Legit Reviews

I have ask about this before but I need more help. I am having random game crashes and accasional system crashes. Upon re-boot from a system crash I get a error message stating that the system has just recovered from a serious error caused by device drivers. My problem is the error will not tell me which device. In case you all don't remember I have a completely fresh windows install along with all the new drivers listed on the sites of the hardware I have. I never installed "old" drivers for any of the devices so I should not have to "clean" any old drivers to avoid corruption. I have ran DXDIAG. and found no conflicts there. I ran Memtest86 and got no errors back. My CPU idle temp is 34'C and load is 40 + or - 2. I have not yet had the money to buy an aftermarket cooler for my 9800Pro but I am also not pushing it very hard either ( Neverwinter Nights is all I play right now). I did have to replace my Nbridge fan/heatsink since the fan was failing on my other one( it never failed altogether just started to make noise and slow down). I am at a loss as to what could be causing this. I have almost descided that the MOBO or GPU must be bad or something. Some nights it could crash 5 times in 15 min. then other nights it may not crash at all. Sometimes I have to reboot my system to reload my game. I also had 2 VPU recover errors last night that didnt result in a crash.

That sounds alot like a PSU issue!
Do you have a DMM? If so check your voltage rails.
What PSU are you using?

You said you replaced your NB fan/heatsink, Did you use arctic silver?
Double-check the hsf is properly seated on the NB (i'm sure you already done the same for the cpu!)


I'd guess your GFX card is pulling too much power...also if unstable when your not gaming could be symptoms of a bad psu too

^ ^

Agreed. Get out the multimeter, and check your rails. If you need to replace it, there are none better for cheap than a Fortron.

My PSU is an Aspire 500w. Its not very old..maybe 8 months. Is there a link to somewhere that will tell me what the PSU should read?? and what do you all mean by rails??

Rails = Your PSU takes AC voltage from your power sockett.. then outputs 3 seperate DC voltage "rails" - 12v - 3.3v - and 5v
All sould run within a 10% variance.. ie. 12v no more than 13.2v max or 10.8v min... Most PSU's will allow for 5%... If your pc needs more current on a individual "rail" than your psu can supply, then you have probs....

Some psu (even good ones!) give voltage spikes and dips (basiclly their faulty).. This will cause instablilty.

IF you don't have a multimeter.. then use motherboard monitor (less percise), can be used to check your voltages


Your GFX card draws only 12v... It also draws a fair bit of power..
Could be that your 12v rail is unstable..?

You can check your spu's specs, but checking the label on the side..

MBM reads the following voltages:
+3.3V...3.38
+5V...5.16
+12v...12.45
AGP VDDQ...1.6
3V DUAL...3.33
5VSB...5.11
V CORE....1.72
DDR VDD...2.72

I increased my CPU volts from 1.68 to 1.719 the AGP volts up to 1.7, and the DDR VDD to 2.80 since Corsiars site said they tested it at 2.75. I will see what that does.

Raising the AGP voltage may actualy make it LESS stable. Usualy not a good thing to do, rarely does anything positive.

DDR VDDD, well, if its memtest stable then that probably won't help either.