Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

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Kingtal0n
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Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Kingtal0n »

Hello, Please help me diagnose a problem! The symptom is:
after about 30 minutes of playing a game (Starcraft 2, Morrowind, Battlefield 2) Any game with decent graphics, It will exit without warning. there is no crash diaglog, no error message, no clue as to what happened- It just closes as if the user pressed Alt+F4.

I have noticed that right before the game does this, the fan on the Graphics card starts to speed up. Then, right after the game shuts, the fan slows back down. This makes me think the graphics card is overheating. I tried pointing a large fan to it and giving plenty of circulation, but that did not help.


This is the system in question:
BFG Tech BFGR76256GTOCE GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+(65W) Windsor 2.4GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Processor
ASUS M2N Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 430 MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit DR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory - Retail
Last edited by Kingtal0n on Sat Nov 12, 2011 11:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Major_A
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Major_A »

The obvious things to try first:
Update your video card drivers.
Update your chipset drivers.
Update soundcard drivers from chipset maker's website (Realtek, VIA, etc...).
Monitor temps of CPU/GPU when playing a game (HWMonitor).

Other things that may be the cause:
Incorrect RAM timings/voltage.
Faulty GPU.
Faulty power supply (monitor voltages HWMonitor).
CPU overclocked too much/not enough voltage.
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by vbironchef »

I just did this to my BFG gtx285 card. http://www.nvidia.com/object/performance_group.html Once downloaded you are able to set your fan speed to manual. I set it at 70% for F@H.
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Kingtal0n »

Well guys, I am having a heck of a time now.

Heres whats transpired so far:
I downloaded the latest video drivers and the install went well. But they do not allow me to access my GPU temperature or any voltage utilities or anything like that at all.. And whats even more painful is the old drivers from 2006 DID allow me to access my GPU core temp, so it was like a step in the wrong direction.
we tried a game again, and encountered the same problem. Driver files say "2011" instead of 2006 so this is even happening with the latest drivers.

So naturally, next comes the motherboard drivers. I used the Asus website auto-identify and it did find my M2N motherboard, so that was good.
but nothing from their site works! I literally tried installing the chipset updates about 15 times at least, with various attempts strategies, everything from manually removing the ethernet drivers and trying to update using the INF files- NOTHING WORKED. The software would say "it is necessary to un-install the existing drivers..." and then hang up. So I manually removed them, then it would say "New drivers successfully installed" but there were NO NEW DRIVERS, In my system hardware device manager they still presented as "unknown devices" after installing the drivers nearly ten times of trial and error. To get my ethernet drivers working again I had to do a system restore back to square one: It reinstalled my old video drivers, and de-installed every application recently installed, and reversed all my changes made since I started. But hey, at least I got internet working again.

I also had the same experience with the Asus onboard sound drivers, the updated software just gives an error message three times and quits. So it looks like I am stuck using drivers from 2006 for my motherboard, since nothing from the Asus website worked. Not one driver was notably successfull.

So now I am stuck again. The latest video drivers dont allow me to see my GPU temp or modify anything, so I cant even play with that. My motherboard has everything in the BIOS set to "auto" because I do not know any voltage settings or DRAM information anymore, I remember something about 2V and 4-4-4-12 but I dont remember where to put those values in the BIOS and I do not have access to the Corsair factory specifications for this particular 800Mhz SDRAM; I also dont know what to set my FSB or multiplier to, or anything of that nature. Not sure what to do next, thinking of parting this system out.

edit: I read through the user manual and noted somewhere it said "Requires NVIDIA System Tools
software" and so I went to the Nvidia website and did a search for " NVIDIA System Tools
software" and came up with an 80MB download- gonna see where that takes me.
At the very least I intend to verify that the temperature of the GPU is in fact what is causing games to close unexpectedly.
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Kingtal0n »

Well, I finally got access to the bios on the video card somehow- dont ask me how, good god just dont. The control panel from Nvidia does not work, it tells me "The changes made are invalid and will not be applied" every time I try to save a new fan setting or lower the clock speed. Somehow or other via relentless trial and error I was still able to jack up the cooling fan RPM to probably a good 50-70% higher than Ive ever heard it before intermittenly. I got it to stay there for a good 45 minutes at one point, But it didnt matter! A graphic intense situation still causes the application to exit suddenly even with the fan screaming. I am thinking the graphics card is just bad, I should verify diagnosis by exchanging with a different PCI express video card and watching for the symptom to present.
Last edited by Kingtal0n on Sat Nov 12, 2011 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Major_A »

Any idea what power supply you have in there?
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Kingtal0n »

Major_A wrote:Any idea what power supply you have in there?
yes, my psu is CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 520W
I am running all SATA devices, a single HDD and two DVD-RW drives, and three case fans.
thank you
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Kingtal0n »

I got a bid on one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... fresh=true

Ive only purchased one PCI express video card in my life. I thought I could count on this Nvidia Geforce card for life, Ive never had this kind of trouble with ASUS or NVidia before. Ive been loyal to buying this stuff for the old AGP banshee and even the PCI Voodoo-2 video cards that you would connect together (1024x768) to have UNREAL or QUAKE 2 in full amazing detail. Blackmagic anybody?
Ah, the days when things were so simple. You either owned a Voodoo 2, or you couldnt see the incredible textures and have that UNREAL experience.
The memory on that thing was EDO and it took up the entire video card! These PCI express cards dont even show their stuff.
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Kingtal0n »

Check this out:
Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Utilizing this event log I notice a few things:
The motherboard temperature appears to be PEGGED at 152*F. Indeed there is a chip on the motherboard that is so hot I can not touch it. I feel the system instability may have something to do with that chip.
The temperature does not budge, and the resolution appears to be poor, since it started around 125*F after system boot and then jumped to 152.6*F and stayed there for the entire time after that.

Notice when the application crashes there is no unreasonable GPU temperature- that is, the GPU never goes above 126*F or below 120*F the entire time, either using the desktop or any application. The GPU temps may in fact be fine.

While inspecting the system I also noticed the fan in the power supply is moving quite slowly. I must reason this may have an effect as well, and could also be a potential problem.

I am wondering if the "auto" setting in the BIOS for the mother board (such as FSB, multiplier, clock, DRAM timing, etc...) is causing the extremely high temperature of the chip on the motherboard. What do you think?
So now I am starting to think to change the mother board, change the power supply (fan), and keep the video card.

Also, the motherboard that the Asus AUTO DETECT finds (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2/M2NSLI/) Does not look exactly like mine. I have a large long copper tube that runs from the (very very hot chip) around the side of the CPU. Their picture shows a heat sink ON the (very very hot chip). Maybe they changed the design after realizing that my design was faulty?
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by sbohdan »

Hi,
The shutdowns seem to be an overheating problem. video card overheats but it seems like everything else overheats also. The solution is to make a radical improvement to the cooling of the entire system.

1. Remove your CPU cooler, clean it, reapply the TIM (thermal interface material) and carefuly install it back. I would recommend any brand name paste like AS5, Tuniq etc.

2. Remove the video cards heatsink as well. Clean off the GPU and the heatsink, apply new TIM. Be careful: do not use too much. It has to cover the surface of the GPU in a thin, even layer. Reinstal the heatsink. In case the video card RAM chips have no heatsinks, I would suggest to get a set of them (Both the GPU and the RAM chips are a heat source and by heating up the PCB of the card, they both contibute to higher temps of each other (same applies to the motherboard).

3. The exytremely hot chip on the MOBO has a heatsink as well but probably no fan installed on it. Just get a small fan and fit it on by little screws. This will greatly improve the stability of the whole system and reduce the temp of the chip and the MOBO's overall temps as well. I would also remove the chip's (probably the south bridge) heatsink and also reapply the thermal paste before installing the fan on it.

4. Make sure the wire management is in order, so proper airflow is possible through the case. Use zip ties and try to hide cables, that are not used. Clean out all the dust build up.

5. Make sure you haveat least 1 case fan installed (preferably on the side of the case, sucking in fresh air directly on the video card and south bridge and at least one csae fan on the back of the case, that sucks the hot air out. This will create an airflow through the case.

I would also check what other chips are hot to the touch (just use your finger) on the MOBO and install little RAM sinks on them as well.

After all this your temps will be greatly reduced and your computer will be better than when it was new, unless there is a hardware error.
Main rig: NZXT Phantom modded case with Danger Den WC, Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite, Ryzen 5800X @ stock, 32GB Patriot Viper DDR4 3200Mhz 16-18-18-36-1T, AMD RX 5700XT + AlphaCool WC, ACER Nitro XV2 27", SP 1TB nvme PCiE GEN3, Samsung 2TB; Cooler Master MW Gold 650W, Win10 Pro 64
my complete GFX tuneup & cooling mod: http://forums.legitreviews.com/viewtopi ... highlight=
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Kingtal0n »

I was able to get the temps DOWN on the Mother board's chipset by setting the DRAM timing to (5-5-5-18 @ 1.8v).

But games STILL close randomly, unexpectedly without warning. Even though now I can touch the chips (any chip) while the application is running and- although fairly hot, it is not nearly as hot anymore, and I can leave my finger on it.

I've already inspected and dusted the system to death. The only thing cooling wise I can do now, it seems, is add the thermal paste you suggested, and replace/repair the power supplies fan. Whch may be linked to the issue of course. I have the case WIDE OPEN with a real stand-up fan pointed at it for supreme circulation- it doesnt help.

Thank you for your response although at this point I am pointing my finger at every possible chip! bad cookies! lol. The gpu hovers around 145*F but it seems to run the application for a good 10-25 minutes at this temp. Instantly of course, once the game closes, the GPU comes back down to about 131*F. I tried lowering the clock speed of the GPU from 500mhz to about 300mhz but it made no difference. I did the same for the GPU's memory. Still gets to 145*F.

It is worth mentioning the computer never crashes or causes problems other than this one issue. It never shuts off unexpectedly. Normal daily routine stuff like web surfing and older games that do not require high performance video are fine all day. It will run Unreal and Half-life all day long without problem at any resolution. It never locks up or gives trouble, and it does not suddenly restard without warning or give any other symptoms of overheating. The issue may be completely unrelated to temperature! At this point, I must assume a piece of hardware is simply bad. It just dumps you out of the application as if you pressed Alt+F4, without warning, almost as if the memory of it was ripped out and the computer "forgot" what it was doing with that process. The process dissapears without a trace! And it gives no warning signs either, no slow-down, no freezing, no lockup.
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Re: Help me Geforce 7600, Game trouble AMD/ASUS

Post by Major_A »

nVidia MCPs run hot as Hell, it's just a fact of life. I didn't see anything really wrong with your temps you posted. They all seem normal to me. Do you have a multimeter that you can use to monitor the voltages from your power supply?

Here's the MCP on my nForce4 430 motherboard. This is with an ambient room temp of 73 degrees Fahrenheit.
Temps.png
Temps.png (27.35 KiB) Viewed 7068 times

I know you said you looked for updated chipset drivers. Download these, I'm running them on my nForce4 chipset.
nForce Chipset Drivers v15.56 WQHL
Win 7/Vista x64: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce-vis ... river.html
Win 7 /Vista x86: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce-vis ... river.html
Win XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce-win ... river.html

If you still have crashing issues you might want to check your RAM. When your RAM starts to go bad it can cause all kinds of sporadic issues.
http://www.memtest.org/

*EDIT*
I don't know if you won the card on ebay but Newegg has a 9600GSO for $15 after a $30 MIR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 14-150-570
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