Help me troubleshoot

[Buffy]

Hello all.

I'm currently running a MSI motherboard with two Radeon 7850s.

My rig is custom built, about 11 months old. I've been having some trouble with the graphics, which I assumed was a bad video card.

I run 4 screens: 3 DVI and 1 HDMI to my main TV. I don't use all the screens all the time, so when I don't use them I turn them off. I like the multiple screens for having multiple texts open for schoolwork (I'm a Master's student at Strayer University).

I had a blue screen a while back, just chalked it up to a random power fluctuation. More recently I started having a screen flicker. Eventually, I started having full failures where the first two screens (plugged into video card #1) would fail entirely, and I couldn't move the mouse to screen 3 or 4, even though there was still a video image there.

I assumed card #1 was failing, and I reversed the cards to see if the problem followed the card. No, the problem still persisted on the first slot on my motherboard.

I took out the 2nd card, running only one card at time. Over the course of a week, the screens failed using both video cards (one at a time) in each PCI-E slot on the motherboard.

I'm currently running the same rig using an old GeForce 9800 GT from my old computer.

I've never overclocked or anything along those lines, and I'm leaning towards the problem being my motherboard, especially if it fails again with this new video card in it.

I've also considered it being the power supply, but I don't have a different power supply to try.

Anyone with some thoughts?

[Niya]

K, so if I understand it right you already cross-checked both GPUs against each other and ran each individually in both the primary and secondary PEG slot? Sounds really strange...
The chance for both PEG slots failing at the same time seems pretty unlikely, unless there's something wrong with the PCIe root hub, or in other words, the CPU. Though, depending on the CPU, PEG slot 2+ are often attached through additional bridge chips and/or the chipset, so it should be even more unlikely for the problem to be here.
Your 7850s have 2x 6pin connectors for power, right? Check your PSU handbook if all of your 6/8 pin connectors run on the same power rail or if there are separate rails for them. It could really be that a part of your PSU is going nuts or dieing. What PSU do you have?

[Buffy]

Yes to the 2x 6pin connectors.

I have a rocketfish power supply, 1000w. Don't have the exact link.

Interestingly, I called MSI to discuss a replacement and they wanted me to download Live Update 5 from their website, which showed I had a LOT of various drivers out of date or uninstalled, and I was at least 3 versions behind on the Bios. I updated them all, ran with the GeForce 9800 GT for a while, no problems, installed one 7850, no problems and about 5 minutes ago installed the second 7850.

It wouldn't fail right away before either, so not conclusive, but I should know within a couple days. It would fail fairly regularly over the last two weeks.

On the PSU topic, I swapped which connector was powering which video card. If it is the power supply, and just the one "rail" that is going bad, monitors 3 and 4 should be the ones that turn off now, and 1 and 2 should stay on.

We shall see.

I'm hoping it was just the various drivers including the Bios.

[Niya]

Sounds a bit strange that an outdated BIOS and older drivers make a GPU "fail", but i think everything's possible in IT...
Is this your PSU? http://www.rocketfishproducts.com/pr...upportTab=open
They only write that the PSU has 5 +12V rails, but not how they are distributed between the cables... Where have the times gone when you still had a label on the PSU and in the handbook that told you the exact distribution of the rails and how much maximum load each of them could carry... ._.

But whatever, we'll see if the BIOS update fixes anything.

[xopher]

It is entirely possible that outdated drivers can cause system instability. There was another post recently where someone else was having a similar problem and updating the GPU drivers fixed it.

here's a link to it: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/115...-playing-games

[Buffy]

Yep, that's the correct power supply. Nice find.

Been running in idle for four hours now.

Reallyyyyyyyyyyyy hoping the BIOS upgrade fixes it, but the odd thing about that is I didn't make any changes to the system to start it down this path.

Also upgraded to Catalyst 13.4 today instead of 13.1.

Time will tell!

[Buffy]

Holy shit it's the power supply.

I was just browsing the net and watched monitors 3 and 4 turn off and that was that. I guess in theory the cable could be bad, but that seems pretty unlikely.

I'm going to run for a couple days this way and if I don't get a fail I'll get a new power supply I guess.

Man that was a strange item to track down....