Upgrade suggestion request

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by SylverFyre, Jun 21, 2015.

  1. rbn

    rbn Well-Known Member

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    What brand card is it?

    PSU should indeed be solid, I used to have a HX520 which was SLI capable, no issues.

    Do you have a second machine, maybe at a friend. Maybe the card is defective, problem with the pci slot etc.
    I never had issues with Nvidia cards myself.

    Just to think out of the box, did you try sector testing you HDD?
    Do you antivirus software installed? Or really only OS and that it.
     
  2. SylverFyre

    SylverFyre Well-Known Member

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    Its a gigabyte windforce gtx970.

    I've just taken it back out blown over the guard with compressed air and checked all the connectors. Reseated and its running happily now with no drivers. Going for an install again in a few. Is a clean windows install on a crucial M4 ssd that's been running perfectly until this card so I'm not inclined to think its that. Windows is up to date with no antivirus installed to get in the way. Wish me luck or the cars going back tomorrow :) WP_20150624_20_03_28_Pro.jpg
     
  3. SylverFyre

    SylverFyre Well-Known Member

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    Strangely I've fully installed the drivers, had two random crashes after about 4 or 5 minutes. Installed steam and raceroom and managed to play with the mouse testing the graphics for about 15 minutes, all fine. Go back to the windows desktop for 5 minutes and it reboots again. I don't think this is power or heat related. I'll give it one more day of trying to make it work then ask amazon for an exchange on the card.

    It didn't half look lovely and run silky smooth in raceroom though :D
     
  4. rbn

    rbn Well-Known Member

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    Gigabyte is a good brand, solid cooling.

    Did you know the Crucial M4 has bug with some older firmware?
    Maybe you are not affected but better check to be sure:
    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Crucial-m4-Firmware-BSOD,14544.html

    Best bet to rule out the card is to install it in a different machine.
    Also you can install MSI afterburner and monitor the temps.

    Good luck.
     
  5. James Cook

    James Cook Well-Known Member

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    Your PSU is fine. Corsair is a solid make and 750W is probably enough to run 2x970 in SLI. I'm running a 650W Corsair with a GTX780.

    Sounds like it could be a power state/boost function issue i.e. the card is not getting enough voltage when idle or in low utilisation. When the card is under load I assume it works fine? If you enable constant max voltage (K-boost) you'll probably find your card works flawlessly, but obviously you don't want to do that other than to test.

    A little digging reveals this is an issue with the Gigabyte Windforce 970 and there is a fix if you're willing to try it....

    http://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/2tzj6d/gtx_970_crash_with_low_gpu_utilization_bios/
    https://forums.geforce.com/default/...-instability-in-low-utilisation-situations/1/ (check post #20)

    Maybe there's a BIOS update for your card that fixes this issue? I haven't read through the entire threads.
     
  6. SylverFyre

    SylverFyre Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for finding that James! I'll see if I can get something to help with a possible under voltage. In the meantime I tried switching back to my 5850, and that won't even wake the monitor up while booting, it stays on standby. Think I must have broken it while taking it out :S not sure how since I'm super careful and always mindful of being grounded for static etc. thankfully the gtx970 "works" as before with no driver installed, but this isn't proving the simple upgrade I was hoping for.

    The racing gods don't want me to drive at the moment :(

    Thanks again for everyone's help. :)
     
  7. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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  8. SylverFyre

    SylverFyre Well-Known Member

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    With a lot of experimentation and even more googling, I switched off C1E, C3,6&7 processor power saving States and that appears to have fixed the problem. I found that leaving EIST enabled allows the processor to throttle back and save about 60% power while on idle, but for some reason the other states cause a reset with this card and nvidia drivers installed.

    Strange, but I can only assume that there is a problem between my specific motherboard and this card and driver combination. Especially considering they are both made by Gigabyte...

    Anyway, have now had the PC running for 24 hours and I'm going to touch wood and say that it appears a lot better....

    Thanks again for all of your suggestions and assistance, very much appreciated.
     
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  9. Yevgeny Lazorenko

    Yevgeny Lazorenko Well-Known Member

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    Hello there, I'd like to take an advice too.

    I trust your experience in hardware guys, so I will be really appreciate if somebody answer my question.

    Recently I have:

    Intel Core i3-530 (2.93 GHz), RAM 8 GB 1333 MHz, HIS Radeon R7 250 1GB GDDR5.

    I am started to think about an upgrade. As the mainboard and CPU are connected to each other – I am not considering to replace them. For me, in this case easier to sell my current PC and buy a new one, but budget is limited, so if I am selling my current PC I will buy something like that:

    AMD Athlon II X4 860K (3.7 Ghz) / RAM 8 GB1600 MHz/ HDD 1 TB / AMD Radeon R7 260X, 2 GB


    I am not running for Ultra HD quality and triple screen, I am happy with medium graphics and stable 60+ fps.

    So I wonder what to do, maybe just replace a videocard in my old PC for R7 260X 2GB with changing Power Supply Unit for 600W+ (Current is no name 400W).

    But will it reveal full potential with my old i3-530 and mainboard of 2010th year. It's PCI Express 2.0, new hardware is 3.0 supported, how big difference of that in game? I know that 3.0 card work with 2.0 mainboard, but what's the loss in percentage?

    By the way, i3-530 cool CPU, it works like 4-core and easy to overclock up to 4,4 GHz. Recommended is 3.6 GHz overclock for safe.

    And of course I prefer Intel against AMD.

    Resume:
    1. Sell whole PC – buy a fresh one new?
    2. Upgrade current?
    3. Your advice.
     
  10. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    @Lazorenko Yevgeny you won't see a huge boost in games with the upgrades you are looking at but it should be a decent upgrade.
    My main question is, what is your total budget if you decide to upgrade?
    • The Athlon X4 860K should get you in my territory (I have the FX-6300).
    • The R7 260X might be a little bit slow, you should go 270X for around 50$ more.
    • 600W PSU...you should get 750W for very little price difference.
     
  11. Yevgeny Lazorenko

    Yevgeny Lazorenko Well-Known Member

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    My Limit is 300$

    Important question for me - If I go for 270x, will it reveal its potential with my 2010th CPU INTEL i3-530 3 GHz (2 cores, 4 threads)?

    Will old CPU and motherboard shackle the modern videocard?
     
  12. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    No you won't be able to see much of a difference because you are running the card on a slower lane.
    Yikes 300$ total this is very little for an upgrade :oops:
     
  13. rbn

    rbn Well-Known Member

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    You sure the CPU is soldered on the mainboard?

    I would expect a minor increase in FPS when adding a 270x to your existing i3 machine.
    Personally I would upgrade the CPU first, get some performance there and later add a better graphics card/PSU.

    Maybe you can look for second hand parts. Older gen i5 (Ivy) should be pretty quick.
     
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  14. James Cook

    James Cook Well-Known Member

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    Yep, I think a quad core CPU would be a good upgrade as it would prevent possible bottlenecks on the GPU.

    I'm running an i5 2500k and it's still extremely capable. A second hand sandy/ivy CPU + second hand Z77 board would provide a good base.
     
  15. Yevgeny Lazorenko

    Yevgeny Lazorenko Well-Known Member

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    CPU is not soldered.

    Well, I think I shouldn't mix parts from 2010 and 2015. Instead, I'd rather sell current PC, take some patience and gather more dollars for 1000-1500$ modern PC in the end. That would be smartest choice.

    Appreciate your attention guys.
     
  16. rbn

    rbn Well-Known Member

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    Wise decision.

    Just wait for Skylake (new intel CPU) and go for a fast GTX/AMD GPU and you are certain this game and all other games will run like a champ.
     
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  17. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    • Agree Agree x 1
    • Informative Informative x 1
  18. Yevgeny Lazorenko

    Yevgeny Lazorenko Well-Known Member

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    Thank for the link!
    Very useful info!