System BSOD's and game locksup

Tange1

Where to start..

System specs: Vista Ultimate, up to date OS patches + recommenced direct X patches/XP Pro - also up to date

P35-DQ6 bios F4
E6850 w/ stock cooling
RAM:
Brand Crucial
Series Ballistix
Model BL2KIT12864AA804
Type 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
Tech Spec
Capacity 2GB (2 x 1GB)
Speed DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Cas Latency 4
Timing 4-4-4-12

EVGA 640-P2-N825-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3

X-fi Extreme Gamer card

Corsair 550watt Power supply

Setup:
Non overclocked, stock except for explicitly setting ram timings in bios (defaulted to 5-5-5-something)

The Trouble makers:
Bioshock, Medal of Honor Airborn

Bioshock BSOD's the box a lot, airborne just gets lockups and random crashes w/ errors that aren't helpful at all. I also had one BSOD in vista while messing w/ video drivers.

If I set the timings to 4-4-4-12 I receive memtest failures on test 5, 10 errors or so per loop of the test. No errors on other tests. When I let the mobo set the ram timings I haven't received any errors (test still looping). The mobo sets the timings to 5-5-5-something (I'll look and update this when I can).

What could be wrong? I know there's a million things but could you help me narrow it down? Thanks!

Bad_Karma

What Forceware Drivers are You using?

Check IC's News front here:
http://icrontic.com/news/new_catalysts_beta_forceware_graphics_drivers_toda

Latest drivers to try.

Tange1

Bad_Karma wrote:

What Forceware Drivers are You using?

Check IC's News front here:
http://icrontic.com/news/new_catalysts_beta_forceware_graphics_drivers_toda

Latest drivers to try.

Under vista I tried the latest beta video drivers release September 10th and had the same issues. Under XP, I think I'm running the latest stable drivers.

muddocktor

If you are getting any errors with memtest, that is most probably the problem. What voltage are your feeding the ram with? If it's lower than 2.1v then try bumping vdimm up to the 2.1-2.2 v range and rerun memtest.

Tange1

When the voltage was tweaked the memory passes but I'm still having BSOD's. Any more ideas? The lockups only occur during heavy load like game play or a major tweak like a driver upgrade.

muddocktor

Just a shot in the dark here, but how are the vid card temps when gaming? And check the fan on the vid card too. I had a Gigabyte Radeon 9700 at one time that had the fan lock up (pre-rpm monitoring days on vid cards) and when I gamed it would lock up or crash out to the desktop. Finally the added heat got to the gpu and finally killed it, thankfully still under warrantee. You might try setting the fan speed on the vid card to full speed (if you can) all the time as a test to see if heat might be a problem.

lemonlime

Good suggestions so far. These are always the most frustrating problems. Your power supply is a quality unit, so it is unlikely to be the source of the issues--none the less, how do your +12V, +5V and +3.3V rails look? Check in Windows with the monitoring application that came with your mainboard. Check it while running prime95 or some other stress testing application. It would be most beneficial to check the rails while running a 'windowed' 3d application like ATITool or simply running a game like Quake 3 in non-full screen mode. Also, keep your memory voltage at around 2.1V as mudd suggested, and ensure your command timing is at 2T, with 5-5-5-18 timings (just until you've ruled out the memory)

Ultra-Nexus

When your computer BSODs, the blue screen usually tells you if it was cause by a driver issue (it lists the driver name) or something else.

If your computer reboots just after it BSODs, then change this setting to not reboot and post back what it tells you.

Also, I suggest you download Prime95 and Coretemp, and do a Torture test... if your computer is unstable with these games, these tools will help you (and us help you) to figure this out.