Full Metal fried?

[:FI:Falcon]

Alice,

My computer has been crashing to desktop, freezing in game and crashing to re-boot while playing IL2 for the past two/three weeks after flying for more than 1 1/2 - two hours. The only thing, that I can remember, that occurred or was changed at that time was a few minutes of alarm bells on my CPU (I think) when temps reached the mid 70's. The alarms are set to default and that's prolly not the first time I've rung my chimes while making the world safe for Democracy ... or the Reich ... or the Emperor ... or whatever. Since then I have cleared out the dust and temps are ten to 15+ degrees cooler, but the crashing still remains.

This occurs with both installments of the game. I play no other high-demand game at this time. Temperatures at time of subsequent crashes are well below default alarm settings.

I've had a low power issue for a while, but recently have gotten a powered USB hub that seems to relieve brown-outs at start and makes my stick stiffer.

If you wish to take a stab at it, HERE is my dxdiag file.

Thx, I'll name a ferret/kitten/dog/grand kid after you,


Falcon

[:FI:Gurberly]

Reminds me to vaccum out my own PC....

Damn cat hair gets everywhere.

G

[:FI:Moe]

Oooh look at Mr. First-Generation-Dual-Core over here. Well la-di-da.

I see you've got a 320GB Maxtor USB hard drive. Are you running games directly from that?

Can you take a pic of the power supply in your case so I can get some info about it? I'm looking for a shot of the sticker which has the make and model and other important info about the loads it can handle.

Your graphics card drivers are old but I don't see them causing a problem with IL2. Have you checked the fan on your graphics card? Also take the card out and check to see that the whole fan and heatsink are making good contact with the GPU and surrounding memory chips. Although I'd be expecting graphical anomalies from hot memory rather than freezes and reboots.

You've got 2 soundcards enabled. Do you use both? Turning off the one you don't use could save a few watts.
Same goes for your 2 optical drives. I imagine the NEC drive should handle everything you need it to do. You could disconnect the other one to take some more load off your PSU.

As you can tell I'm concerned it may be a power-related issue. Your PSU may be beginning to give up the ghost or just be over-stressed.

CPU temperature is also still a major suspect. How confident would you feel removing, cleaning and re-seating the CPU heatsink? 5....4....3...2.....1

[:FI:Falcon]

Gurb, yeah, Harley liked to sleep on my big old CRT monitor. It was vacuumin' time every week. She sleeps on the stove now. It's easy to get her off.

~~~

Oooh look at Mr. First-Generation-Dual-Core over here. Well la-di-da.

I see you've got a 320GB Maxtor USB hard drive. Are you running games directly from that?

Nope, that's my storage box. It has its own power. That's where I keep all the p**n Lars sends me ... err and Graham ... and Mike ... and Frank ... and Kev and ...

Can you take a pic of the power supply in your case so I can get some info about it? I'm looking for a shot of the sticker which has the make and model and other important info about the loads it can handle.

The power supply was hard to fit into the box ... so I hear from Joe, dah guy what built it. I'll see what I can do. It's ~530 Watts though ... or at least it once was.

Your graphics card drivers are old but I don't see them causing a problem with IL2. Have you checked the fan on your graphics card? Also take the card out and check to see that the whole fan and heatsink are making good contact with the GPU and surrounding memory chips. Although I'd be expecting graphical anomalies from hot memory rather than freezes and reboots.

Take my graphics cards out? Might be worth it. I think only one of my cards is working. About 6 months ago I noticed I could no longer select BOTH of them ... but since everything was working fine ...

You've got 2 soundcards enabled. Do you use both? Turning off the one you don't use could save a few watts.
Same goes for your 2 optical drives. I imagine the NEC drive should handle everything you need it to do. You could disconnect the other one to take some more load off your PSU.

Yeah, I have configured it like that for TS and my headset to relieve load on CPU, but if electrical power is becoming an issue ... I'll see.

As you can tell I'm concerned it may be a power-related issue. Your PSU may be beginning to give up the ghost or just be over-stressed.

Just like me. Hmph, I feel its pain.

CPU temperature is also still a major suspect. How confident would you feel removing, cleaning and re-seating the CPU heatsink?

Confident? I ain't never touched a live CPU before. I hear they don't like it ... but while I'm diggin'round, I check it out.

"Honey! Where's my pickax?!"

5....4....3...2.....1

Ahh! Wait!

[:FI:Macca]

Stu, try removing one of the RAM sticks and run stuff. If it works ok replace it with the other one and try again. Maybe one of your memory sticks went nuts fue to overheatness of your CPU.

Mac

[:FI:Moe]

The power supply was hard to fit into the box ... so I hear from Joe, dah guy what built it. I'll see what I can do. It's ~530 Watts though ... or at least it once was.

Take my graphics cards out? Might be worth it. I think only one of my cards is working. About 6 months ago I noticed I could no longer select BOTH of them ... but since everything was working fine ...

Well if it's supposed to handle 7800GTX SLI then I can't imagine it being underpowered but it may be malfunctioning.

You mean to tell me you've had a 7800GTX acting as a decorative hanging inside your case for 6 months? Anything in device manager with a nice yellow exclamation mark on it? (Start -> Right-click on My Computer -> Properties -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager Button.) It may just need a driver re-install to kick back in. In the Nvidia control panel is there any mention of Setting SLI configuration? Remember you can only turn on SLI for one monitor. If you have multiple monitors set up in Dual-View or Clone, etc. then SLI will be disabled.

Yeah, I have configured it like that for TS and my headset to relieve load on CPU, but if electrical power is becoming an issue ... I'll see.

How does that configuration ease the load on your CPU? I'm intrigued.

Confident? I ain't never touched a live CPU before. I hear they don't like it ... but while I'm diggin'round, I check it out.

I can talk you through it on TS but you would need some things to hand:
1) Isopropyl Alcohol (the kind of stuff used to clean CRT screens, check the ingredients)
2) Some new thermal goop (Arctic Silver 5, OCZ Freeze, etc.)

Stu, try removing one of the RAM sticks and run stuff. If it works ok replace it with the other one and try again. Maybe one of your memory sticks went nuts fue to overheatness of your CPU.

Good advice. Maybe remove one stick and then run the Black Death track on loop for a couple of hours and see what develops. Monitoring CPU and GPU temps during this period would be useful. Then swap the sticks and repeat the procedure. Computers are fun!

[:FI:Bluebell]

Should Stu not at least update all his drivers first, the bios, graphics, soundcards, etc, before starting on the hardware?



Vin

[:FI:Sneaky_Russian]

Should Stu not at least update all his drivers first, the bios, graphics, soundcards, etc, before starting on the hardware?



Vin

Wouldn't have thought drivers would set off the fire alarm. Maybe an adware and virus scan. possibly HD check (chkdisk)

[:FI:Moe]

Should Stu not at least update all his drivers first, the bios, graphics, soundcards, etc, before starting on the hardware?



Vin

Normally that's excellent advice but the problem here is that this exact system, old drivers and all, was working fine a few weeks ago until two hardware events:
1) An overheating CPU set off the thermal alarm built in to the motherboard.
2) Stu added a powered USB hub because he was having problems getting power to all his USB devices.

[:FI:Falcon]

Update

I have found that two small fans in the back of my case aren't working and that my NB fan is dying a slow and noisy death. The temps everywhere are cool now though after the big dust out.

I'll need to wait a day or seven to get any Arctic silver etc.

~~~

- I haven't had time to check much farther than that yet. My diag shows two good sticks, (2048MB?). Do I still need to do that swap thingy?

- I'm gonna order a new NB fan and check the wiring on the others, but it bothers me that the case is not overly hot now.

> cue ominous music <

Thanks all, keep those cards and letters comin'


F

[:FI:Moe]

Well I would see how it behaves in the mid-week modded coop test session, assuming you're attending.

If you're not I would leave the machine looping Black Death for a few hours with all your memory in and just see if the thing is stable.

My diag shows two good sticks, (2048MB?). Do I still need to do that swap thingy?

The dxdiag is mostly an information dump with only a small subset of your system components actually tested. The swap thing would be a good idea to eliminate the memory as a possible cause of the problem.

What about your second video card? Anything in device manager or the nvidia control panel?

[:FI:Sacktime]

Hi Falcon

I too had an issue like this with my comp, for me it was the heat. You might want to try what I did. I bought two case fans, I installed one to blow air in and the other to blow air out, ensure the one that blows air in is a high location,(I installed mine in the back) don't want it to suck in dust bunnies, sheep wool, ferrit fur, etc. And the one that blows out try to place in the oppisite side of the case, I was lucky and had a vent in the front of my computer too. This way you have air blowing in and a exhaust fan blowing out. I also ensured no other card was installed next to my Graphics card, if you know what I mean. Since then I have had no heat problems other than issues with my dated ATI X1300pro graphics card as I tend to max that old girl out and she is ready to retire soon. And vacuming the guts out once and awhile as you found out helps the heat thing.

Just my 2 cents
Sacktime

[:FI:Gadje]

You mentioned a message of GPU warning before a crash last night. Make sure your Graphics card fan is clean and working (blowing is better than sucking I find ). Checking temps too if you dont have software to do this there is plenty about you can try that monitor temps for the card. Is it overclocked?

[:FI:Moe]

You mentioned a message of GPU warning before a crash last night.

Give us all the info you can Stu.

[:FI:Falcon]

The ALERT! appeared after the crash upon re-boot. I'll look for the GPU temp software. My two ~70mm case fans have stopped working. They begin to spin when system is turned on, but stop w/in seconds. All monitored temps are nice and cool, PWM/CPU/SYS/Room. I'll recheck the GPU's today. I'll try to squeeze in a memory test this weekend.

Is the NB fan the same as the CPU fan?

I think the PSU is in dire need of replacement. I'll visit NewEgg or BestBuy soon.


F