Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

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unfaithfulsfan
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Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

Hi, all. Recently had to replace my monitor and went with a ViewSonic VA2855SMH 28" and, while I was at it, replaced my graphics card with an EVGA GeForce GT 730, 1 GB DDR5. At first, everything was lovely. I could work on whatever I was working on without having to squint at the screen, videos look awesome and they actually match the sound for once. Then suddenly, I started having problems with the display blacking out as though it was going to sleep but the only way to recover it was to restart the machine.

Researching the issue points to my PSU. At first, I thought it wasn't because the minimum requirement is 300 W and mine is a 500. Unless this card takes that much more power than my old 9600 GT and it's drawing too much power from the whole system. The only errors that show up in Event Viewer are of the restart.

I'm just kind of stumped right now.

Thanks
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Apoptosis
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by Apoptosis »

Just curious... Did you have just discrete graphics before?

Also, when installing the new drivers did you remove the old ones, run CCLeaner to clean the registry and install the new ones? GeForce drivers have an optional check box for a clean install, so be sure to check that when installing them fresh.

GeForce 362.00 WHQL drivers came out today, so I'd remove your old drivers, clean up the system and then install these:

Windows 10 - http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverRe ... 9202/en-us
Windows 7/8 - http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverRe ... 9196/en-us
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

Thanks for the heads up on the new drivers! Yesterday was the first time since this all started that the system recovered from the crash & I actually received a message. It stated that the nVidia driver (I'm doing this from memory so I might get it wrong) v 361.91 crashed but successfully recovered.

I checked for the update immediately afterwards but there were none.

But, yes, I had a GeForce 9600 GT before and before I installed the new drivers, I uninstalled the old ones - at least I did according to nVidia's little utility. But I'll run CCleaner, too, just to be sure.

Thanks! I'll update to the new version and post back whether that solves the problem
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

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Well, crap! Everything was looking good after removing the old driver and installing the new one. No crashes, everything seemed fine. Then this morning, my wife was checking her email and, boom, same thing except, again, the system recovered.

She said afterwards a message popped up in the lower right corner but she couldn't remember what it said. I can only assume it was the same one I saw before. I'll have to check the log to verify that.

Don't know. Should I look at a different card? I'm fairly certain I can still return this one. I have not seen anything related to drivers for this particular series but I just wonder if there's some weird incompatibility with my system. Why that would be I have no idea but there again computers can be persnickety.
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by Apoptosis »

unfaithfulsfan wrote:Well, crap! Everything was looking good after removing the old driver and installing the new one. No crashes, everything seemed fine. Then this morning, my wife was checking her email and, boom, same thing except, again, the system recovered.

She said afterwards a message popped up in the lower right corner but she couldn't remember what it said. I can only assume it was the same one I saw before. I'll have to check the log to verify that.

Don't know. Should I look at a different card? I'm fairly certain I can still return this one. I have not seen anything related to drivers for this particular series but I just wonder if there's some weird incompatibility with my system. Why that would be I have no idea but there again computers can be persnickety.

I'd remove the drivers, clean the registry and look for a different card. Something obviously isn't right with it or it's not working right with that particualr setup for some odd reason. A $70 graphics card shouldn't be doing that most of the EVGA GEForce GT 730's are actively air cooled, so I doubt it is overheating. Did you get a DDR3 or GDDR5 model?

I'd look at the EVGA GeForce GT 730 2GB with GDDR5 memory personally - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814487052

That 2GB GDDR5 card has a 902 MHz core clock and 40 GB/s of memory bandwidth.
The 2GB DDR3 version has a 700 MHz core clock and 22.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

At full 1080P HD I'd want 2GB with higher clock speeds and as much memory bandwidth that I could get.

** Edit ** I see you mentioned you had GDDR5 in your first post. Do you have the 96 CUDA Core card or the 384 CUDA Core version of the GeForce GT 730 GDDR5? If it's the 96 core version I'd return it in a second. I believe the older 96 Core cards are using the GF108 'Fermi' GPU and the newer 384 Core cards are using the newer GK208 'Kepler' GPU.

If you open GPU-Z look at the core count that should tell you what you have.

In order of performance:
GT 730 384-core/GDDR5
GT 730 384-core/GDDR5
GT 730 96-core/GDDR5
GT 730 96-core/DDR3

The GK208 are newer, lower power, better display support. Maybe that ties in with the issues you are having with that display.
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

OK. Looks like I have the later version although I was unable to find a specific field that shows number of cores.

Prior to running GPU-Z, I ran DDU then installed only the nVidia display driver (v 362.00). Less than 10 minutes later, as I was reading your response, I experienced another crash. This time it didn't recover. I decided to wait to see what would happen and, after a couple of minutes, my PC restarted on its own.

Think I'm just going to look for another card. If these "dirty" restarts keep happening it's just going to lead to more and more issues with other components.

Thanks again for the help. I'll post back whatever I decide to go with.
GT730.gif
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"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

This is what I'm looking at on Amazon. I'll compare to Newegg but $99 doesn't seem too bad. I just found it a minute ago and now I have to put my mother-in-law in bed so I'll research it more in a little while. If memory serves, the GTX designation is a step up from the GT, as is the 750 but I can't remember what the "ti" denotes. Any suggestions one way or the other on this card?

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB GDDR5

Thanks!!
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by Apoptosis »

unfaithfulsfan wrote:This is what I'm looking at on Amazon. I'll compare to Newegg but $99 doesn't seem too bad. I just found it a minute ago and now I have to put my mother-in-law in bed so I'll research it more in a little while. If memory serves, the GTX designation is a step up from the GT, as is the 750 but I can't remember what the "ti" denotes. Any suggestions one way or the other on this card?

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB GDDR5

Thanks!!
If memory serves me correctly as this goes back to 2014... The GeForce GTX 750 Ti was the first Maxwell GPU powered card and uses a 1st Gen GM107 GPU with 640 CUDA cores.

The difference between the Ti and non-Ti is basically the core count (640 on the 750 Ti and 512 on the 750). The best deal right now I see is the EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti Superclocked for $99.99 shipped after rebate.

If you are looking for the lowest price and want to wait for a regular EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB card to come in, NCIX has one for $88.99 after rebate.
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

Oops. :oops: Couldn't sleep last night so I ordered the Zotac card around 3:30 am. Tried to cancel the order but, damn, Amazon's fast! Guess I'll try out that card & see how it does. I'm not a gamer so I'm hoping it will work out for what I need. If not, I'll return it and go with the EVGA. In the meantime, I've got to pull this card and get it shipped out before tomorrow.

Thanks again for all your help.
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
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Re: Spontaneous Crashes/Lockups

Post by Apoptosis »

Let me know if the replacement works!
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