Sound cutting out windows hard lock

[hashi]

Alright I have a very annoying dilemna at the moment. Once my processor is overclocked to anything, When playing some games and having crossfire enabled with my 2 HD3870 changing the volume using my microsoft keyboard will sometimes cuase the pc to not respond and the sound would cut out and it would hard lock and lose display. At stock speed this problem doesnt occur, But at overclocked speeds this problem doesnt occur while crossfire is disabled. I tried using onboard/audigy 2 made no difference, tried seeing if adding more volts to mch/increasing pci-e frequency.


At the moment im starting to think the 2nd HD3870 might be the culprit, that or worse the actual motherboard. (tested power supply with a multimeter thats fine, but the error doesnt happen at load anyway)

Any suggestions :\?

[dsturner]

You need to use an AMP meter to see what amperage your drawing.Voltage won't tell you as much. What watt is your PSU ? and is your O/C stable...sounds like one of the two. Some system specs would help as I have no idea what harware you are running except vid cards and audio.

[hashi]

specs should be in sig now, the overclock is prime stable for 12hrs, havent let it run longer than that, psu is a seasonic x900 and ya I used a meter from work.

EDIT: Im not sure but my power supply might be a dud (even though its an awesome brand :<) Ive never encountered such a problem at work fixing computers etc (such my luck to have things ive never experienced happen to me). Maybe some others have had something similar? I might borrow a corsair hx620 and test to see if thats the problem, psu might not being to handle and overclocked quad core + 2 3870s but doesnt mind it if its just 1 card/or processor stock.

[dsturner]

I would try another power supply I have had this problem before and after ripping everything apart it ended up being the PSU it would run fine under load for a while and then problems started to happen...honestly I wouldn't have found the problem until it almost completely crapped out.I know what to look for now and if it isn't your O/C than it might well be the PSU.


LOL...I don't know where you work but im pretty sure that there not running your specs hehehe. If its only under full load after a while that it happens realy does sound like a PSU prob. Hope your up and running good soon....don't think its the cards but you could try them each by them selves.

[hashi]

Its more or less maybe 30mins-1hr into a game that makes use of both my gpus/cpu, for instance it happened in cod4 in 30mins. Tried changing volume (the microsoft keyboard volume thingie comes up in background) then it would freeze sit there for a while then my display would shut off and need to hard power off, Alt tabbing can replicate the problem sometimes as well but in that certain event i just described it was alt tabbing in and out fine.

I ran prime last night again using small ffts for 12hrs with no errors but then again its not gpu+cpu load just cpu i think crossfire load is like 380w on its own or something so ya

[dsturner]

Insted of running prime try looping 3dmark o6 it shoud replicate the problem as this will put the full load on x-fire cpu and the sorts. If you don't have it i believe its a frre download for the basic one. It realy does sound more an more like the PSU. Let us know when you get it sorted...Even top brands have there probs:D

I have a 1000 watt and it will actualy wine when im givener in crysis but Im also using 2900xt's...it will actualy warm up the room where my puter is . I had a 700 watt and thats the one I killed .Running 3dmark06 is what finaly killed it as i thought it was an xt that was dying...then there was a loud pop and that was it. A capcitor inside exploded.

[hashi]

I have a choice between a seasonic m12 700w and a corsair hx620w to take home to test/future power supply if it is the issue, what you reckon?

[dsturner]

Both are good brand names....personaly go for the horsepower, I realy don't know the spec on the rails of each but im sure the 700 will work fine.

[hashi]

ill try the seasonic and get back to this prolly after new years, 50a on corsair 56 on seasonic ill just go for the extra 80 watts given my system

EDIT: New PSU and still does it, when i get back from new years thingo ill try the cards separately it could be the second one maybe having a problem. If its not then last thing really is motherboard just cant handle the overclock and crossfire :\

[hashi]

Ok its not the 2nd card its fine.


UPDATE: I set Robut Graphics booster in BIOS to turbo and its working fine atm I can alt tab/increase volume without hard locks. Im not 100% sure what it does but I need to test it more

UPDATE2: Still happens in farcry, not Cod4 though atm.

[dsturner]

Try benching your system with 3dmark06 and find out what kinda score you get that way we now if crossfire is working properly. If the score is realy low then there is something amiss. Im not familiar with your mobo but on an asus i have to enable cross graphics impeller to enable x-fire. There is also a crysis bench mark that you can run as well. it loops a seen that realy works your system. Its usualy the first thing I run after doing any modding to the cards to see if there stable.And then I run 3dmark 06

Is it only Farcry that does it? Do you have all the updates installed? What O/S are you using and do you have a sound card?

[hashi]

I get 17.3k with the cards stock, so crossfire is working. I havent tried other games atm. Using 32bit xp and an auidgy 2 zs, I can usually loop crysis and 3dmark fine its just if i try turning the volume up using my keyboard or maybe try alt tabbing. That will cause the it to freeze the display the sound would make some strange noises and it would turn off. Last things i can think of now is that maybe the OS is having problems (maybe IRQ issues) or the motherboard is just crapping out with having an overclocked quad and 2 cards in crossfire (which sucks because its not a bad motherboard :\)


EDIT: just happened at stock :\
EDIT2: sigh just happened with single card, when loading into cod4 playing the intro video.

motherboard issue or something else but i just dont know :<

[dsturner]

Hmmm If it only happens with volume control it may just be software related.Maybe try a fresh install of XP and related drivers. Also I have never realy bin a fan of Creative...see if they have updated drivers for your sound card and maybe check out some of there forums to see the latest problems.

[hashi]

I think i found the problem, its something related to Punkbuster im pretty sure. Upon boot id have punkbusterA and B processes loaded. I removed them both and once I load up cod4 only the A process loads and thus far I have no freezing. I assume that it happened with farcry as well because it uses punkbuster too. Ill have to test further