My 9NPA+SLi...

[keitaro]

This is sort of a follow-up to the problem that I have mentioned here. One can look at that post and follow it through to the end. My thanks to squall_leonhart69r for trying to help me find the problem.

To recap, I've been having system issues whereby BF2 or BF2142 would suddenly halt. The video card would appear to have shut down and the system became unresponsive. The only way to get the system back to normal was to hit the Reset button on the case. Visually inspecting as it happened, it wasn't a hard lock. The sound seem to still work a bit and there's no stuttering of an audio snip. With this in mind, I was certain that it wasn't a hardware issue where one device is conflicting with another.

At first glance, I thought it's a video card issue. I've went through hell just to get a card that runs. But upon looking back, I had to wonder if it was that at all. In any case, I went to my local Microcenter and purchased a Zalman VF900Cu-LED cooler. I installed it and put the card back in. As usual, I gave it a test run. First, offline in Single Player, I could not replicate the problem. Second run, online in multiplayer, it ran fine. Day 1 passed without a hitch. I wasn't going to get my hopes up. So I called it a night.

The following night, I fired it up, contacted and chatted with some buddies, and joined the server they're on. And in mid-play, it happened... the video stopped then shut down. It's definitely not heat-related. Time for plan B, the expensive method.

I placed an order for a GeForce 8800GTS 640. It's a rather extreme method just to determine if this is a flaw in the 7900 series design. But I've no other ideas and just seeing that video stopped in mid-play is driving me up the wall. The card arrived and I installed it. Drivers are then installed and some preferences were set. I put the card for a test run. Yes, smooth as heck.. that's to be expected. Temperatures scares me though. But that's a different matter altogether. The game is fired up and I tried to replicate the problem... as usual, trying in single player net me nothing. Joined a server online, and the problem struck again in mid-play. Mind you, the notion and idea that it was a network-related problem did not occur to me until later.

Frustrated, I threw out the chipset drivers and went back to basic: the 6.86 release. Same deal. It was then that it dawned on me that perhaps it was network-related so I inquired regarding the drivers. After looking to check if I got a free slot, I picked out one of 3 network cards laying about and went with one powered by RealTek. This would be 3 PCI cards installed, 2 of which was originally occupied by X-Fi and Hauppauge's PVR-150MCE. However, the PVR-150 never had its drivers installed due to diagnostic research. Booted the system up, entered BIOS, and disabled the onboard NIC...

Here I am, day 3, with 4 (or was it 5?) successful online run of 2142, a new video card that I probably did not need in the first place (but I gotta admit, being able to freely render the game in the middle of an orbital strike without any slowdown is nice ), and I'm still wondering if that's all that it was... a NIC that was dying on me.

I purchased this motherboard very late in its lifetime. I seem to have a habit of doing that. But it seems strange that, of all the components that would fail on me, the NIC would be the first. And I was very afraid that I may have to get a new system altogether, which would mean I end up trying to find an old board that still uses DDR and S939.

Anyway, I'm not entirely convinced that I have solved my little problem... but I am starting to feel a bit relieved that I may have potentially fixed it.

[squall_leonhart69r]

i have, actually, come across people who have had the onboard NIC just die, so this isn't an isolated incident, i believe your problem might be fixed.

in regards to the 8800 temps, download the latest rivatuner and you'll be able to set the fanspeed to full, you'll get a 30% -40% drop in temps, including load temps.

[keitaro]

Hmm... a small update on the situation. Yes, it does mean I had "it" happened to me shortly after I made the above post... but I think I may have finally purged everything that has contributed to the probable cause. Oddly enough, one software that don't run at Startup is ... RivaTuner!

(hears a sudden "Wha.....?!")

The numerous times I have ran RivaTuner for a single purpose, to display the GPU's temperature, I have had cases where the very same would occur even with the PCI NIC installed. Now, does this mean that perhaps RivaTuner was the problem from the start? Who knows... I have since been fed up of trying to find out what was the cause of the problem. So for now, I am laying low for a while until I feel like poking around again. The system's uptime is now at 5.5 days and counting with several sessions and runs of BF2142 and a nostalgiac session of BF2.

To monitor temperatures, I am now falling back to simply using nTune for that task. However, I cannot seem to get nTune to function correctly (cannot view "Change overclocking configuration" or "Monitor temperature levels") with the latest official ForceWare drivers. But I think it may be because I have opted not to install a couple of the components related to stability testing. If this is required, then I'll rerun the installation process again and get 'em installed.

Anyway, I do not expect my uptime to last long... as I do expect XP to eventually "die" out after a week. Until then, I still take this stability run with a grain of salt.