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metachronos
05-19-2006, 11:27 AM
I am having a problem where while I'm playing a game the monitor goes into standyby. The LED on the monitor turns amber and the screen goes black. Before you ask, yes, I did turn off standbuy in Windows. I originally thought it was a heat issue, so I bought a fan for the vid card and monitored the temps, they were lowered, but it didn't help. Then I thought it was the PSU, it's a 550 watt but it is an antec. The weird thing is, only the monitor goes into standby, everything else stays on. The computer hardlocks and the audio loops.

Also, when playing a game like FEAR, it will happen at weird times, like when I access the menu or quit the game. Here are my specs:

Athon 64 3700+
2 Gigs Corsair XMS
BFG 6800GT
Audigy 2ZS
Asus A8n Deluxe SLI mobo
WD Raptor 74GB
WD 250 GB
Imagequest 19" LCD.

I noticed that when I changed my video settings in BF2 from maxiumum to medium, I was able to play for an hour without crashing, as opposed to the 10-15 minutes I was getting before. One other interesting thing is; normally when my computer boots it goes like this : Shows a few lines of text about the VGA Bios, shows ASUS splash screen, Windows loading screen, then shows my username and asks for password. A month or two ago, I noticed that the few first boot screens were "fuzzy" or blurry or distorted, it's hard to describe. It would start with the first VGA bios screen, and would continue until it shows my windows username and asks for password, at which point the fuzziness would be gone and it would be back to normal. However, after the incident occured last, night while plaing BF2, whenever the computer is restarted, the monitor stays off for about 30-45 seconds and turns on when it gets to windows username screen. What this means, I have no idea. After last nights crash, I logged back on to find the notice "Windows has recovered from a serious error" and it made a minidump file, if someone could analyze the minidump file for me, that would be fantastic.
I copied this from another forum that I posted it on.

krylon
05-21-2006, 09:23 AM
Perhaps your 6800GT is overheating? 6800 cards are notorious for being hot running cards. Is this a problem you've always had since you got this setup or a recent problem?

metachronos
05-21-2006, 11:42 AM
It's not recent, I already replaced the Stock HSF with a Zalman copper one, I'm not sure of what else to do.

[XC] MarioMaster
05-21-2006, 01:11 PM
my GeForce4 Ti4200 did that, it would shut off at random times, I switched it to a Thermaltake Giant II heatpipe cooler and the problem continued - I got fed up with it and bought me a 6600gt :) not too sure what that says about your card though...

[XC]melymel
05-21-2006, 01:35 PM
Can you post what temps you get idle and load for you vid card? as it sounds like overheating/instability.

Have you overclocked your pci-e frequency?
Have you made sure you have the correct vid card related options in bios?

metachronos
05-21-2006, 01:36 PM
Idle-55C
Load-77C

I am thinking of getting one of those PCI slot fans, can anybody recommend a good one?

[XC]melymel
05-21-2006, 01:39 PM
hmm that runs slightly cooler than mine and mine gives no probs..have you overclocked it at all? also what drivers are you using?

metachronos
05-21-2006, 01:59 PM
I am not OCed and I am using the 84.56 drivers from Guru3d

krylon
05-21-2006, 04:00 PM
Temps seem okay on your card. Did the problem occur before you replaced the HSF? Does your XMS get hot? You should feel it by touch when you first boot up then feel it again right when the screen goes black. If it's too hot to touch it could be the problem. BF2 will stress all components, especially the memory. Also make sure in power management, you have the Home/Office Desk scheme selected.

Are you memtest stable with your current config, especially looping test 5?

metachronos
05-21-2006, 04:19 PM
Yes, the problem occured before I replaced the HSF, that's the reason I replaced it in the first place, I did memtest a while back, and it ran for like 12 passes overnight with no errors

Also it happened with games other than BF2 including HL2, FEAR, and DoD:S

[XC] MarioMaster
05-21-2006, 04:59 PM
could just be a crapping out video card, not sure what else it could be unless it is a software problem, did you change any other cooling in your computer like case fans?

metachronos
05-21-2006, 07:22 PM
It may just be broken vid card, I won't be back for at least a week yet, but I'll report back later, thanks for all your help guys.

aMp
05-21-2006, 08:21 PM
I'd wager that's it. I had a GF4 Ti4600 die exactly like that. Drove me crazy because it took over a month to finally die.

Major_A
05-22-2006, 07:23 PM
I've had that problem before but it was because my AGP lock would break and it took me forever to figure it out. I had to back my FSB O/C down until I found the sweet spot and the problem was solved.

I see you are using a SLi motherboard so that rules out the AGP lock but maybe the PCIe lock? Are you overclocking your CPU at all?

Have you made sure the power into the card is connected good? Have you tried a different plug or spare molex's and the adapter?

I see you sent the card back but thought I'd add some food for thought.