Problems with 8800 GTS 512 Alpha Dog

[warwickd]

First off i started a ticket - 163016

I just got a new comp - here are the specs

quad core q9300
gigabyte EP35C-DS3R
PC power & cooling silencer 750 watt
8 GB mushkin DDR2
XP 64
8800 GTS 512 Alpha Dog

i got the comp a week ago and have had nothing but problems from the get go. Originally the comp came with an 8800 GTS 512 from Evga but it sucked. i couldnt get fps higher than 20 on CoD4, had horrible 3d mark scores, Maya was so slow, i couldnt play music and do anything else at the same time, computer would freeze and sometimes just restart. so i just outright returned it to the store and i bought the xfx card from a diff location. All my problems dissapeared and everything runs awesome....except that sometimes my computer just all of a sudden restarts. No lock ups or weird coloured screens, just a straight restart. Ive tried different drivers. so far its only happend with CoD4 and also when i was just surfing the web. I dont know if this problem will continue, but from what i have read from other users....these 8800's with the g92's are having a lot of problems.

any ideas anyone? XP64 the problem?
thanks,
Dean

[XFX Tech]

Do you get a blue screen when the system restarts? If you need to be able to read a blue screen you will need to turn off Automatic Restarts. Right Click My Computer and select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab and select Settings under Startup and Recovery. Uncheck the Automatically Restart box under System Failure. This will allow you to read the blue screen when it happens. Can you try the card in another system?

[warwickd]

unfortunately i dont have access to another comp with a pci-e slot otherwise thats the first thing i would do.

There is no blue screen or anything, just black screen followed by reboot.

[XFX Tech]

750W should be enough if the power supply is working correctly. With a black screen reboot power could be the issue. Do you have another power supply with 600W or more? Can you monitor your temperatures to see if your video card or CPU are overheating? I like to use PC Wizard from http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php (http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php) because it does an overlay with your temperatures in the top right corner of your screen when minimized. You want to see 65C or under for your CPU and 85C or under for your GPU when under a heavy load. Crysis Time Demo or the Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark work very well for that. (http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php)

[warwickd]

the psu shouldnt be a problem for power - it outputs 60 amps per 12v rail.
ill try out that app you linked and run the demo. i check the temp of the cpu last night, with nothing running it was at 38, but ill test it out again tonight.

is there something i can use to test a psu?

[XFX Tech]

Not really. A multimeter can't even really test a PSU. There is no way to simulate a load on the PSU. Electronic components can act differently with all of the energy going through them so just because the 5v rails say 5v at idle when a load gets put on them they may jump up or may spike randomly. The best way to test is another one because the chances of two being bad is very low.

[warwickd]

hey, so i ran the crysis timedemo 5 times in a row and after that the GPU temp was 55 and the CPU 45 with no crashes or reboots at all. In fact i dont think the computer has restarted at all today.....i bet if i play CoD4 tho....

ill try that later on.
i also dont have another psu....
someone replied to my ticket with a crap load of suggestions and tests to run so im gonna try all that first.

[Miker]

I really think it is a bad PSU, the EVGA card most likely detected bad power and lowered its speed.

[warwickd]

yeah the more i think about it, the more i think you're right...

[warwickd]

the other thing i noticed and i dont know if its anything thats even a problem.. is that the vid card fan is running at 100% all the time according to riva tuner.

[warwickd]

so i did a clean install of the newest drivers in safe mode and so far so good. I havnt had a restart in 48 hours and that includes some game time with both CoD4 and Crysis....im hoping with fingers crossed that everything is all good now.