New System woes..
 

Hi All

I've recently built a new system but am having a few teething problems...

Its a 6400 Core2Duo, ABIT AB9 board, 1gb Vitesta DDR2 Ram, Nvidia 7900GS card.:)

When i exit the game Far cry (which looks superb!) my screen totally corrupts and every time i move the mouse, the screen blinks off and then on. I have to switch off the PC using the on/off switch and then turn it all back on.

Also when running any games online using Steam i get lag every 8 seconds or so. The game freezes for about 1/2 a second and then carries on as normal.

I have the latest Nvidia drivers, ran full anti virus/spyware scans etc. Fully patched and up to date. I have the latest BIOS version from ABIT and have tried booting after removing all extra stuff using MSConfig. Still have the same problems though....

Any ideas? Could the card be dodgy? I know it's not overheating cos the sensor tells me so - plus all fans are clear and unobstructed...

I only have the 1 VGA card - Do i need to connect the power to the VGA card - or only if i was running in SLi mode?

Would it be worth using an older Nvidia driver - if so what version?

When doing 'day to day' stuff the system flies, just need to sort out the gaming bits and bobs and i'll be a happy bunny again!

Re: New System woes..
 

Try older drivers :)

Re: New System woes..
 

My 7900gt has a power lead plug from the PSU plugged into it(molex), without it my computer would not run.

Re: New System woes..
 

Yes - you do need the PCIe power connector plugged in. What PSU have you got for this rig? by the sounds of it you probably need 450W+ ideally with a dedicated PCIe lead. Found this thread with some power discussions on 7900GS.

Re: New System woes..
 

You have been running it powered havent you? it should have just beeped at you if you didnt. Just use a slightly older version than you have. For some reason its quite common for both ati and nvidia to release drivers that just dont work on a number of cards.God knows why they must just be n0oBs :)
As for the lag run tracert on the ip addresses and see if theres an obviously dodgy hop and see where in the routing it is :)

Re: New System woes..
 

Mines just a normal PSU 550watt, I plugged a molex into my 7900gt to surplus the power from the PCI-E port on my motherboard.

No fancy leads needed :shrug:

Re: New System woes..
 

a lot of pci e cards have a 6 pin 12 volt connection which will need a special adapter if the psu isnt compatible

Re: New System woes..
 

Thanks for replies so far - yes the card is plugged into the power, my PSU is: Seasonic S12 Series 430W ATX2.0 PSU - should be up to the job....?

I'll try installing the 84.21 drivers tonight...

As for the lag, it happens on all servers i connect to, yet my in game ping seems to be very low - ie it fluctuates between 2 and 7ms.... however the server ping from steam stays at around 30ms... Any other ideas?

Re: New System woes..
 

I would say its driver related. Run memtest just in case and check your gfx temps using everest. If its getting hot in game then this could be the cause. Fit a zalmon Fata1ty to it anyway ;)
What cooler you got on the cpu also? what temps this reaching. HAve you over clocked at all?
Who is Vitesta? am I being a noob by not knowing them or are they a generic brand?
A quick google tells me it should be good :)

Re: New System woes..
 

yeah i'm thinking drivers too, the card is from OCUK - OcUK GeForce 7900 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-042-OK)

GFX runs at about 40 degrees c

CPU is only slightly overclocked to 2.33Ghz - using uGuru which comes with the board, runs at 292MHZ up from 266, plenty of scope to go further but i want to get the machine running ok first...

CPU cooler is the stock Intel; one at the mo - i know i know, gonna get an arctic cooling freezer 7 pro soon...

Vitesta is Adata...

Re: New System woes..
 

Get the machine running stable first without any overclocking. Once you then know it's stable you'll know what effect clocking various bits has on components.

If you are attempting clocking, have you locked the speed of the GPU so that isn't getting affected by the CPU adjustments. What about the RAM, has that got the correct voltage and speeds set.

Re: New System woes..
 

Aye - the Ram is not oc'd at all, the card is stock too at 450 core and ram @ 1320 mhz (660 * 2)

Only the cpu is oc'd - and even then only a tiny bit!

Re: New System woes..
 

A server ping through Steam higher than your network ping is very normal, it's just the nature of how HLDS/SRCDS works.

Re: New System woes..
 

Agreed - however whilst the list of servers shows a ping of say 30ms, when i join the game and run a net_graph 3 this shows a ping of 2ms - wierd?

Re: New System woes..
 

UPDATE:

rma'd the card back to Scan - they've confirmed it as being faulty, sending a replacement, fingers crossed!

Re: New System woes..
 

UPDATE2:

new card recieved and works perfectly, entire system appears to run quicker too.

Scan were very helpful... and confirmed the original card was duff.

Re: New System woes..
 

excellent stuff :)