being overclocked and memory timings are "relaxed". Ran OCZ Memtest86 6 times with no errors. I've tried the many HL2/Source launch commands as well. Also, I should note my video card, 2 raptors, RAM, and power supply were taken from my old P4 rig, and everything worked fine! Am I missing something, anything? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! This is my first AMD/nforce experience and I hate it so far. I don't think overheating is the issue because the CPU has never gone above 50 degrees and the video card never above 70.

Thanks In Advance!

 

[een]

I am seeing a pattern here, all these crashes is associated with games, therefore the culprit has to lie somewhere in the videocard. But if you are certain that the videocard is fine (and that you have tried another one), try another power supply. It could be that the power supply is crapping out when everything is sucking power out of it. When the PSU overloads, the voltage will fluctuate, this will cause memory to generate errors...

So try a different PSU, and video card and see how you go.

 

[OverVolt]

sounda VERY familiar to my system, just i have a P4 instead of AMD.

<--

it wouldn't happen to be an asus motherboard, would it?


you can always try and different vid card, but that is a pita.

 

[allanon1965]

look in his sig, its an MSI board

 

[Gerbil333]

Try the video card in another computer. If it's not that, then it's possibly the PSU.

 

[JSt0rm]

msi has good tech support I would contact them if you haven't already. I don't think it could be your powersupply because its 530watts. Unless it is bad. This would cause problems under load.

 

[fishmonger12]

have you run adaware\spybot\virus scans?
Do you have a stable bios?
have you checked your system temperatures?
have you checked your voltages?
have you tried formatting?

i would:

format
install windows
install sp1/sp2
do windows update
install latest chipset drivers
install latest video drivers
install latest sound drivers

in that order. with only those things installed. Install 1 game you've been having trouble with. make sure it's patched to the latest version. now run the game and see if you have problems.

could you be more specific as to what the blue screens say? is there any particular thing that goes on when a blank error comes up? a repeating loop of sound? an auto restart? crash to desktop?

 

[sat]

when you get the BSOD - what driver is listed in the error screen?

 

[neubspeed]

I have done everything, formatted twice, put just XP SP2 and drivers and HL2, and the error remains.

With an AGP Aperture size of <64MB< I get virtually no "warning sign" except artifacts. Then it flickers into a memory dump screen (too fast to read all of it) and restarts. XP sends the error report on start up again and says it's caused by a device driver. I got the same error with latest on-board sound drivers.

With AGP Aperture of 64MB, my on-board sound (older drivers) enabled, no artifacts whatsoever, basically a looping sound and looping of the last frame after about 15 minutes of game play. In most cases will crash to windows but sometimes will freeze there for 10 minutes + (gotta Ctrl-Alt-Del to get out of it) and I get this error in Windows:

hl2.exe - Application Error
The instruction at "0x2417b425" referenced memory at "0x00bb9470", The memory could not be "read"
Click on OK to terminate program.

With AGP Aperture of 64MB, Audigy 2 ZS enabled (got it today as a Christmas present from my parents who just came home), no artifacts whatsoever, basically a looping sound and looping of the last frame after about 15 minutes of game play. Will remain like this until I use Task Manager to end the task. And no memory errors here.

I also tried with no sound at all, and this gave me the "Windows chose to end an unresponsive program" error with the details sent to Microsoft, again blaming it on device drivers.

I've tried 66.93, 66.97 (instant BSOD), 67.03, and right now 71.24 forceware drivers (using Driver Cleaner to avoid crap). Tried the nforce drivers on the CD as well as the latest Nvidia ones, no difference.

I will call MSI support tomorrow; this is my first AMD, first nforce chipset, and first MSI board ever (my dad was one of those hardcore Intel folk), so I'm hoping they can help.

I was told by many people that my OCZ Modstream 520W is more than enough for my system, with 28A on the 12Volt rail, but then again I don't know.

THANKS FOR THE HELP SO FAR!

 

[sat]

Originally posted by: neubspeed
... I get virtually no "warning sign" except artifacts. Then it flickers into a memory dump screen (too fast to read all of it) and restarts.

The system is usually setup to reboot automatically after a BSOD occurs, and the crash dump is collected. To change this, and make the system wait for a manual reset at the BSOD screen, do the following:

1. Right-click MyComputer -> Properties
2. Advanced tab
3. Click on the Startup and Recovery - settings button
4. Uncheck the "automatically restart" checkbox under the System Failure tab.

 

[fishmonger12]

clock your memory down to DDR 333, and tell me the voltage that you are running the mem at.

 

[neubspeed]

I no longer get BSODs after installing the Audigy 2 ZS, only memory hex errors and and freezing in all games after 20 or so minutes. The RAM Voltage is set to "AUTO", I just now changed it to 2.65V (I think that's the recommended for OCZ right), and just testing it out now.

 

[neubspeed]

Don't mean to bump this or anything but a new update:
After the new Steam update and changing HTT to 4x (don't know what it was), CS Source crashes to Windows now after about 15 minutes of gameplay without warning, no sound loop or memory hex errors or BSODs.... I wonder if that helps anyone narrow this down. I'm still really ticked off that I got this machine primarily for gaming and it's the only thing I can't do.

 

[Mogh]

I recently ran into issues with BSOD due to the nvidia 6800 series drivers causing problems with XP SP2 DEP (Data Execution protection). Trying turning DEP off in boot.ini to see if you still get the errors. I finally gave up on nvidia because of this and switched to an ATI X800 Pro and the BSOD's went away.

To turn DEP off find this in boot.ini '/noexecute=optin' and change to '/execute=optin'

You may find an earlier driver or eventually a new beta that fixes this problem. I just got fed up playing with all their beta, 66.93, 67.02, etc drivers.

 

[neubspeed]

I've already disabled DEP. And the crap still comes.

 

[fishmonger12]

did you clock the ram down?

 

[neubspeed]

Yeah I took it down to 166mhz, it still did the freeze/crash thing

 

[fishmonger12]

try playing the games on super low quality with a software renderer while booted in windows safe mode.

 

[fishmonger12]

double post sry.

 

[neubspeed]

Tried it, and CRASH. I think it's an incompatibility with the OCZ revision 1 platinum stuff, so I'm going to try some different RAM and pinpoint it. I have the latest BIOS already. If the new ram doesn't work, I'm RMAing the board.

 

[Mogh]

Originally posted by: neubspeed
Tried it, and CRASH. I think it's an incompatibility with the OCZ revision 1 platinum stuff, so I'm going to try some different RAM and pinpoint it. I have the latest BIOS already. If the new ram doesn't work, I'm RMAing the board.

I see you have an Nvidia 6800 Ultra. I was pulling my hair out for like 3 weeks and even exchanged the motherboard. It turned out to be a combination of the 6800GT and "DEP on" with my A64. I see you have DEP off however have you tried much earlier or beta 71.x Nvidia drivers? You may want to give that a go before the RMA route.