I really thought it was enough....

[KyleGates]

So, new system build and everything works just fine.

27" 1440 LED
Asus z87 Expert
i7 4770
24GB GSkill DDR3....Now at 4x4x4x4 matched DDR3
SB XFi somethinorother
1TB HDD (yesyes I need an SSD)
cpl optical drives
EVGA GTX 780 ACX

PSU- Enermax Revolution 1050w


So it all runs just fine. No issues, games run great from Far Cry 3 to BL2 to Diablo 3 to Dead Island to....ahem..Minecraft to 3DMark to Grid to Skyrim. But they dont exactly stay locked at 60fps ALL the time and.....I want as close as I can get so....


I added a 2nd EVGA GTX 780 ACX and, the stability went away. The less intensive stuff seems torun fine. Minecraft, Torchlight....

But when playing more intensive games (mostly Far Cry, Dead Island (which I didnt think was all that ...intensive but whatever) an Borderlands 2) I get crashes.

Generally it is random from 5mins in to 30. The audio will studder and then slurr in an almost 8bit sounding way, followed by a freeze of said game and a 50/50 chance of cntrl/alt/del allowing me to exit...or a total system lock forcing a reset button restart.

-Ive tried a few different drivers
-Ive tried moving the power around to "different" rails
-Edit- I have used two different PSUs
-Edit- SO....I then did a total driver wipe (driver sweeper) and ran 3DMark again, 4th run, black screen.
-Edit- Then I swapped out my 4x4GB Gskill RAM for 2x8GB and ran 3DMark again, 3rd run, black screen.
-Edit- Yanked the sound card out and ran 3DMark again, 2nd run, black screen.
-Edit- Yanked the SLI cable and tried another and ran 3DMark again, 3rd run, black screen.




(oh, beyond the factory overclock on the 780s I have overclocked nothing!)

Edit- FYI- The system is a fresh installed of Win7

 

[lehtv]

The power supply should not be the issue here. 1050W is plenty for dual 780's, and you're getting crashes with just one card.

Do you get crashes by loading the CPU only with stress test software?

 

[dma0991]

You mentioned switching to different rails. Have you tried getting power from two different rails for each card? That means, Rail 1 = 8 pin + Rail 2 = 6 pin, Rail 3 = 8 pin + Rail 4 = 6 pin. 1050W should suffice for dual GTX780. How old is the PSU?

 

[lehtv]

There are six +12V rails of 30A or 360W each. 360W is plenty for one GTX 780.

Based on JonnyGuru's review, there are two rails which are completely dedicated to 2x PCIe connectors each (12V3 and 12V5), and two rails that share PCIe with SATA and peripheral connectors (12V4 and 12V6). I'd connect the graphics cards to 12V3 and 12V5 since it uses the least cables, but arguably the most balanced config would be to distribute the connectors so that one connector from each of 12V3, 12V4, 12V5, and 12V6 is used.

 

[Micrornd]

Try pulling the sound card.

 

[Deders]

Not sure if I'm reading this right but are there 2 CPU 8pin connectors? one from rail 1 and the other from rail 2? if so then make sure you only plug in the one from rail 2, otherwise you may be overloading the 1st rail, especially when you consider that each graphics card can draw up to 75W (6.25A) from the 1st rail via the motherboard's PCIe slots.

 

[2is]

And thus, the reason I prefer a single big rail vs multiple smaller ones. Even if rail distribution doesn't end up being the issue here, it still introduces an extra variable to trouble shoot in situations like this.

 

[KyleGates]

The power supply should not be the issue here. 1050W is plenty for dual 780's, and you're getting crashes with just one card.

Do you get crashes by loading the CPU only with stress test software?

Well, running Prime for 8hrs, no issues. And you may have missed something as I said with one card I have no issues.

 

[KyleGates]

You mentioned switching to different rails. Have you tried getting power from two different rails for each card? That means, Rail 1 = 8 pin + Rail 2 = 6 pin, Rail 3 = 8 pin + Rail 4 = 6 pin. 1050W should suffice for dual GTX780. How old is the PSU?

Gee, I have NOT tried that yet but, I will.

PSU is right about 3yrs old, maybe a month or two less.

 

[KyleGates]

Try pulling the sound card.

Gonna try that but first...

I just remember wayyy back when I had dual GTX 285 OC2s I had almost this very same issue (PCPower & Cooling PSU back then). What solved it was FORCING the OC2's to run at stock clocks basically overruling the factory oc. So Im going to try using Precision to force the 780's to stock clocks and see whats what.

 

[KyleGates]

Well, I decided to hell with underclocking for now because that just seems like..a waste.

Anyhow, first up I have run eash PCIe power plug to a different rail. 4 plugs 4 "rails".

Borderlands 2 (All settings maxed @ 1440 w/ no AA) seems to crash the most frequently so I'll play that to see whats what.
-So far, no issues at all, no crashes no nuthin.

 

[KyleGates]

Okok wait wait wait. WAIT.

So, all was fine after switching plugs around. I was playing after a clean reboot with just Precision and Real Temp running...both programs only open for temp monitoring (and all was fine).

Then I stop the game, re-open Chrome and post that update in my last post.

Jump back in to test/play more and 10-15 mins in, crash. Hmmm..what in the world....

On a hunch I Shut down all of Chrome (I generally run with 3-5 tabs and 8-12 pages per tab open but most if not all are static, no video or nuthin going on). Go back in to play and 2 hours later, still no issues.

What.....and....what?

 

[dma0991]

Probably due to unstable or incompatible RAM. You mentioned 24GB, which means it could only be 4 + 4 + 8 + 8. This means there are two different sets of RAM which might not have the same specs(clockspeed, timing, voltage). Try testing with 4 + 4 or 8 + 8, to find which pair is faulty or which pair has better stability with the system. Anything other than 4 + 4 or 8 + 8 would negate the dual channel memory feature.

 

[KyleGates]

Well, I swapped some RAM around (though the 4/4 8/8 were all (seemingly) identical GSkill sets).

I went with a 4/4/4/4 setup where all 4 sticks came out of the same exact package (as in a fully matched set). Same issue. No web browsers open no problems. But when Chrome (or IE it seems) is running I get random crashes.

Gonna keep testing....maybe its masquerading as one thing but is really another....

 

[zir_blazer]

I have annoying freezes similar to yours. I tried everything I could think about and didn't manage to fix it. Through so, it does seems that it was Drivers related, because the incidence rate is MUCH lower currently (Seems to be weekly, at that time it could be multiple times per day) than it was with the Drivers that had the broken 2D acceleration that I described there, but still not rock solid.

As you stated that it happens when you have the browser opened, I assume that it must be related to that damned as hell Adobe Flash that seems to run often in some types of crashes or freezes (And considering these days even Ads uses it...). Check if it has Hardware acceleration enabled and disable it or viceversa, could be worth a shot.

 

[KyleGates]

Well its MUCH less frequent but I did just have a crash with nothing but the game running.

So...how long would a Prime (and then) Furmark run be needed to "rule out" CPU/MEM and GPU being the issue? (and by proxy during said test the PSU)?

 

[KyleGates]

Well an hour of FurMark and nuthin, ran just fine. 1 Card maxed at 87c, the other at 80c. Running again. Then perhaps an overnight run of Prime I guess.

Edit- 4 total hours of Furmark and no problems at all.

 

[dma0991]

If it crashes less then the PSU had something to do with the problem. If it still crashes ever so often, keep in mind that the PSU isn't at its prime. Its 3 years old, you can't expect it to have stability like its brand new.

 

[Deders]

Did you find out how many CPU plugs you had?

 

[KyleGates]

Did you find out how many CPU plugs you had?

Uh, TOTALLY missed your first post. Dunno how. Anyhow.....how many CPU plugs I have??

Anyhow, not entirely sure what you mean. the Mobo has a single 8 pin power port (besides the 24pin of course).

http://content.hwigroup.net/images/products/xl/186816/asus_z87expert.jpg

The PSU has a single (hardwired) 8 pin plug for said port that runs off the 1&2 12v rails...I believe. (scrolling to the very bottom of this page (along with the cute little manual) seems to indicate this anyway).

http://www.enermax.com/home.php?fn=eng/product_a1_1_1&lv0=1&lv1=7&no=5



Beyond that, what "CPU plugs" am I lookin for?

 

[KyleGates]

Its 3 years old, you can't expect it to have stability like its brand new.

I know I know......I just would prefer to be 100% SURE (or in the high 90s anyway) that its the PSU before I go grab a nice shiny Seasonic x-1250.

And so far, running a full 4 hrs of Furmark and 4 hours of Prime have yeilded nothing but stability. Maybe I should run em both at the same time....see if I can set the house on fire.

 

[Deders]

Uh, TOTALLY missed your first post. Dunno how. Anyhow.....how many CPU plugs I have??

Anyhow, not entirely sure what you mean. the Mobo has a single 8 pin power port (besides the 24pin of course).

http://content.hwigroup.net/images/products/xl/186816/asus_z87expert.jpg

The PSU has a single (hardwired) 8 pin plug for said port that runs off the 1&2 12v rails...I believe. (scrolling to the very bottom of this page (along with the cute little manual) seems to indicate this anyway).

http://www.enermax.com/home.php?fn=eng/product_a1_1_1&lv0=1&lv1=7&no=5



Beyond that, what "CPU plugs" am I lookin for?

It seems that both the 8 pin and the 4+4 pin cpu connectors are run of both the 1st and 2nd rail which strikes me as a odd thing to do considering the one rail could probably power 2 cpu's.

under normal circumstances I would have thought that if it were working correctly, all the rails should have plenty of juice to handle whatever you throw at it but id swapping the cables about has yielded better results, maybe it's not working properly.

Age tends to make the PSU draw more power from the wall, it should still be able to deliver full power.

 

[KyleGates]

Well, so far I would say that switching around how the cards are powered, which rails are doing what resulted in little change.

Seemingly closing down Chrome gave me better stability but that just seems a little odd.

I ran FurMark for 8 hours and had no issues.
I ran a Prime Blend torture test for 8 hours with no issues either.

Didnt want to leave the system alone for 8 hours doing both so I ran both for an hour. Again, besides getting a tad warm (GPU1- 88c, GPU2- 84c, CPU- 85c), ran just fine, no issues.

And yes the PSU is 3yrs old but really I would expect it to still be able to more than handle what I do, which is run 2 pretty decent video cards and......a bunch of mid level low power-demand stuff (4770, a single HDD, cpl optical drives, etc).....not like Im running a TON of other stuff on a PSU thats a POS.

 

[KyleGates]

THATS IT!! Dont care. Need to eliminate PSU as a possibility here, just threw the Seasonic x-1250 in my cart and paid for the damn thing. Be here on Saturday....Stay Tuned.....

At the very last second I realized that it seems like the XFX ProSeries 1250 is the...same damn thing. For less $$ with a better rebate. Anyone have an reasons to go for the Seasonic over the XFX (besides the fact that the XFX looks a lil.....lame).

Edit- Meh, went with the XFX, still had stellar numbers and reviews. They are built off the same exact platform. The XFX had a rebate and was 20% off. And...in the feedback on Newegg, XFX responds to the issues people have had while Seasonic remains...silent.

 

[KyleGates]

Got the new PSU! Yay. Installed er, no issues there.

Ran a few runs of Unigine Valley with no issues
Followed that up with a few runs of 3dMark (Basic) and on the third run...black screen...

Crash to the desktop with a "Nvidia driver has failed and recovered error"

So, seems my PSU wasn't the issue.

-SO....I then did a total driver wipe (driver sweeper) and ran 3DMark again, 4th run, black screen.
-Then I swapped out my 4x4GB Gskill RAM for 2x8GB and ran 3DMark again, 3rd run, black screen.
-Yanked the sound card out and ran 3DMark again, 2nd run, black screen.
-Yanked the SLI cable and tried another and ran 3DMark again, 3rd run, black screen.


So, I have yet to do any long term gaming but it seems as though I should be able to run a darn benchmark about as many times as I like with no issues so thats why I have kept running it.

Guess I'll restart and boot to memtest and run it for a few...months. Least I have GTA to keep me busy in the meantime. So, any other suggestions?