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Various Strange problems - nothing works


cdyson37
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Er, I think I have a pretty good psu (enermax, 350W I think), and I forked out for two extra fans to pump air past my graphics card and CPU so it shouldn't be too bad. But I'll install the temperature monitoring stuff to check after say 1hr of usage. I'm going on holiday tomorrow, so I won't be to until I get back. Don't forget about me! I actually had problems before (here we go again):

  • Bought board with onboard s/card. Works fine on linux. Sounds great on windows and linux. Drivers crash windows continually. Board maker doesn't release new drivers. Get very annoyed.
  • Buy cheap creative card on trip to Hong Kong.
  • Card often produces static and sometimes makes system run very slowly.
  • Get annoyed again, fork out for expensive audigy 2 card. Problems (see above post)

I'll check out the heat and circulation thing when I get back - thanks for the suggestion. Do AMD chips draw more power/generate more heat than intel then?

Thanks again,

Charlie.

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quote:


Originally posted by Spindoktor:

quote:

Do AMD chips draw more power/generate more heat than intel then?


Generally yes. Although the latest Athlon processors are nowhere near as bad as they used to be.


And they are very finicky when it comes to motherboards and power supplies. There is a good reason why there are AMD certified/approved PSUs out there.
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At one point I went to a great deal of effort to trick directx into thinking I had a sound card installed when there was not one physically present.

It was the only thing I could do to get my AMD system to play any DirectX games.

Good luck. Persistance will pay off. You WILL get good advice if you post your problem at www.computing.net .

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay, my PSU is 350W - does anyone have any idea how I could tell if its overloaded (any particular voltages to look at in the bios screen or windows h/w monitor), or any suggestions about the max. amount of heat I should tolerate inside the case. I ought to point out that I have two powerful, temp. controlled fans inside there, and a PSU with two separate fans, so I never thought heat would be a problem when I bought it.

Thanks again,

Charlie,

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quote:


Originally posted by cdyson37:

Okay, my PSU is 350W - does anyone have any idea how I could tell if its overloaded (any particular voltages to look at in the bios screen or windows h/w monitor), or any suggestions about the max. amount of heat I should tolerate inside the case.


If you don't know the answer to any of the above, you really shouldn't be building machines. Period. Seek out a professional.

Anyway, you can download and run something like Motherboard monitor. The freeware Aida SysInfo also gives you a ton of info about your system.

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I do know how to check voltages etc, what I'm wondering is if anyone knows the exact ranges for valid operation of PCI cards etc (how much can a given voltage drift, for example before things start to go wrong). My m/board came with a very poor h/w monitor that only gives temp and a couple of other things and I can't get h/w monitoring working on linux at the moment.

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For your delight and amazement I now have some voltage, temperature and fan speed readings! I know this is boring but I'd like to know if any of you informed people think any of these is a bit off:

CPU1     1.74V

+3.3V 3.31V

+5V 4.89V

+12V 11.96V

DDR(2.5) 2.46V

AGP(1.5) 1.47V

Chassis 36C

CPU 46C

Case fan 3100RPM (don't know the speed of the other one)

CPU FAN 4300RPM

These readings were taken after prolonged use. One or two of these appear to be slightly below their defined values - do you think these are low enough to cause problems?

Thanks again,

Charlie.

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quote:

Originally posted by Fiver:

The moment you described sound card problems I thought: is this guy running an AMD? And behold! He is!

So then I wondered if his power supply was 250w? Bear with me because if it is, you may seriously want to bump that sucker up to 400.

I have an AMD sitting on my shelf that I spent good money on several sound cards for with that EXACT same problem. Power supplies = the most tempting place to skimp when constructing your home system.

If that checks out let's talk about your cooling situation and ambient conditions around your PC.

I thought it was normal too. I did check these levels when I first built the thing. So where does that leave me? I still have to turn down the acceleration on some games (I suppose I can live with that). Anything else I can do?

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New stuff! I downloaded AIDA32 and looked at the directX sound page - it lists all the buffers that dx can use - is it normal that they should all be 0 (0 there, 0 used)? Also, my card appears twice - I've got Primary Sound Driver, and SB Audigy Audio [9000] (emulated)? Is this normal? Are my drivers dodgy? Why did this have to happen to me???

Thanks all,

Charlie.

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quote:


Originally posted by cdyson37:

New stuff! I downloaded AIDA32 and looked at the directX sound page - it lists all the buffers that dx can use - is it normal that they should all be 0 (0 there, 0 used)? Also, my card appears twice - I've got Primary Sound Driver, and SB Audigy Audio [9000] (emulated)? Is this normal? Are my drivers dodgy? Why did this have to happen to
me
???

Thanks all,

Charlie.


I have no idea and certainly don't have time to babysit your rig. You built, you should know what you're doing. If you've got duplicate devices, you need to locate all the drivers and put them in a folder, then go into hardware settings and remove ALL the duplicate devices, then restart. When the OS re-starts, it will prompt you again and you can re-install the drivers. You should only have to do htis for your video, sound, controller devices. Remove anything else and you're as hosed as a hedgehog at the North pole. Better do it in safe mode too, while you're at it.

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