every game crashes! abit nf-m2, hd 3870, 1gb corsair 800mhz, every game crashes!

[prehensile]

have been away from the forums for a coupe of years since getting off my bargain binge

anyone have problems with 3870 ati? since i put it in, i cant play far cry, stalker demo, mass effect demo, all the advanced games seem to crash really badly. unreal 3 and crysis demo are fine . i know the pc is dung because it just isnt so stable at defaults, even with corsair and 560w hiper psu.

it really depends on the game however, it's just nowt a super good chipset in IMHO and i shall upgrade pretty soon most likely.

Thanks for any tips!
have done the usual driver, chipset driver etc updates...the hard drive often corrupts on hard rebots after crashing.

[peterb]

Memory? Run Memtest 86+

[Speed]

Indeed, try memtest, also check the voltages and temperatures of your system while it's under load, especially graphics load.

[prehensile]

okay, that's a wise idea, i will do both. !!!!! i've had one reboot like the power rail failed and about 25game crash exceptions this month

[richieuk]

Doubt it would be your PSU, and if it was RAM it'd happen when you a bunch of other progs? Its sounds like when the graphics are under heavy load they become unstable, but why wouldn't it happen in UT3? I would take a look also at the GPU or CPU core stabilty/temps somehow, although i've never had to check it myself, so maybe someone can suggest progs for this?

If its since the 3870 was installed, then i'd try without that, borrow a graphics card from a friend. Use process of elimination and nail the culprit.

[Webby]

Try FurMark for testing GPU stability download it from here,

http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

Will stress you GPU very well and will report temps for you as well so you can see what's happening.

Out of interest which 3870 have you got? I can't remember which but if I remember correctly some early models had issues with the fans not ramping up.

Anyway run FurMark's stability test and if your temps stay below 80oC then its probably not a GPU heat problem.

[prehensile]

fantastic troubleshooting suggestions i'll get on the case it's a sapphire toxic with vapor chamber cooler, pretty futuristic cooling technology, UT3 can handle 3 hours, most games from this year can go 10 minutes. will say the results of the ozone3d...

[prehensile]

haha i just tried crysis demo which is very stable, but far cry crashes in 5-6 minutes.
it's the combinatin of nfm2 + hd3870 for sure.

[timlee79]

just out of interest what graphics card did you have in before and was the system stable then. Did you remove all previous drivers. prob not problem but thought worth asking. if it is not overheating then sounds like some sort of drive conflict.

[Zak33]

are you sure it's not a HARD DRIVE error?

If some games are stored on corrupt sectors of HDD, you miht get in on some games and not others

[prehensile]

Super suggestion, i've run checkdisk, results okay so far... will test further.

Previous graphics card was x800xt, system seemed alot more reliable.

Thanks!