New build problems.

SeanW

Ok, here's the specs of the new PC project I'm trying to put together.

APLus Qubic case.
Seasonic S12 430W power supply.
Sapphire Radeon Xpress 200P mobo (this one.
AMD Athlon 64 2.2 Ghz 3700+ Socket 939.
OCZ Performance DDR400 2048 MB ram (dual pack of 1GBs)
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA II
Point-Of-View GeForce 6800 GS
NEC DVD +/- RW drive.
Generic Floppy drive + 6 in 1 Internal card reader.
Windows XP SP2 Professional.

The problems I'd been having were mainly display problems so I assumed that the video card was faulty. But Komplett just E-Mailed me saying that the card is fine and they're sending it back to me So now I'm Komplettely confused

Anyways here goes:
I started noticing trouble straight off the bat, after installing windows I found scrolling took ages. Scrolling through lists of files, word documents, or webpages was painfully slow. So I figured it was because Windows wasn't familiar with this card/architecture and grabbed the drivers from nVidia's website. While solving that problem, I found infinitely more.
From then on, scrolling stuff worked at good speeds, but I would occasionally suffer an unexplained screen blackout. Lasting anything from a few seconds upward, these would sometimes be accompanied by problems with image corruption which was often significant.

What's more, attempts to play most DirectX games end in failure.

FarCry: came with the graphics card, it can be coaxed to function properly for a few minutes before crashing the computer.
Deus Ex (2000): Runs perfectly when I use special troubleshooting settings: From the Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Troubleshoot > "Disable all cursor and advanced drawing accelerations. Use this setting to correct drawing problems." Without this setting, DX has catastrophic problems with anything other than Software Rendering, which quite frankly looks horrible.
Sim City 4: Rush Hour (2003/4): Totally unstable in anything other than Software Rendering.

There was some other non-graphics problems too, like if I had music playing and a screen failure lasted too long, the music would stop until just before the screen came back. If it didn't come back in good time, the computer would restart.

So I guess I'm not entirely surprised that the Graphics card was not to blame.

But that leaves me with the problem. What is? My next guess is that either the memory or the mobo is at fault, and when I get the card back (am using my old Dell ATM) my next step is to test the memory for faults. If I find nothing, I must then get a different mobo, like an MSI or somthing.

But I wonder if any of you guys might recognise something I might have missed? Could an error in assembly (this is my first home-build) cause the above problems? If not, what piece of hardware is most likely causing them?

andy1249

OK , I'm not going to point to anything in particular , just going to give you a plan.

When you get the graphics card back , strip down the build to just the basics , only connect the graphics , one hard drive , and the memory and power up ,
Leave the floppy , the card reader , and the DVD disconnected , and see how you do ,

Then start reconnecting each unit one by one and do a full series of tests after connecting each one ,
Should you get the major performance hit , then the last device connected is the culprit.

Keep in mind that as each unit is added more power is drawn from the supply , and if the supply is not up to it then this will cause the problems you are seeing.

Also , I have never heard of that power supply type before , check the ratings on each output , for instance the 12V output , what is the current rating , and likewise with the other outputs , these should be printed on the side of the supply , if any of these are weak then that graphics card will murder it as its power hungry.

I have seen a card reader do this before as well but only with a card left in it ! You havnt been running the PC with a card in the unit have you ! Long shot I know.

Anyway , try the above and post back and let us know what happens.

uberpixie

andy1249 wrote:

Also , I have never heard of that power supply type before , check the ratings on each output , for instance the 12V output , what is the current rating , and likewise with the other outputs , these should be printed on the side of the supply , if any of these are weak then that graphics card will murder it as its power hungry.

Seasonic are reckoned to be the dog's wibble wobblies when it comes to PSUs, so it prob is not the psu.

Do all of what andy suggested suggested in his previous post.

The only thing I can add to his advice is to watch the temps of your components.

I notice you got a very cheap case: while this is not always a bad thing, in your case it might be...

For my first build I cheaped out on the case and psu: a qtec case + psu ( a classic noob mistake:o) that was very quickly replaced with a Chieftech mid tower.

Because my cheap case had such bad airflow, the internal heat was too high and I got the odd random cut out when playing games. This led me to running my box for a few weeks with the side off until the new case arrived.

Run your system with the side of the case off and see if this makes any difference.

It could be that your gfx card or CPU is over heating and causing the system to lock due to bad airflow in your case.
(also how many case fans did you get?)

Make sure your cables are neatly tied up with cable ties and routed well: a cable mess can cause a lot of problems especially if your case already has very poor airflow to begin with.

If there is anything I have ever learned from my first build it is to never skimp on the case or PSU :-)

8T8

SeanW you did install ATI's chipset drivers yes ?

Chipset driver
Southbridge driver
ATI System Manager - not sure what this is but it sounds like a monitoring tool.

Also if you can choose a custom install if the driver asks and make sure that it doesnt try to install the ATI Catalyst display drivers or an AGP GART driver.

Cuddlesworth

Does it matter that he is using a Sata 2 Hd on a chipset that doesnt support it.

netman

krazy_8s wrote:

Does it matter that he is using a Sata 2 Hd on a chipset that doesnt support it.

Sata2 is downward compatibile with Sata so I doubt it would cause a problem.
Well spotted tho

netman

When you open up device manager, are there any unknown devices there?

It would be my guess that windows don't know what to do with your hardware, ie. that you didn't install all the drivers as 8T8 already suggested.

Also, memory timings are a thing most people overlook. There's a good list of settings for the popular ones on Xtremesystems: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=162

SeanW

Thanks guys. This gives me some breathing room.

To make the HD function, I had to change a jumper for SATA I. So that's that. I think I installed ATIs drivers as well, but the ATI Control Panel thingy that came with it didn't work. I'll check that again.
Excluding PSU, CPU and Gfx card I have 3 fans. One 120mm fan in the front taking air in, and 2 80mms taking air out the back. They only blow out cold air though.

And I do notice the screen blackouts getting worse when the computer's been on for a while.

But the system temps seem to be OK, with the processor idling at 31, graphics somewhere around 27 (even after a failure), and an internal thermometer inside the case reporting 23.

Finally yes, the cables are a bit of a mess, with the IDE 40/34 pin ribbons mainly to blame for that.

But here's the wierd thing: I tested the system with 3DMark 2006, the Free version, and it ALWAYS runs without incident. Komplett seemingly tested the card with 3DMark 2005, and from that came to the conclusion it was fine >_<

SeanW

Thanks for all the tips guys but I (sort of) found the problem.

When I say sort of, I mean I've fixed the issues but I'm not sure what went wrong. Here goes:

Got the graphics card back today. Put it back in. Same issues. Tried removing all non-essental compnents. Same issues.

Now, I have a history of RAM issues so I figured my various display/instability problems might be related to the memory (I bought this one). So I reopened the PC case, and pulled the second 1GB stick of RAM.

After that, everything worked great, all my games work perfectly, no screen failure or picture corruption, no unexplained restarts or crashes etc. I then set all my game/troubleshooting settings to less conservative ones, that would have invoked a crash before. Now everything's working at full spec with no problems.

So that second stick of RAM must have been borked, right? Wrong.

Just before I applied for an RMA on that too, I decided to test the second stick in a different section of the mobo (I had both sticks beside each other in a pair before). Y'know, the second, different coloured memory controller where you would normally put extra or different ram sticks.

And everything still works fine, although I did notice the first stick was a little warm on the heatsink, it's right behind the processor.

So now, for the RAM buffs out there, my question is this: how could the above have happened? Because I'm puzzled

Cuddlesworth

With an integrated memory controller, there is no garrentie that you will get a good one. Mabye both 1 gig sticks need to be at a 2T timing.

uberpixie

SeanW wrote:

Just before I applied for an RMA on that too, I decided to test the second stick in a different section of the mobo (I had both sticks beside each other in a pair before). Y'know, the second, different coloured memory controller where you would normally put extra or different ram sticks.

And everything still works fine, although I did notice the first stick was a little warm on the heatsink, it's right behind the processor.

So now, for the RAM buffs out there, my question is this: how could the above have happened? Because I'm puzzled

Have a look at your mobo manual.

Whats it say about palcement of sticks of ram in for dual channel?

netman

Memory settings are a common plague, luckily OCZ have great support and have helped me a great deal when I was setting up a DFI NF4 motherboard with OCZ PC4000 VX memory.

Since the memory controller is on the CPU I don't think the settings would differ greatly, but chipsets do introduce their own quirks.

As someone else suggested, have a look at your motherboard. There are series of slots that are supposed to be used in dual channel mode. On the DFI motherboard it's slot 1+3 and 2+4.

Also, different types of RAM should be used in different slots, ie some types of memory should go into 1+3, others should go in 2+4.

And to top it off, DFI has different versions of the BIOS for different memory types.

Not sure how it works with Sapphire, it might be simpler, but this is just to let you know that it's not plug & play.

Have a look at the support forums, download memtest, and try out different settings to see which works stable. Even if you think everything's working fine, that doesn't mean you won't get a crash after 2 hours into the game.

I had memory settings that would work for 14-16 hours and then exibit some errors... It's all in fine tuning. And heat generally wasn't a problem for me, I've been running the VX modules stable at 3.5V and they were extremely hot to the touch, ie you could burn your finger.

I would suggest trying out the memory settings with memtest for 24h before saying they're stable. And 1GB modules tend to have slower timings than the 512MB ones, that's just from reading the reviews. 3-3-3-8 sounds pretty conservative, I'd guess that it can be pushed lower.

netman

Also, you might want to have a look at this:
http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/sapphire-ax480as9/index04.htm

If you left things at auto, some BIOSes for that motherboard have issues with memory timings.

I'd look for the latest BIOS update (if there is any) and set them manually.

KELTICKNIGHTT

was looking at this mobo
sent e-mail to sapphire asking about bios and updates,will see what reply l get as didnt see link on there website

zerodown

netman wrote:

I had memory settings that would work for 14-16 hours and then exibit some errors... It's all in fine tuning. And heat generally wasn't a problem for me, I've been running the VX modules stable at 3.5V and they were extremely hot to the touch, ie you could burn your finger.

I would suggest trying out the memory settings with memtest for 24h before saying they're stable. And 1GB modules tend to have slower timings than the 512MB ones, that's just from reading the reviews. 3-3-3-8 sounds pretty conservative, I'd guess that it can be pushed lower.

Im currently running at 2.5-3-3-6 at 1T on AMD64 4000 with cosair twinx 2x1g sticks. Stable for past 2 weeks ran mem test for 4 hours, prime95 over night, s&m for 30 min and no errors.

Also using sata2 disks but my motherboards supports sata1 only, no problems but a new motherboard would increase the speed to a 300mbs instead of 150mbs :mad:

netman

zerodown wrote:

Im currently running at 2.5-3-3-6 at 1T on AMD64 4000 with cosair twinx 2x1g sticks. Stable for past 2 weeks ran mem test for 4 hours, prime95 over night, s&m for 30 min and no errors.

Also using sata2 disks but my motherboards supports sata1 only, no problems but a new motherboard would increase the speed to a 300mbs instead of 150mbs :mad:

Unless you have drives that are capable of delivering over 150mbs you won't get any benefit from sata2. And I doubt such drives exist today. I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm running my OCZ's at 2-2-2-5 1T on Opteron 165, 24h memtest stable, but it took a good bit of tweaking to get it there.

SeanW

KELTICKNIGHTT wrote:

was looking at this mobo
sent e-mail to sapphire asking about bios and updates,will see what reply l get as didnt see link on there website

It's all good. The BIOS is fine, dated at 4th Nov 2005. You will already have the newest BIOS if you buy the board I pointed out?

KELTICKNIGHTT

cheers sean

netman

Is it the Sapphire Pure Innovation PI-A9RX480 motherboard?

If so, there's a BIOS update dated 27th of April 2006: http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/driverfiles/67.zip

KELTICKNIGHTT

wasnt able to find bios for it ,so e-mail sapphire to provide,wait and see

SeanW

netman wrote:

Is it the Sapphire Pure Innovation PI-A9RX480 motherboard?

If so, there's a BIOS update dated 27th of April 2006: http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/driverfiles/67.zip

No, I'm afraid that's a different board altogether.

The closest match to the one we're discussing is the PP-A9RS480.
BIOS is actually 21st of Nov 2005, I'd forgotten the exact date.

netman

Doh, my bad. It was the only RX480 motherboard on Sapphire's site, so I figured it must be it

astrofool

The first ATI xpress boards were particularly sh*te, to be avoided at all costs. It really sounds like a board issue if it only works with one mem stick, and it may be a known issue with certain memory brands, i'm sure sapphire will have some forums somewhere discussing it.

Windows does not have nVidia drivers by default which is why you had that scrolling problem. Also, you should install the ATI motherboard drivers as well, which I think may require .Net to be installed (get it from windowsupdate) for the control panel to work.

If you check the bios, is the RAM now working in dual channel mode? Some boards don't work well with two memory sticks on the same channel, I wouldn't worry about the heatsink getting a little warm. I also don't think that RMA'ing will do any good, as it seems to be a config issue, and you'll just waste money in sending them to Komplett.

And yea, their hard drive support on those boards isn't good, they're using a modified promise controller on chip if I remember correctly (ATI branded of course). ATI boards are finally worth getting now they have proper south bridges (SB600), though the new nForce5 with 6 SATA channels sounds lovely

SeanW

Some boards don't work well with two memory sticks on the same channel,

Hammer, Nail and Head.

That was seemingly the problem here: I'm still using both sticks of RAM, all 2 GB of it, with one stick in each controller, instead of before where I had both in the same controller. Now everything works perfectly

In this context I've already concluded that an RMA is pointless.

6 SATA

What in heavens name is anyone going to do with 6 SATA channels?

KELTICKNIGHTT

whAT L NEED TO FIND OUT WELL it work with 4 sticks of munskin black memory pc3500
4 x 512 sticks
great memory and fast

SeanW

To find the perfect mobo for myself, I went digging - examining every S939 mobo Komplett had to offer. At no time did I see any mobo quoting anything to do with PC3500 RAM. So I only hope the stuff is backwards compatible.

Intel boards seem to demand a far higher grade of RAM than an equivalent AMD. I assume this 2GB is a carry-over from an old Intel system?

And as for your 4 sticks of 512? It may well work, there's simply no telling what caused my problem, maybe it was because the first RAM controller had all 2 GB in it. Maybe you shouldn't use both slots in each controller as a rule. Maybe instead of moving one stick to the other controller, I could have changed some memory settings. Only heaven knows now. Memory setup seems to be a lot more complicated than I first thought. As someone said before, it's not just a matter of plug and play.

KELTICKNIGHTT

ALL L KNOW IS PC3500 is it was considered one of best at beginning of 2005 for memory and had to get,can be demanding ,if working,runs fast
waiting for reply from sapphire,wich looks might take while for reply