x1800xt rebooting,bsod,overheating?

[arthras]

Hello there, long time reader, first time poster. Hoping im posting this in the correct forum. Specs below

So here is my situation, I had 3 hard drives 2x320 GB Seagate Sata2's, 1x200gb Seagate IDE, my main install was on the IDE with the satas being the backup drives. I switched it around and formatted one of the satas to be the OS drive main.

Install all the drivers for the system as normal etc, use new 7.12 cats for my x1800xt. Ive always played quite a few array of games, but primarily lately ive been concentrating on World of Warcraft. I play dual instances ( two minimized windows, two characters ) at once. Before my format etc, it worked flawlessly, no glitches, nothing. Now eventually it will reboot my system ( once gave me a BSOD ). I underclocked the card 50mhz, and it didnt seem to reboot, but would start to stutter after awhile with about a 60temp in ATItools.

Temps: 55-68 for my video card, most was 70 once, but ive used ATI tool to up fan speed
CPU: 40-50 for both cores on load

Ive been having odd problems lately, one day after installing CCC my 22inch wide monitor would only showup when windows booted, not before. Yesterday the computer semi locked while changing resolutions in prey, I ctrl+alt+del out and the whole screen is very bright/contrasted. Wakeup today, turn on computer, its the same....reboot it mid-day its back to normal.

Main concern is, im nearing the 1 year mark for my card and I want to make sure its not defective, or at least be semi sure. Does anyone get any hints to what the problem may be? I tried using different drivers but still didnt help.

Specs: radeon x1800xt 512mb
AMD x2 3800+ AM2
Biostar Tforce4 AM2 mobo
2x1gb Mushkin DDR2 800 ram
Enermax Liberty 500w psu
Soundblaster Audigy 2
2x320gb Seagate Satas
1x200gb Seagate IDE
Windows XP Home.

Nothing OC'ed

 

[sieistganzfett]

from what you said, the only thing you did was reinstall windows on another (different) drive that has been in your system all along. no new hardware added. were the temps 60 or lower throughout the year or your just noticing now (the x1950 i had for a short time had temps in the mid 60s, which i feel is normal, but warm). underclocking your video card made it more reliable? i would blame the card then and rma, but it could also be the power supply if its only when the system is fully loaded, doing something very intesive gpu +cpu wise can cause reboots. hardware going bad since your reinstall seems like its only a coincidence and i would think its drivers since i hate CCC. try uninstalling the drivers, and that CCC, install strictly the drivers (not CCC) (dont think its drivers if underclocking really makes the card more reliable). did you install the latest motherboard chipset drivers before the video card drivers? since you have been having blue screens, it would be best use windows debugger to narrow it down and prove if its really the video drivers causing the bsod. are voltages fluctuating at all such as on the 12v when you go from idle to full load such as gaming? voltages fluctuating would point to the power supply. the temps you said are normal/typical.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

install Windows Debugger, and using it to check the dump file to find out windows crashed. after installing run !analyze -v and lmv commands to find out what did it.
**** after dbg_x86_6.6.07.5.exe installed, open windbg, set FILE|symbol file path to click "reload" box, then ok.
SRV*c:\local cache*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

**** then file|open crash dump and run the commands

!analyze -v will tell you the error, click the link on the drive
under Debugging Details:
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID -tells the general category of the failure
IMAGE_NAME -tells what driver is at fault, like if DRIVER_FAULT
click on the driver highlighted under MODULE_NAME it tells info like path to that module

lmv -tells loaded modules in detail, then click edit|find for that driver listed under IMAGE_NAME


****IF
*if driver at fault is ntoskrl.exe (windows core) or win32.sys (driver most responsible for the GUI layer on windows),it is PROBABLY NOT WINDOWS needing to be reinstalled, it is PROBABLY some third-party device driver that called it.
*if the driver at fault is an antivirus driver, it is PROBABLY NOT the anti virus needing to be reinstalled.
*

 

[arthras]

I would agree that its a little odd how i havent really changed the hardware, just the hard drive functions. I did install the drivers for my motherboard ( although the drivers are very difficult to find...). I think ive tried it without CCC and the same problem occurs, but I will try it again. "Latest" chipset driver im not sure, as i said, the drivers are pretty hard to come by, ive found it one place on the net and my old cd that came with buying it. Ive had little problems with the video card before where it didnt seem like it was working properly as well, but in the end it usually works decently.

Never used that debugger before, interesting. Will the debugger only tell me about BSOD? Or any restarts I encounter?

I figured the temps seemed rather normal, thats why im kind of confused. The video card didnt seem overly hot or anything, neither the CPU's. Yet it continues to lockup (although I am running those two games at once...it is WoW after all). Its taking up about 1.3-4 gigs of my 2g ram while in the games.

I'll checkout the voltages when I get home, can you recommend something to check the voltages? I think ive used either speedfan/motherboard monitor that have it.

Thanks for the reply btw, appreciate the info.

 

[sieistganzfett]

windows debugger will only tell you stuff about the system that is shown in the dump file the computer generates during a bsod. chances are the restarts were the "automaticly restart" being enabled when your pc does a blue screen. you will probably find several dmp files under c:\windows\minidump. i have never found a great way of telling when a computer locks up or restarts. if you look under the event viewer though, you may see some events that are error before the restart, or a bunch of things starting after the restart, that will be shown in the event viewer's logs.

best would be a digitial multimeter since they tend to be far more accurate. i dont know about Biostar, but i know asus has a utility that tells the voltages, its called asus pc probe. speedfan or motherboard monitor. i like the pc probe the best but you cant use that for your biostar.