New PC Reboots itself

[jonathanswalton]

Hi,

I've submitted a tech support ticket, but wanted to post here in to see if other solutions can be offered to help speed up the resolution.

The issue is that my PC reboots itself at times, particularly prevalent when playing Witcher2.

On first power up, it almost always 'double POSTS' - i.e. when first starting up it seems to get to the POST, then powerdown, immediately power back up, then start loading Windows.

Playing The Witcher2, after about 10-15 minutes the computer will just restart itself. I then get the usual Windows safe mode menu. I have had the computer restart itself shortly after quitting the Witcher2 and about 10 seconds afer returning to the desktop. I normally run it on Ultra settings, but even on High this is occurring.

I've run the Furmark benchmark myself at 1920x1080 with 32xAA to checkc temps; after about 3-4 minutes the graphics card peaks at 85oC and stays around there, and the 4 CPU cores at between 45-50oC. I will run it for longer to check nothing else happens, but these temperatures 'feel' well within acceptable levels.

Any suggestions on any other diagnostics I can run to help with resolving the problem?

** edit - extra info **
I've checked in the NVidia panel; it's running the latest drivers 275.33
I've checked the RealTek sound drivers via the Control Panel -> Device Manager; apparently running the latest drivers
Ran the Furmark stress test for 15 minutes with Extreme Burn In and Displacement mapping; 1920x1080 32x aa ... still peaks at 86oC; cpu core highest was mid 50's - no reboot
Played Witcher2; crashes erratically. Prevalent in game Menus. Have tried turning off SSAO and changing the memory size allocation but this doesn't change things.
****************

[smargh]

Does it reboot with a BSOD, or as though you hit the reset button? Use bluescreenview from nirsoft to try viewing previous BSOD info, or disable reboot-on-BSOD.

[jonathanswalton]

No BSOD. Just >blank screen< then POST

I've just completed a 45minute session of L4D2 with everything on max with no problems. Beginning to wonder if it's just a Witcher2 thing. Looking at forums implies this /might/ be a specific game issue but I guess I'll keep updating the original thread with details and see what comes of it.

[Rob @ Scan]

Hi Jonathan,

Sorry to hear you're having further problems!!

It does sound like it may be that particular game that is causing the problems. I'll ask around tomorrow to see if anyone else has had problems with Witcher2 on OC settings, or any crashing at all. (Some games don't work well with overclocks) I'm pretty sure TW2 isn't one of them though!

Your temperatures all seem normal. Furmark will get your card as hot as it's ever going to get!

In the meantime could you do a couple of things:

1 - check for minidump files... normally C:\Windows\minidump and attach any to an email to systemsupport@scan.co.uk

2 - go to start menu - my computer and right click and select manage. Then go to Event viewer - windows logs - system.

In there you can click on 'Level' to arrange them in order of importance.

If you have any critical errors, (which will now be grouped together at the top). Could you do a screenshot and send to the same e-mail as above.

Regards,

Rob @ Scan

[jonathanswalton]

Thanks Rob. I've sent details via email against my OLQ.
I have 13 critical errors ("event id 41") which correspond to the restarts in the game.

[Rob @ Scan]

Hi Jonathan,

41 is a Kernel-Power error.

Just to confirm, no blue screen? just a reboot?

Are you playing the game on the overclock setting?

Regards,

Rob @ Scan

[jonathanswalton]

Yes; I think it's overclocked. Tests with furmark and CPU-Z show the multiplier jump to 47 under load.
There's no warning message and no BSOD... just reboots at some random point in a menu. I didn't get the minidump file on the C:\ drive generated

I just re-tried and the main start menu appeared for less than a second before reboot (!)

Odd :/ ... I have played the game for quite a while but it seems to be menus that trigger the reboot.

3D Global settings on the NVidia control panel (I don't have a program profile for TW2):

Ambient occ - off
aniso filter - app
antialiasing gamma - off
antialiasing mode - app
antialiasing transparency - off
cuda gpus - all
max prerendered frames - 3
Single Display Perf mode
Power manage - Adaptive (have tried max performance in the above reboot)
texture filtering aniso - off
texture filtering negative lod - allow
texture filter quality - quality
texture filter trilinear opt - on
threaded opt - auto
triple buffer - off
vertical sync - force on

[Rob @ Scan]

If its got a multiplier of 47 you're on the overclock profile.

Normally if it's a problem with the overclock it would leave a minidump or BSOD.

Could you try the loading the game on the standard (non-oc) profile?

To do this press DEL on start up to get into the bios, go to 'advanced' then go to tools and OC profiles and select load from profile 1 (3XS-standard).

This will load the standard settings for the CPU.

Then if you could load up TW2 and see if the same errors occur?

Also which anti-virus software are you using?

[jonathanswalton]

I'm using Norton Internet Security 2011.

I've been able to run some further tests tonight flicking between the two profiles as you described. I've only had 30 minutes or so, and will test further tomorrow night... however:


With the OC profile on; I can reproduce the reboot problem; albeit randomly; in menus.

With the standard un-overclocked profile; I'm yet to have a crash. That only includes about 15 minutes of sitting in/flicking between various menus though. As I said; will test for a longer period tomorrow. I'll also further test using the OC profile but avoiding menus as much as possible and report back.

[Rob @ Scan]

Hi Jonathan,

Sorry I've not been able to get back to you today... It's been a hectic day!

Do you have the latest patches 1.1 & 1.2 installed?

I've just done a bit of googling and it seems loading earlier drivers may help. So you could try installing 270.61 until the next driver realease.

See Problem #8:

http://www.gamebrood.com/2011/05/17/...ical-problems/

Try that and see how you get on... If you get no joy, I'll e-mail you instructions on how to add a 4.5Ghz overclock profile to you BIOS profiles. Maybe it's just the extreme overclock the game doesn't like.

Regards,
Rob @ Scan

[Rob @ Scan]

Just had another thought, a lot of people are complaining on various forums of mouse curser problems in the menus of the game, being a bit slow and glitchy.

What mouse are you using? Probably a long shot, but it could be a factor!

[jonathanswalton]

Hi Rob,

I've turned off the overclock; and playing for another 45 minutes tonight I'm yet to crash. Not conclusive - but a good indication i think.

Not sure if that's a good or bad thing!? Good obviously in that I can play the game, not good in terms of whether I'll get this in all strenuous games! Still a bit odd that I seemed to crash only in menus (I'll test this is definitely the case tomorrow/weekend); and furmark and my Steam games have so far been okay.

Having a 4.5 overclock saved down sounds useful, if you don't mind? If you need my email - can PM it across.

Cheers


(mouse is a Razer Imperator; not installed drivers for it - but not noticed the Mouse cursor being an issue). I'm on patch 1.2

[Rob @ Scan]

I'll email you through your query tomorrow, if you'd like it sent to a different e-mail address you can PM me.

It is very odd that it only occurs in the menu of the game.

I don't think it's related to the load put on the card, furmark gives the card some serious stick!

Unigine Heaven is another good benchmark that replicates in game environments well, if you're worried about the card struggling in strenuous games. Just set everything to max and run for a while.

http://unigine.com/download/

I'll email the settings tomorrow and we'll go from there.

Regards,
Rob @ Scan

[jonathanswalton]

Thanks for your email Rob.

I created a 4.5 profile; it too crashed in menus. I've since run this down to 4.2 and it was crash free in the hour or two I had tonight. Quite a big step down (well... relatively ) - so I'll try bumping it up to 4.3 etc. tomorrow and see how it goes.

Going back to running at a full 4.7 with GPU at 98% load in the Unigine; solid with no crash for easily 5-10 minutes. Other games (that I have) - are fine too.
30s (at times) in The Witcher2 menu though and it crashes (@4.7). I wonder if it's a power management/step down thing; because it runs fine in the game itself and it's only when you pop open a less exerting menu that it reboots.

Anyway; more stats tomorrow

[Rob @ Scan]

Hi Jonathan,

Glad you're having some success at lower clock speeds.

If you're saving these lower clock speeds as profiles, i'd recommend setting the CPU voltage to 1.4000 on anything less than 4.5Ghz.

Can you check what your C1E setting is in the BIOS? In AI Tweaker menu.

Regards,

Rob @ Scan

[jonathanswalton]

Hi - yep, C1E etc. are all set to disabled.
I take it by setting the CPU voltage you mean setting the voltage uplift from 0.040 to Auto? There's a PLL option that I've left at Auto.



Further testing today; I've had an unbroken hour long run with the turbo set to 4.7ghz overclock but with the Intel SpeedStep disabled. Can't say this is what it is 100% for sure; will go back and play some more. I have noticed that I'm on mobo bios 0702; there's a version 1004 or something that has an issue specifically for AC Power loss. Could these be related; is it worth updating the mobo bios, and will i lose the pre-saved profiles if i do? It's not a pressing issue at the minute, just wondered if these things were all connected.