Annoying BSOD's after changing video card

[z_killemall]

Hi guys, this is not the first time I ask for help related to video cards, in fact I'm starting to think someone in Nvidia has something against me :lol:

Back to the topic, last week I changed my 1GB XFX Geforce 8500GT for a brand new 512 XFX Geforce 9500GT for free. The performance difference is nice, but I'm having some heavy stability troubles. It's simple: After playing a video or a resource-eating game for some time (usually for approx. half an hour) a blue screen appears and the system restarts.

I tried updating and downgrading the forceware drivers without any results. The drivers were made for Windows 7 so I don't think this can be the trouble, however I upgraded the Beta to Build 7100 but unluckily nothing changed.

Any ideas or possible solutions? Thanks in advance :thumbsup:

[madhatter256]

What operating system do you have? Make sure you download the correct drivers for your OS.

[z_killemall]

I have Windows 7 RC Build 7100 (x64) and yes, I'm using Nvidia's latest Win7 x64 drivers.

Maybe it's a matter of time, but a new Forceware was released yesterday and I saw no stability improvements yet. Fallout 3 starts and works now, thought.

[3do]

Could you possibly get a rough note of the error shown on the blue screen if it comes up again as that might help detecting the problem a bit more.

[Borman]

Check the temperatures.

[aryssoR]

Sounds like your upgraded card is starved of power, What brand and model is your PSU?

Is the error "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" by any chance?

[z_killemall]

Answering Borman and aryssoR's questions, the card is not overheating and there's no way it can be short of power. The PSU's brand is EUROcase, it's not a really known brand but their products have a great quality (in fact my rig, PSU, keyboard, LCD screen and mouse are from this brand and I didn't have any troubles yet). BTW, it is a 550W PSU (real 550W) and the computer has nothing really energy-demanding inside. Also I previously had a XFX 8500GT, which as far as I know, requires more power than this one.

Just one more thing, I had some bluescreens today but I wasn't able to read everything or take a picture. However I don't think that the error was what aryssoR posted.

[Skaarg]

It could be the drivers for that card on Windows 7 aren't very good yet. I would try downloading and installing Vista drivers. I had a similar problem on my laptop, and my friend had it with his desktop.

[Piratero]

You shouldn't expect a WIP like Windows 7 to be stable. Expect things like this to happen frequently.

Just my 2 cents.

[aryssoR]

Was the system stable before the card upgrade?

I'm sorry to say from bitter experience, the PSU should be the one place to use a top quality piece. Just because it says 550w on the side means pretty much nothing on a budget PSU. There's no point having good spec components if the PSU is shat and you want stability.

A quick google on Eurocase brought these up:

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=446911

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...-restarts-prob

[Dr.Wily]

What is your Chipset ?

[z_killemall]

Was the system stable before the card upgrade?

I'm sorry to say from bitter experience, the PSU should be the one place to use a top quality piece. Just because it says 550w on the side means pretty much nothing on a budget PSU. There's no point having good spec components if the PSU is shat and you want stability.

Yeah, it was stable before upgrading the card, but anyway I don't see the PSU like the cause of the trouble since this card is supposed to have a lower power consumption than the 8500GT, I know my PSU's not great but it's what I can afford for the moment (the price difference is too high and I'll be sure to get a good one when I change it).

For the moment I'm almost sure that the problem is Windows 7 having some kind of issue with the drivers. I'm running Ubuntu right now and video playback works perfectly. It seems I'll have to wait until these troubles get fixed.

It could be the drivers for that card on Windows 7 aren't very good yet. I would try downloading and installing Vista drivers. I had a similar problem on my laptop, and my friend had it with his desktop.

I tried it and I could put Fallout 3 to work since then, but it didn't fix the BSoD's for the moment.

Maybe I'll switch for the 32-bit version of Win7, it seems to be more stable in this kind of stuff.

EDIT: Nvidia released new drivers today, I've been playing for 2 hours without a single BSOD. I think they finally could fix that issue. Tonight I'll leave the computer playing videos for all night and check if it crashes anyway.

[retro]

You need to check your PSU and temperatures (CPU more than graphics - you'd see glitching if your graphics card overheated usually) first, certainly.

Eurocase is Czech - sounds crap already! Looking at their website, they say nothing about any "true power" feature.... looks like a bog standard cheap and cheerful PSU. And why do they sell other (cheap) brands, too?

Anyway, putting all that aside, you need to try a stable OS. Stick XP on and see what happens. As you say you're not having issues now, it sounds like the OS could well be to blame.

On XP, on the F8 boot-up menu, there's a disable restart on system error option (or something like that). It means if you get the BSOD, it'll stay on so you can write down the code. Look and see if there's such an option in your version, too.

That's the most important thing you need (to provide) in order to diagnose the problem - the BSOD code.

[z_killemall]

As I said before, it resulted to be a software problem. The PSU is not great, but is not the problem.

By the way, I was thinking about getting a 450W Corsair PSU soon, it should be able to handle my current setup, right?

Biostar P4M890-M7 (I'm probably changing it for a better Asrock or MSI mobo)
Pentium Dual Core E2160 1.8 GHz
2x 1GB Corsair DDR2
512MB XFX 9500GT (avg. power consumption: < 45W)
3 HDDs (1 SATA, 2 IDE)
2 DVD drives (1 SATA, 1 IDE)
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 PCI sound card
Philips PCI analog TV tuner

[aryssoR]

Personally I'd be more comfortable with a little bit more watts, but Corsair is among the best there is.

If you go for the 450, I'd recommend the VX, not the CX. The VX has higher quality caps and components throughout, although it's a bit more expensive you get what you pay for.

Review with full spec etc here:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?...hlbnRodXNpYXN0

A gold from HardOCP doesn't come easy...

[channelmaniac]

Look for some type of Event Log on the Win7 box. In there you'll find the code for the BSOD. Post that data.

[alf717]

I would suggest a cleaning tool to remove all of your old drivers. Not sure if this is the same as Vista but I would have an issue with my 3870's when using crossfire. Vista would annoy me by installing the standard vga drivers only after this happened and a reboot then I could install my ATI drivers. Check out Guru3D and see if they offer a driver cleaning tool. I personally use Drivercleaner.net but that will cost you $10.

[jsnelson]

Just answered this in another BSOD thread...

Turn down hardware acceleration for your graphics card a couple notches if it's set to max. Display Properties -> Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshoot