<nods> Good software, is that - tells me all I need to know.
Looks like I cant play ED anymore
- Thread starter Greyhawk
- Start date
TBH I wish the card just wouldn't work then I could RMA it but the card runs fine for hours - then weird stuff starts happening such as the BSOD's, crashing games etc...its completely random as well. It can run for hours or it can run for minutes before falling over. I've updated drivers, scoured the internet, cleaned out a bunch of stuff. Oddly it happens a lot more when running at 4k rather than when in 3 monitor mode.
My old radeon HD7770 ran for years with absolutely no issues at all and that was on the rubbish 350w PSU that was in before. I have an XFX 550w 80+ Bronze certified unit in there now.
Oh another thing I checked was that all the fans were actually turning - they are. That's the case fan, 2 fans on the GFX card, PSU fan and the CPU fan. I run nothing overclocked either.
My old radeon HD7770 ran for years with absolutely no issues at all and that was on the rubbish 350w PSU that was in before. I have an XFX 550w 80+ Bronze certified unit in there now.
Oh another thing I checked was that all the fans were actually turning - they are. That's the case fan, 2 fans on the GFX card, PSU fan and the CPU fan. I run nothing overclocked either.
I upgraded the Nvidia driver recently for my card, the newest drivers immediately caused blue screens, freezing and loads of problems. When I rolled back to the previous driver, all my problems went away and the game runs fine. It's worth a try. Generally, if it's working fine and crashes randomly, it's not the hardware and you should consider drivers first. You may have had a dodgy file in the driver when you installed the card to start with but honestly, the newest Nvidia drivers are not as stable as people make out.
The driver I am now using is 337.88 and not the latest 347.52 driver.
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Ok, good to know. Before you check any other stuff (well except HW Monitor, that's good to have either way) it's important to know what process you followed when you replaced the video card.
Did you reinstall Windows or buy a new PC? Or is it the same installation with just a different PSU and video card?
If it is the same installation, what steps did you follow to remove the old drivers and install the new ones?
I ask this because it's common for "weird" problems to occur when there are still remnants of old drivers left, especially when that older driver is from a different brand GPU.
ps. @ Tryst, my driver shows version 347.88, are you sure yours is up to date?
Seconding this - when I replaced my Nvidia graphics card with an AMD card I started getting all sorts of intermittent problems. A fresh installation on a new drive solved the lot, but rather then have to reinstall 100's of programs I went back to the old drive and upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10, and this also cleared up the issues.
That also depends on what peripherals is connected also, the bare minimum is a named 500w psu but for a hungry card like that, I doubt I would settle for less than 650w but that also depends if there's enough amps on the 12v rail, any chance we can get specs on ur psu ?, like the name and the rated v/a on the sticker on the side of psu ? just to rule that out before u RMA the card.
edit* sorry I missed the post where u stated it was the xfx 550w, that psu should have enough amps but it was built with old tech.
From the problems you listed the issues could be, bad ram block, bad motherboard on its way out, terrible ripple effect from psu on load, the card could be faulty, or it might just be a corrupt driver or unstable frequency.
The next time it bsod's, take note of the last 4 digits on the error code 0x00000000**** this code helps identify what part of the pc is erroring.
,.
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The GTX970 is very power efficient, not power hungry. 500 watts is more than enough, he could be running 4 mechanical harddrives and still have enough power.
Please don't buy into the big-numbers-is-better hype.
I'm running an overclocked i5-4670k with 16GB ram, an SSD, 4 mechanical harddrives in RAID1+0, a sound card, and a GTX980. It's powered by a 650watt PSU and it doesn't even break a sweat. Before this card I had 2x GTX670 in SLI. Each one of those cards drew more than the GTX970, and I had two of em, on the same PSU.
Right now I'm considering the possibility of OP's GPU card being DoA, but I can't be sure about that until he lets us know how he installed the driver. (and removed the old one)
Like someone else pointed out a RAM test is always a good and quick test to do, but since OP states it started with this card and he had no issues with the old card I'd wager its either drivers or indeed a fault with the card itself.
If it is actually a power issue then OPs PSU is broken since it should be able to deliver way more power than needed. (in this case HW Monitor will show a pretty big drop in the 'min' tab of the 12v line during gaming)
Not had time to try it tonight, will have to wait till tomorrow.
Its worth adding I had no problems at all with crashes prior to this using my old Dell 350w PSU And a Radeon HD7770. All the issues started when I changed the PSU and the gfx card. Unfortunately I cant upload my specs file as the forum wont allow HTML attachments.
Its worth adding I had no problems at all with crashes prior to this using my old Dell 350w PSU And a Radeon HD7770. All the issues started when I changed the PSU and the gfx card. Unfortunately I cant upload my specs file as the forum wont allow HTML attachments.
Good advice, but I think this guy is looking for horses, and you're helping to fix zebras.
disregard
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Have you tried you're old card with the new psu and theres a way u could hook up the 350w to the new gfx card without it being plugged into anything else just to test and rule out each component but if you're not technically minded then I wouldn't suggest to try this, only when you know what you're doing. Unless you can get hold of another pc to test each part out but it is sounding more like an RMA on the gfx card.
Edit* I would also get the ati driver removal tool and double check theres no remnants of the ati driver as they are notorious for staying on ur system and causing issues with NVidia cards, which is why so many have suggested this.
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Yup, in case it's the same Windows install that used to have the ATi/AMD card then its best to make sure all driver leftovers are gone.
In that case Display Driver Uninstaller is the answer. (http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html)
Though until OP lets us know whether its the same Windows install and how he removed the old drivers, its hard to say whether its needed. Then again, there is no harm done in uninstalling the current drivers too and running DDU anyway for a 100% fresh and minty driver install.
lol xD
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A strange tale from just a few weeks ago.. I added a GTX 980 and a 850W PSU to give me plenty of headroom to my fairly old (in pc terms) i7. After a week I began getting very strange errors where the HDDs would stop, the OS would stop responding and I'd get various BSODS and so on. After checking everything, reseating everything, plugging in the wires multiple times etc. it would still do it. So I went back to basics and unplugged everything I didn't need to run the OS and it ran fine.
To cut a long story short it was my USB3 external HDD. I still don't really understand why, some strange power draw problem from the mobo maybe but it's completely repeatable and when unplugged the system is absolutely stable.
I don't tell the OP this because I think it's likely he has the same problem as I had but to remind him of those basic principles - take your machine down to the bare bones you need to get it running a game and see what happens.
To cut a long story short it was my USB3 external HDD. I still don't really understand why, some strange power draw problem from the mobo maybe but it's completely repeatable and when unplugged the system is absolutely stable.
I don't tell the OP this because I think it's likely he has the same problem as I had but to remind him of those basic principles - take your machine down to the bare bones you need to get it running a game and see what happens.
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/facepalm
Not sure why you're facepalming. CMDR Ross is right. Though I doubt its the issue in this case since the PSU is rather new (OP stated the old card ran on a 350w PSU).
PSU's that are rather old (decade-ish) have most of their power delivered on the 5v rail. It's only in the past 5-10 years that PSU's started sporting (multiple) beefed up 12v rails.
The Wattage is divided over the three voltage rails. The amps per rail are important because a PSU cannot deliver all its power on a single rail.