More 8800 and ArmA problems

[Sevan 0]

My problems with ArmA seem to be on-and-off and on-going. I still get a crash here and there but over the past week I have not had any major problems. I played 2 hours yesterday smoothly with no problem (occasionally having to flush) and I played 2 hours of some very graphically intense moments today with no problems.

Then, just now. While playing the defualt "seize the base" MP mission. A few seconds in my textures, terrain, detail and shaders began to flicker, as if it rapidly was changing from low-normal-high.

I restarted ArmA and this fixed the problem for about 20 mins. Then the same thing happened agian. After a few minutes of this, my textures disappeared entirely. (I can post a screen shot).

I did another restart at this point and began playing another self-created mission. About 10 mins, agian a huge performance hit, and this time instead of flickering. It seemed like my game dropped to very low, texture and terrain detail settings. (I can also send a picture of this).

This is the first time I have experianced these problems. But this is just another problem in a series of problems I have been having since upgrading to an 8800. You may have seen my previous thread "8800 or ArmA".

The first problem is that after a unpredictable amount of time 10-20mins, I would get very bad artifacting, followed in a few minutes by either ArmA freezing and crashing or crashing the entire computer, causing a need to restart. The new Nvidia drivers seemed to have corrected this problem.

This was then followed by yet another problem, where agian after a unspecified amount of time agian maybe 10-20 mins, I would see a huge performance hit. The game would become joppy.

But for the past two days I have played with no problems at all, as I mentioned at the start of this post. Unit the most recent problem, I talked about at the beginning.

What is going on!!?

ArmA is my favorite game but it's becoming almost unplayable (at unpredictable times, problems appearing on-and-off).

edit: here is a scrnshot of the dissappeared textures:  http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/2915/glitch2vd2.jpg

[Barry the baldy 0]

You have an almost identical setup to me except for the E6600 (mines an E6750) and Vista, I experience none of these problems.

If I had to point the finger I'd point it at Vista. Maybe use an install of XP or dual boot with Vista and XP until Vista catches up and irons out the creases.

At this point its almost a 100% certainty that its Vista causing these problems for you mate.

[Sevan 0]

what can explain the problems being so diverse and so random. Like I mentioned I sometimes can play for hours with no problems.

[Barry the baldy 0]

I just re read your specs.

Why arent you using DDR2 RAM? Most of the newer MBs only support DDR2. Might be an issue with your RAM as well.

Another possibility could be heat.

That would explain why sometimes it works for hours (low room temp) and sometimes it only works for 20 minutes (higher ambient temp). Artifacting and major slowdown during gaming are 2 very common signs of system overheating.

Go download a temperature moniter and then come back and post your CPU and GPU temperatures at idle and under load (during or immediately after gaming).

[Sevan 0]

Quote[/b] ]Why arent you using DDR2 RAM? Most of the newer MBs only support DDR2. Might be an issue with your RAM as well.

It is DDR2 I must have missed it when writing my sig.

Quote[/b] ]Another possibility could be heat.

I've installed a 100m fan blowing directly on the card. and under this circumstance I was playing with the side of the case off.

haven't found a program to read my GPU temp, but my CPU temp right now is around 37-39C.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

But you want your tower fans to pull heat out of the case, and removing the side will influence this not to work...imo

[Barry the baldy 0]

Using DDR2 RAM, well that rules out another possibility.

As for heat, having the side panel off can actually increase temperatures since the airflow is interrupted. What I do to cool my 8800 is sit a fan on the bottom of the case so its blowing directly up into the GPU fan. That way there is always cool air blowing into the intake. This has lowered my cards temperatures a good 20 degrees. Don't assume with temperature, it can get very hot inside that plastic heat case on the card and you wont feel it on the outside at all.

Safest thing to do is download a temperature moniter somewhere (google will help you out there, I use one that came with my MB) and get a proper reading. If it is in fact running too hot (which the symptoms seem to point toward) then you can finally get this fixed up, and save yourself from frying a video card. If not then we'll just move on to something else.

I know you have the big fan blowing on your card but unless cool air is getting INSIDE the plastic heat case then it really wont do much. You need a fan blowing ONTO the intake fan to get it cooled. A simple case fan sitting under your gpu will do the trick nicely.

EDIT: Your CPU is spot on in temp, try Nview to check your card temperature. Alot of 8800 series have a problem of the GPU fans not adjusting speed and sitting at around 50%, Nview will let you speed them up to 100% and moniter the temperature. Rivatuner will also allow you to do this.

[Sevan 0]

I should have the fan blowing into the GPU fan. Wouldn't they affect eachother?

RivaTuner gives me a core temp of 83oC. While SpeedFan's reading, which I posted, is much lower. Nvidia Monitor gives me a system temp of 210oC which I know can't be right. It also gives a GPU temp of 84oC idle, which I suspect is also wrong.

[Barry the baldy 0]

If you have it right on the GPU fan then maybe, not likely but maybe. You want it about 3 inches away (the bottom of the case to the PCI-E slot is pretty much perfect, just so a decent breeze is blown into the GPU intake. There arent a whole lot of fans strong enough (I would wager there are none) that will affect the fan on the GPU if it was blowing on it.

The way it works with the GPU fan is that the fan is designed to pull air in and push it out the outlet thats underneath the plugs you plug the moniter into, the GPU fan doesn't blow air out from where its located so a fane pushing cool air in is ideal since it both allows cool air into the GPU heat case and assists in moving it out he outlet that points outside your case.

[Sevan 0]

Alright I'll change the setup tommorow and have the extra fan on the bottome slot.

[Barry the baldy 0]

There's you problem mate.

83-84 is WAY too hot, ideally it should not pass 65 deg C under load which is how my card runs.

I have an idle temp of 48-51 and a load temp of around 56.

Get a fan under the GPU's intake fan and see how you go.

RivaTuner is pretty accurate with its GPU temps, so is nTune.

Don't worry about system temps, it probably has a conflict with your MB temp moniter, trust only your MB temp moniter when it comes to CPU temps. but if both are displaying roughly the same temp, chances are thats the temp its running at. Putting a regular run of the mill case fan inder the GPU intake will do the job just fine. Takes 2 seconds to line it up somewhere so it blows on the intake, then put your hand at the rear outlet (under the monitor plugs) and you should feel an increase in air coming through)

[Sevan 0]

There's you problem mate.

83-84 is WAY too hot, ideally it should not pass 65 deg C under load which is how my card runs.

I have an idle temp of 48-51 and a load temp of around 56.

Get a fan under the GPU's intake fan and see how you go.

yes, but why should I trust that reading It gives me a system temp of 210oC. I wouldn't even be able to type this right now at that temp.

[Barry the baldy 0]

Don't worry about system temps, it probably has a conflict with your MB temp moniter, trust only your MB temp moniter when it comes to CPU temps. but if both are displaying roughly the same temp, chances are thats the temp its running at.

Another resaon is that the symptoms you're describing are a perfect match to overheating problems.

[-Puma- 2]

There's you problem mate.

83-84 is WAY too hot, ideally it should not pass 65 deg C under load which is how my card runs.

I have an idle temp of 48-51 and a load temp of around 56.

Get a fan under the GPU's intake fan and see how you go.

yes, but why should I trust that reading It gives me a system temp of 210oC. I wouldn't even be able to type this right now at that temp.

update bios and see if that helps. 220c lol u could boil an egg with that temp

[Sevan 0]

I have mounted the fan a few inches underneath the GPU, blowing into the GPU intake fan.

I started up Nvidia Monitor at startup here is what leads me to suspect the numbers. Even at startup the temp started at 70oC and within a few minutes went up to 85oC agian. This can't possibly be the actual tempreture. In light of inaccurate readings, I'll report if these problems persist in ArmA with the new fan placement.

[Guest]

Fly on the wall here with an idea,

What are you using for a PSU? Does the 12V rail pump enough current to feed your vid card? Granted the trouble you're having might not be related at all, but I've read of many cases where these newer card's are underfed with power and cause troubles like overheating ect.

[Sevan 0]

my power supply is 500watts and 38amps. Should be more then enough for a single card.

Just now after about 30mins of smooth play it crashed to desktop, with no warning or a hint of a problem. Problems are so diverse and unpredictable!

[Guest]

Well 38 amps for the system overall, you could be drawing a fine line as I've seen some versions of the 8800gtx require as much as 28A on their 12V rail just for the vid card.

You might just want to take a closer look at the vendors spec's as I've seen alot of 500W supplies where the 12V line barely pumps 18A. Unfortunatly I've only seen 1/4 of the vid-card vendors posting spec's as to power requirements for their cards      

[Sevan 0]

I'll take a look at the power supply.

Just to add another problem...This one I've mentioned in other threads. After restarting ArmA again, I played for about 1 hour with no problems, then when I tried to shut down it wouldn't. It got stuck in the black screen with "shutting down..." on the bottom. I had to use the task manager to close ArmA.

[SWAT_CDN 0]

FritzDaKat very true alot of people undersize the power supply.

It is not just the MBO and CPU, have to take into account all the other goodies, Fans, Non intergarted Sound Card, Video cards, USB devices.

I would hazard to guess from Sevan's spec's he need a minimum of 600-650 watt power supply and it should be SLI compatible.

[Sevan 0]

Quote[/b] ]I'll take a look at the power supply.

my power supply gets 28amps for 12 volt.

[Barry the baldy 0]

500w is fine for the setup he is running. Its only a GTS, they arent as power hungry as the GTX series. I'm on the same PSU and I have a hell of alot of fans plugged in so its doubtful the PSU is the problem.

Do you have a copoy of XP lying around just so you can test that out and see if its a Vista issue?

[Sevan 0]

^ No, I would have to purchase one. I built this system from the ground up with Vista.

[4 IN 1 0]

i think i have said it b4, my spec is almost the same as you and only the MB is different(asus P5B delux, great borad), but is as problem free as i could think of it to be, if you ask me i would still point my finger to overheating first, i could also get the game work with vista, so i dont think its where the problem laying mainly, did you try to re plug all your coolers with replaced thermal grease? i got a overheating PC at my office which uses standard intel fan and those thermal stuff is completely dry off, causing suddent shutdown, low perforemce etc

[Sevan 0]

i think i have said it b4, my spec is almost the same as you and only the MB is different(asus P5B delux, great borad), but is as problem free as i could think of it to be, if you ask me i would still point my finger to overheating first, i could also get the game work with vista, so i dont think its where the problem laying mainly, did you try to re plug all your coolers with replaced thermal grease? i got a overheating PC at my office which uses standard intel fan and those thermal stuff is completely dry off, causing suddent shutdown, low perforemce etc

what do you think is overheating? the CPU? All fans are spinning, and I've installed the CPU only months ago no way the thermal paste could already be dry.

Could the stock cooling system on the card be faulty?