New 7900 GS Need Help!

[TigerRP]

I have new 7900 GS extreme 525. My computer has the following:

400 Watt PS Ultra
MSI 965 Neo-F Mobo
2 gig of pc4200 Pny
Pentium D 945 Processor

My old X700 worked fine on this thing. I go to check 3DMark05 and it locks up - even in ET it locks up.

I reset the video card and rechecked the power supply cables. Any thoughts on where I go from here?

I also downloaded the latest drivers from NVidia and reinstalled the drivers.

[markkleb]

I like Ultra stuff but are you sure the 400watt PS is ok for the GPU and CPU?

[TigerRP]

So you think I might not have enough PS? Newegg said 400 required but I guess I could be dropping. I have a 500 W at work so I could change it out tomorrow and check that avenue. What's your PS?

[werty316]

A 400W is not enought for your rig. Get atleast a 500W PSU with good amps on the 12V rail as a Pentium D 945 sucks enough power and a 7900GS doesn't help either at full load.

Check you rig here to give you an idea on how much wattage you'll need: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

[markkleb]

I think the Ultra (wishes it was 400 watts).

It MAY be just enough but its hard to say.

If it was a Silverstone, FSP, Antec or a top line PS I would say dont worry but the Ultra is a kind of a Low to Mid kind of PS.

[werty316]

Quality 400W PSU or not its better to be safe than sorry ;)

[Kougar]

That powerhungry processor and high-end card are to much for a 400watt PSU, especially one from Ultra. Their supplies do not work well when nearing or at their maximum load.

I'll have to agree with Werty, you need to get a good PSU, and one at least 500watts unless you want to run into this issue again later on down the road ;)

[markkleb]

So you think I might not have enough PS? Newegg said 400 required but I guess I could be dropping. I have a 500 W at work so I could change it out tomorrow and check that avenue. What's your PS?

Because my 7600GTs only take about 32watts each I use a Silverstone Strider 400.

On my comp with the 7950GT I use a Antec 550 (thanks Scott and Antec)

Another thing I use AMD Opteron CPUs, they use a lot less power than the Intel stuff.

[TigerRP]

OK thanks everyone..........Ic an see I'm gonna like this forum. Interesting the XFX rep told me to use 3DMark06 and not the others and check the latest drivers. I'm using 93.71 Forceware - is this the right version or should I use something else?

Also, I stayed with Ultra but bought their 600 Watt 2 rail system and installed it. I'm downloading it right now and I'll update you on the test soon.

Tiger

[markkleb]

I use the same drivers and they work fine to me. That PS should have enough to run what you have, Have Fun...:grin:

[TigerRP]

I've tried the PS; I've tried various drivers, the OEM Disk, 93.71, the one on XFX website, and the aftermarket one to no avail. It still locks up even while playing ET.

My ET gaming is suffering and I'm gonna send this thing back unless I get some relief.

Any other ideas. During one lockup I got a distorted screen that said ther was a display driver problem before it faded away to oblivion.

I'm using a Dell Flat Panel E171FPb. Could that be the problem? A friend of mine is suggesting that i reload windows and it WILL work. Any thoughts on this? I hate going to that much work.

Thanks for any ideas.

[p0lish]

I doubt it is the PSU unless it is a crappy one. Check if 400 is max or median power. A quality PSU at 400 will outperform an OEM running 550 i.e. On the other hand having a 700W PSU doesnt hurt at all.

[xfxsupport]

Was the X700 driver completely uninstalled? You can try Driver Cleaner free version from www.drivercleaner.net, just make sure you only remove the VIDEO DRIVERS not the motherboard drivers :) Then reinstall the Nvidia drivers. Also if you have any other devices installed like a TV Tuner card or Sound Card you can try removing them temporarily to see if there is a conflict. Please keep us posted on the progress.

XFX Support

[TigerRP]

Thanks very much for your reply.

I will use the program this evening and report back. Can you tell me which driver you recommend? 93.71 or an earlier version. I saw on another forum where people were saying a 84.?? version was working better on a 7900 GT for them.

Again, I'm thankful you are replying. I don't have a TV tuner card or a sound card. I'm using on board sound on a MSI 965 Neo-F motherboard.

Tiger

[TigerRP]

OK I tried Driver Cleaner and I actually got both 3dmark 05 and 06 to run once. I then rebooted and now I'm back to square 1. I can't seem to get rid of those old ati dll files and root entries. Any ideas without a complete reinstall?

Any help would be appreciated. I keep running driver cleaner and the same ATI junk shows up again.

[Kougar]

The ATI card is not still present in the system, is it? Did you try using the uninstall program built into the ATI drivers?

Sounds like maybe Windows is restoring the files for some reason, do this and THEN run drivercleaner and reboot. Let us know if that works for ya http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310405 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310405)

[TigerRP]

OK:

I did that and I was able to get rid of all files brought up by Drivercleaner except these 2:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\ati2mtag.sys
c:windows\system32\dllcache\ati*.*

These must be under use by the system. Any ideas how to get rid of these?

[Kougar]

Did you try booting into safemode and removing them? Drivercleaner should finally work in safemode... I've never heard of it having this many issues before.

[TigerRP]

Well:

I was able to go into safe mode with a command prompt and delete the files maually. I used the cab cleaner and I also used regedit to get rid of any vestige of ATI stuff. Now there is no ATI stuff on my machine that I can find in any way.

I've been able to run 3dMark06 twice. My score was 4739. P4D 945 PC 4200 PNY & this video card. The results say I'm number 1 with the type of equipment but I'm way down the scale for sure against other equipement.

When I got 3dMark05 to run last night my score was 7968. Which sonsidering I was 2500 before was a nice increase.

However, I wasn't able to get 3dmark05 to run again. And I'm still locking up in ET. I'm going to re-install ET and see what happens.

Should I down clock the video card and see if it has a problem?

[Kougar]

Reinstalling all the affected applications is a good idea to try when you change out major hardware components. There's no harm in underclocking the video card, but it shouldn't have to be done to make it work. If it somehow solves the problem then it's time to RMA your GPU...

At this point it sounds like a fresh install of Windows is being called for since something is/was amiss with those ATI drivers , but most people hate doing this for the obvious reasons. My view is that if you still have program issues after a complete windows reinstall, then you'll know for sure it is a hardware issue.

[TigerRP]

Kougar:

Thanks for the thoughts and I totally agree. I do need to re-install the whole shebang. That's just a lot of work and is cetainly one of the major downfalls with windows.

However, you are right and I need to determne if its the card and the only way to get to that resolution is to re-install windows. But, it feels like crap.

Anyway, I do really appreciate your and everyone's advice. It's been a long time since I've since I've really got into my registry this much and is probably why the thing is not working like it should.

Tiger

[TigerRP]

One last thing...........what vlotage should I be running my PCI-e bus at?

The stock voltage is 1.55. I've upped it to 1.65 and it goes to 2.2.

Where should this be. Since this is a highly overclocked card form the factory should the voltage be set higher?

Tiger

[TigerRP]

Ok looks like I may have found the problem. I would appreciate hearing from XFX support on any ideas.

After crashing again above. I went through and cleaned all the Nvidia drivers off the machine and cleaned all the extraneous stuff including checking ati again(which I found nothing). I used crap cleaner and checked for missing driver refernces and cleaned all that stuff off.

Then after re-installing 93.71 (and still crashing on ET) - I got the bright idea to use coolbits and down clock the card. I went to 480/700(1.4). I ran all tests on 3DMark06 and 3DMark05 and got good results albeit less than the 525/1.55 settings.

So, so you think this is now a GPU problem? Looks like it will work fine downclocked to the next card but I paid an extra 25 bucks for this one.

Any thoughts.................Oops that is with the pic-e voltage at 1.65.

[Kougar]

XFX Support does not work the weekends, so they'll reply to you on Monday. I believe 1.55v is the stock PCI-e voltage, but I can't seem to confirm it. If they can't determine the cause of the problem they'll set you up with an RMA for your XFX card since it should not have to be underclocked...

nVidia has had some serious issues with pre-overclocked 7900GT's, so I figured it was only a matter of time before users had the same problems with 7900GS's. :roll:

[TigerRP]

Yeah, everything is working now - twic and even aquamark is working.

Score was 85,251 total; 9492 CPU; 15471 GFX. It wouldn't even start before.

Anyway at least I'm up. IF its a friver problem - do you have any recommendations?

Tiger

[Kougar]

Underclocking the card shouldn't affect the drivers, so if underclocking fixed the problems then it's probably either a card that can't handle the factory overclock, isn't getting enough or stable power, or might be overheating. The last one you can rule out by checking the temps in the nVidia control panel, the 600watt PSU rules out the middle one, so that just leaves the first issue I named...

[TigerRP]

Well:

I will try attaching the card to the other dc rail power supply. However, unlike the first two power supplies when the tests kick in - there is no change in sound. The 400 and 500 W supplies sounded like they were dragging down. So I wouldn't think that is it now.

The temp is 47 - I think that is degrees C which I figured was OK. Any thoughts on temps?

[TigerRP]

Thanks:

You have a nice setup I'm noticing. I'll be upgrading to Conroe soon.

Tiger

[Null]

I had an XFX factory overclocked 7800 GT that didn't particularly like playing Call of Duty 2 overclocked.

I underclocked it to nVidia reference clock rates and it appeared to perform better.

[TigerRP]

Ok:

I did some more testing this morning - the problem is in the memory. I got to 574 on the GPU and 1423 on the Mem. So, the memory won't go up to the 1550 and function.

Is that just a function of diffeent cards? I'm going to stay at 480/1400 until I hear from XFX Support. It seems to work well there and we are talking only 2 - 5% in the benchmarks. Although I paid the extra cash for that level.

Any thoughts?

[Kougar]

One trick XFX came up with is to download and run this program http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/ (http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/)

First set the card to it's original speeds, then run this program. Keep executing the file and creating windows until you get an error box notifying you that you are out of video memory, and at that point your GPU RAM will be full. If there is an issue with your GPU memory then you should be noticing artifacting with some of the images.

[darkorb]

i just tried that, had 7 open at once when i got the memory error

[TigerRP]

I had 7 open at the underclocked speed for the Memory. What does that mean. Our memory is the same size?

[Kougar]

You are supposed to get the error when you reach the maximum amount your video RAM can hold. The point of this is to check to see if you are getting artifacting or any other display problems with the open windows. Test your RAM with it set at it's default speed.

[xfxsupport]

Like Kougar stated you will get that error when you opened up as many of the apps as the video card can handle. Did you see artifacting in any of them?

XFX Support

[TigerRP]

I will check tonight.

[Punkfarter]

So glad to find this post! I just got a PNY 7900GS and I'm having the same exact problems. I completely started over from scratch last night and that
didn't help at all. I can play the Nvidia demos and play WoW for hours with
no problems but as soon as I touch 3Dmark05 or 06......CRASH!!!!

I am going to try lowering the clock settings tonight and see what happens.
What is the best software to do that with?

THANKS!!

[Punkfarter]

Welp, the card is going back to the store.
Tried all and even a new motherboard with no success.

Now to get an ATI 1650 or another 7900GS?

[Punkfarter]

Latest News.....

Returned the evil PNY card last night and found a ATI 1950 for $200 at MicroCenter. ROCKS! Video is butter smooth!

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?c=1873898_1

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?c=1873898_2

[tomato]

Well, it's too bad that you couldn't figure out the problem with your old card... but at least your new card seems to be working properly ;)