voltage tolerance?

[brightstar]

I have an ASUS EN6600GT which seems to crash after about 30 mins to an hour when im playing games. the screen goes black and the sound stutters and then nothing. i have to reboot.

at first i thought it was temperature but i had all the overheat warnings turned on and wasnt getting any, but i've since seen the voltage alarm warning on my smartdoctor console and turned them all on. I set the tolerance to 0% and i immediately got a warning saying the VGA BUS isnt supplied with reliable 12v voltage from the motherboard. Here are the results for all the settings:

setting and expected volts result
PCIE 12v 11.9/12.0
Vcore 1.3v 1.28
VCC 3.3v 3.32
FBVDDQ 2v 2.01

so my question is two fold.

1) could these results cause the random crashes?
2) what causes them?
3) how do i fix it?

I've been backwards and forwards to the shop where i bought the kit to have this thing checked out and the engineer hasnt mentioned this so if someone can enlighten me that would be awesome, thanks! )

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[paparazi]

The voltages are very important but the reading yu are reporting are very good and well within perameters.
It could be however that the actually "in game" voltages fluctuate substantialy more than is indicated, it's hard to say.
What is your PSU anyway? is it a quality brand?
Perhaps you could post more information generally.

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[BadBigBen]

check your MEM settings and Temp settings for the CPU...

also the 6600GT should have a seperate Power Plug that needs to be connected (at least mine does)...

then I would also see if you have the newest installed drivers...

and what paparazi mentioned about the power tolerances, I concur with him...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[brightstar]

hmm, i did have a quality PSU, but it broke and then cos i lost the receipt the retailer wouldnt do jack for me, so then i bought a £30 jobby. EZCool or something, think its 530w.

the PSU does have a PCI-E power connector but i couldnt see a power connection socket on the graphics card. its an ASUS EN6600GT 256MB.

i'm at work at the mo but when i get home i'm going download rivatuner? apparently that can monitor the state of your graphics card whilst playing games.

yup got all the latest drivers, thats always my first stop.

hold the phone i just found apparently there's a known problem with 6600GTs - these guys describe the problem pretty accurately:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=2380

and

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t13181.html

pity none of them seem to have found a solution other than buying more cooling.
thanks for your help guys

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[BadBigBen]

Hmmm, I forgot the the EN stood for PCI-E, I got an AGP version that has the extra plug for power...

and the Heating problem hasn't gotten to me, cuz I use an after market cooling system aswell... so it did not dawn on me that that could be the problem...

so I would purchase one of these HS-Fans made of copper and with a large fan... if your card can not be returned and exchanged...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[brightstar]

ok, update, my card does overheat realy easy - but more than that the voltage really does seem unstable too.

the vcc jumps from 3.32 to 3.42 and back again - is this a large amount or still within tolerance?

also, i am going to invest in a cooler, i take it i can use it on this card but then re-use it on a new one in the future?

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[BadBigBen]

Brightstar, depends on what you may purchase in the future...

and then again, they are not that expensive, I don't know about how much they are in the US or UK, but in Germany they cost around 19 Euro (roughly $25 or so)...

here is a review of the one I use...

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index.php?x=reviews&id=332&page=1

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."