Need Advice: AIW 9700 too Hot

[BuddMan]

Koolance has a probe that you mount underneath the heatsink. It is actually within 1 degree of my mobo sensor.

Anyway, I dunno what to say. I took my puter over to someone else's place. Put in a TNT2 video card. Fired up my system, played the game. All was good. No beeps. Put my AIW in his system, had him play the game. Same thing, no probs. Put the AIW back into my system, and played for 20 minutes without a beep. So at this point I dunno what to say. It's like it just fixed itself. I have reseated that card so many times...

Despite this seeminly stroke of good luck, I am still going to monitor my voltages and report back. I'm not convinced the problem is fixed..not yet.

[BuddMan]

Err...can this be right?

--Sensor Chip Readings--

Voltage Readout[1] : 1.51805
Voltage Readout[2] : 1.472
Voltage Readout[3] : 3.248
Voltage Readout[4] : 4.08
Voltage Readout[5] : 11.3088
Voltage Readout[6] : 0.63936

This is on idle. My mobo reads the voltage settings via the CMOS at spec levels (where they should be). Am I reading this correctly??

[Wombat]

Could be. Maybe the wiring in the room isn't good enough. If you took the computer somewhere else, and the problem went away. It doesn't matter how good the power supply is if it can't get enough juice from the wall.

[BuddMan]

I think I had some settings wrong. Those settings can't be right cause my mobo reports different voltages across the board. I looked into a few things, put in correct settings and now get this on idle:

-Sensor Chip Readings--

Voltage Readout[1] : 1.552
Voltage Readout[2] : 1.472
Voltage Readout[3] : 3.232
Voltage Readout[4] : 4.941
Voltage Readout[5] : 12.20904
Voltage Readout[6] : -12.284
Voltage Readout[7] : -5.4272

Heh, I was about to freak out. Now to post results while Morrowind runs.

EDIT: Ok, I played Morrowind, it's still running, had IE open, and for kicks put in a DVD. Here are my readings while all this is going on:

--Sensor Chip Readings--

Voltage Readout[1] : 1.568
Voltage Readout[2] : 1.472
Voltage Readout[3] : 3.232
Voltage Readout[4] : 4.941
Voltage Readout[5] : 12.1434
Voltage Readout[6] : -12.284
Voltage Readout[7] : -5.4272

And not one system beep. I dunno....perhaps it was heat related. I pushed down on the heatsink when I took out the card over there just to be sure it was making contact. I dunno what to think, but it's working now. I will continue to test and monitor and report if I find anything new. Gotta do my homework now.

[BuddMan]

Bumping this. Are those voltages acceptable? Any other ideas of what may have caused this?

[BuddMan]

Wow, so you guys are suddenly quiet...anyone?

BTW, I still get the beeping, it's just not as often (maybe once every 30 min now unlike once every 3 or 4 min), and only is in Morrowind now. All other games run just fine, including UT2003.

[BuddMan]

Ok, over the past day and today I have run a few tests. I installed Gigabyte's EasyTuner and it shows while playing Morrowind that my 3.3v line goes down to 3.23 and even 3.18 at times, and that my 12v line will sometimes hit 11.7. However, I get no crashes, no slowdowns, I can even switch between the game and the desktop and do things while the game is running such as unzipping files, play DVDs, play Mp3s, etc. So perhaps my mobo is reading my voltages incorrectly?? I need to find a way to make the mobo stop reading my voltages, but as of yet I have found no way to do this...

EDIT: BTW, I did underclock the CPU and also lowered voltages on it. Same results across the board. I took out my SCSI as well and only ran one IDE HD and one CD drive. Still beeps and EasyTune reports the same things. If the PSU is really running that low, then I would expect that a lot of other things would be giving me problems as well, but they are not. I think it's reading things too low. Now to find a way to disable it....

[Jon P. Inghram]

You really ought to go to Radio Shack and buy an inexpensive multimeter (don't get an analog one though.) That way you can measure the voltages on the +12 and +5 lines off a power connector and know for sure if the power supply is sagging or not.

Does that CPU have Hyperthreading, and is it enabled? Might try turning it off if it is just to see what happenes. Is the 4 pin ATX 12v connector plugged in? Latest BIOS for the motherboard? Try disabling or removing the sound card, can't hurt as a test. Are you using the DPVRM (Dual Power Voltage Regulator Module,) if you have it? Try running Morrowind at the lowest possible resolution with all graphical options off, AF/AA off in the drivers. Try running Morrowind at the highest possible resolution with everything turned on, with AF/AA on.

[Greebe]

Let me add that when the shim was on, after the first beep the whole system would lock up after seconds. Now that the shim is off, it does not lock up. Could it still be that the card is on the verge of overheating??

There is a very good possibility that the vpu is already toast due to the lack of proper cooling and thus stressing it to the limit repeatedly already.

[BuddMan]

I FINALLY FOUND OUT WHAT IT WAS. And what a moron I am. I should have checked on this in the first place. Removed the DVPRM and didn't get one beep, overclocked my system again, played Morrowind for 2 hours without a hitch or beep. Thanks Jon, can't believe the solution was that simple. I guess I'll just have to keep it off. No big loss. Greebe, the card runs fine. I'm not sure if the lockup was due to overheating, but it definately runs cooler now that I removed the shim, and in fact am able to overclock the card quite a bit, though I haven't got the final settings on it yet, still trying to figure that out. I'm finally having some fun with my system now that I got that prob fixed. Thanks for the help all.

[Greebe]

Great, glad to hear you got that bugger sussed out