Finally Got in

[phantomjoker 0]

A weekend to install an OS? I can reboot to cdrom and be back online in 40 minutes, in two hours Id have all my programs reinstalled. My point being is that people sometimes over complicate things, I know I do. Not that it offers a solution to your problem, but step back, take a breath and keep to the basics.

Ha!, im one to speak, tho, I still cant get phase 2 to run without telling me to insert the correct cd,WHEN IT IS IN THE FREAKIN DRIVE, Isnt cfs3 latest patch make it a nocd stuation? nothing else asks for the cd (other mods)

***not tryin to hijack the thread***

 

Well, if I do the install of OS, then that means all my other sims, drivers, etc, etc. Will all need to be installed....Now on the MACINTOSH this would not be a problem..but that is another story.

 

This is frustrating for sure..I talked me friend into getting OFF and I am watching him play right now over SKYPE of all things. This is torture..hahahha. He is running a pair of 9800 Geforce in SLI and no problems with the sim. He is getting 38 FPS. Now I have a pair of 7800 Geforce Cards and at the same settings of all #2 on the sliders except for #1 on the clouds, I was getting 74 FPS. Now that doesn't sound right does it? I think my 74 FPS sounds too high for my graphic cards. Unrealistic. He has better cards and is getting 38 FPS so something is fishy here..EXCEPT, he is not crashing. I am!

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Another crazy idea from here: have you tried resetting your BIOS values to default? Perhaps something has become o/c'd or out of wack in some way. Resetting the BIOS might set things back to normal. BTW, what is your MB make and model?

 

To reset the BIOS on my computer, I start it up and push the delete key. This takes me to the BIOS settings. There should be an option in one of the menus that allows you to reset the BIOS to factory values or something similar. You might take note of your BIOS settings as they are now before you do this in case it doesn't solve your crashing problem and you want to go back to what you have now.

 

I sure hope you like OFF once you get this sorted out!

[Flyby PC 23]

I have doubts that a new operating system will make any difference. Correct me if I'm wrong, I read you were flying CFS3 on 2 sliders for a while, all OK, then it crashed on multiplayer, but was ok 5 mins later.

 

That doesn't sound like your operating system, but your system coping with CFS3 initially, but continued play taking you over a critical threshold somewhere, then failing. You might be overheating, (and taking the side off might not be enough cooling), you might be out of RAM, or your vitual memory isn't set right. Did you put your own memory sticks? Are they OK or did you touch the copper bits with your unearthed fingers? It might be you CPU - I had a Celeron which defied the laws of physics and drove me up the wall, and it might be your PSU - Power Supply Unit. How many watts is it, and what's it running? I'm reliably informed these power units decay over time, and output may be considerably less than what it says on the label. I'd be very suspicious too if you've been adding new video/sound cards too.

 

Why heat & RAM? If it's heat, naturally something takes time to heat, so the fault occurs after some gameplay, then goes away after a period of cooling. RAM is similar in it's effect, (I'm no expert and getting near the thin ice here...) as you fly, your PC might be recording all your flight data to a paging file, then fails once the paging file is full or you run out of memory. This occurs if your RAM is too small or Virtual memory set too large. I think from memory, your virtual memory should be set to half the amount of RAM you have. Otherwise you divert resources the game needs into recording data nobody needs. I'm not an expert in this, I'm just quoting advice I've been given before. Apologies if it doesn't make sense.

 

CFS3 is a demanding beast on your PC's performance, and while 4 out of 5 things might be working sweetly, it's the one left which nails you. I don't think that's your operating system. Just my tuppenceworth, and I'm sorry I didn't see you SOH thread to know what you've already tried.

[Rugbyfan1972 1]

PhantomJoker,

 

Google a program called enditall2, and install that on your system, it allows you to shutdown (close or kill) running processes that are not essential for windows, I used it to see if it would help me get better framerates in BHAH and after some tweaking with it I have my processes down to 25-26 from 40 after running it and as a rseult it has doubled my FPS to a consistent 40-50 with 25-30 looking backwards while taking off and a minimum of 25 over the front at low level.

 

You will probably have to tell it to kill your AVG software, which with me cleared 7 processes (steganos internet security).

 

It has also made my other gamesw run smoother, the only thing is remembering to restart my antivirus software before going back on the net.

 

I hope this helps.

Rugbyfan1972

[phantomjoker 0]

I have doubts that a new operating system will make any difference. Correct me if I'm wrong, I read you were flying CFS3 on 2 sliders for a while, all OK, then it crashed on multiplayer, but was ok 5 mins later.

 

That doesn't sound like your operating system, but your system coping with CFS3 initially, but continued play taking you over a critical threshold somewhere, then failing. You might be overheating, (and taking the side off might not be enough cooling), you might be out of RAM, or your vitual memory isn't set right. Did you put your own memory sticks? Are they OK or did you touch the copper bits with your unearthed fingers? It might be you CPU - I had a Celeron which defied the laws of physics and drove me up the wall, and it might be your PSU - Power Supply Unit. How many watts is it, and what's it running? I'm reliably informed these power units decay over time, and output may be considerably less than what it says on the label. I'd be very suspicious too if you've been adding new video/sound cards too.

 

Why heat & RAM? If it's heat, naturally something takes time to heat, so the fault occurs after some gameplay, then goes away after a period of cooling. RAM is similar in it's effect, (I'm no expert and getting near the thin ice here...) as you fly, your PC might be recording all your flight data to a paging file, then fails once the paging file is full or you run out of memory. This occurs if your RAM is too small or Virtual memory set too large. I think from memory, your virtual memory should be set to half the amount of RAM you have. Otherwise you divert resources the game needs into recording data nobody needs. I'm not an expert in this, I'm just quoting advice I've been given before. Apologies if it doesn't make sense.

 

CFS3 is a demanding beast on your PC's performance, and while 4 out of 5 things might be working sweetly, it's the one left which nails you. I don't think that's your operating system. Just my tuppenceworth, and I'm sorry I didn't see you SOH thread to know what you've already tried.

 

Amazing how you folks are sticking with me on this. Very nice of you all. My Motherboard is a evga Nvidia n Force 780i SLI with 4 sticks of New RAM that shows up as 2.5 gigs on XP. I did indeed put the RAM in and it seems fine. The PSU and CPU I monitor for heat and operation and all are within paramaters. I once had a computer that the PSU failed causing many crashes but it was computer-wide, not just on one single program. My PSU is new and again monitor shows it operating fine.

 

Now this BIOS and Virtual RAM thing seems valid. Little scared of the BIOS but I may give it a look see. Someone else mentioned once that my Page File seemed rather large compared to my RAM. I will go look at this too.

Bios Phoenix Award v.6.00PG

Memory=2558MB

Page File=587MB USED 3859MB Available

 

Not sure what those page file numbers represent though. My video cards (pair of 7800 GEForce only have 256mb on each card) Like I said though, my buddy is running a pair of 9800s and he is fine. He said his pair are in one unit though. I have two individual cards that are bridged. I have also tried then out of the computer and back in one at a time with same results..again, only problem in CFS3.

 

Ok, I will go look at the virtual memory if I can find out where that is. Thanks for the help.

Steve

[phantomjoker 0]

Amazing how you folks are sticking with me on this. Very nice of you all. My Motherboard is a evga Nvidia n Force 780i SLI with 4 sticks of New RAM that shows up as 2.5 gigs on XP. I did indeed put the RAM in and it seems fine. The PSU and CPU I monitor for heat and operation and all are within paramaters. I once had a computer that the PSU failed causing many crashes but it was computer-wide, not just on one single program. My PSU is new and again monitor shows it operating fine.

 

Now this BIOS and Virtual RAM thing seems valid. Little scared of the BIOS but I may give it a look see. Someone else mentioned once that my Page File seemed rather large compared to my RAM. I will go look at this too.

Bios Phoenix Award v.6.00PG

Memory=2558MB

Page File=587MB USED 3859MB Available

 

Not sure what those page file numbers represent though. My video cards (pair of 7800 GEForce only have 256mb on each card) Like I said though, my buddy is running a pair of 9800s and he is fine. He said his pair are in one unit though. I have two individual cards that are bridged. I have also tried then out of the computer and back in one at a time with same results..again, only problem in CFS3.

 

Ok, I will go look at the virtual memory if I can find out where that is. Thanks for the help.

Steve

 

More of my info on memory:

 

C:DRIVE set for custom=2046 and maximum 4092

It says minimum allowed=2mb

Recommended=3837

Currently allocated= 2046

 

I have my sim programs on the "D" Drive however

I checked the virtual memory on that drive and it is set for "NO PAGING FILE"

 

So:

1.) Should I change my allocations to the C:Drive?

2.) Should I make the D:Drive have virtual memory and if I do, do I need to then adjust the C:Drive

 

3.) If my existing settings as reflected here are problematic, why don't my other sims (graphic intensive) on the D:Drive have issues?

 

Black Russian time....two vodka to one Kalhua, two ice cubes and no paging file........... lol

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Your RAM is 4 sticks. Are these sticks identical in terms of brand, MB's and speed? Mixing different brands, speeds, and size can all cause problems. What are the MB's for each of the sticks? I'm curious that you have four sticks of RAM which add up to 2.5 Gigs. I bet you have sticks of different sizes in your MB.

 

Virtual memory should be set to approximately 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your system. So, if your RAM totals 3 Gigs, your virtual memory should be set to around 4.5 Gigs.

 

It also helps to put your virtual memory on a separate drive from your game programs. If you don't have a separate drive, try putting it on a separate partition. For example, if your hard drive is divided into C: and D: drives, and your programs and games are on the C: drive, put your VM on the D: drive.

[almccoyjr 7]

Your RAM is 4 sticks. Are these sticks identical in terms of brand, MB's and speed? Mixing different brands, speeds, and size can all cause problems. What are the MB's for each of the sticks? I'm curious that you have four sticks of RAM which add up to 2.5 Gigs. I bet you have sticks of different sizes in your MB.

 

 

Your bios should be showing 4096.

 

With SLI-vid 256mbx2=512. The OS will now address 3.5gb of ram after the 512mb allocation.

 

The other 1gb is various other functions, bus address, chipsets, additional pci-e address/sli, nics, sound, etc., so you end up with 2.5gb the OS has to address.

 

Your swap file being set to dynamic may or may not be an issue. I remember MS said to lock the file at 1046 or something. I run my swap at 2048 locked.

 

This shouldn't be causing CFS3 to ctd.

 

Much earlier in this post, I asked if you were able to run CFS3 on another machine without issues, or, on your current computer, if you were ever able to run CFS3 w/o any patches and using cd2 to start. That's absolutely square one, ground zero, because all of your other programs are running fine without any issues what so ever and you don't seem to be having temp issues.

[almccoyjr 7]

Your bios should be showing 4096.

 

{ The OS/board will allocate 350-500mb for primary functions.

 

With SLI-vid 256mbx2=512. The OS will now address 3gb of ram after the 512mb allocation.

 

The other 500mb is various other functions, bus address, chipsets, additional pci-e address/sli, nics, sound, etc., so you end up with 2.5gb the OS has to address.

 

Your swap file being set to dynamic may or may not be an issue. I remember MS said to lock the file at 1046 or something. I run my swap at 2048 locked.

 

This shouldn't be causing CFS3 to ctd.

 

Much earlier in this post, I asked if you were able to run CFS3 on another machine without issues, or, on your current computer, if you were ever able to run CFS3 w/o any patches and using cd2 to start. That's absolutely square one, ground zero, because all of your other programs are running fine without any issues what so ever and you don't seem to be having temp issues.

 

Added {

 

Corrected math that followed {

 

My apologies.

 

Tried to edit, but it didn't stick.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

More of my info on memory:

 

C:DRIVE set for custom=2046 and maximum 4092

It says minimum allowed=2mb

Recommended=3837

Currently allocated= 2046

 

I have my sim programs on the "D" Drive however

I checked the virtual memory on that drive and it is set for "NO PAGING FILE"

 

Seems we were posting at about the same time and I did not see your post. Did you enjoy the black Russians?

 

So:

1.) Should I change my allocations to the C:Drive?

Change your swap file from dynamic to user defined. Try a value of 4096.

2.) Should I make the D:Drive have virtual memory and if I do, do I need to then adjust the C:Drive

Leave D: drive alone for now.

[phantomjoker 0]

Sorry if this is repeat reply but I don't see my first reply as posted.

I am running 4 sticks of 1GB Mushkin RAM, all new and identical.

http://www.mushkin.com/doc/products/memory_detail.asp?id=519

 

I have no other PC to try the CFS3 on. It ran fine on my older machine a few years back.

 

 

Ah yes Black Russians.....with extra ice...hmmmm. sounds good. Might go get one right now!

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Did you try the swap file adjustments?

[phantomjoker 0]

Did you try the swap file adjustments?

 

Yes Taffy.....did. I just played CFS3 with my buddy for 24 minutes. All was fine but I lowered my graphics in cfs.config to 800x600, 32bit..First tried 16 bit but it did not like that...all flickers etc...immediately had to change to 32 bit and that issue went away. So....800x600 32 bit it was for 24 minutes..Then I noticed my mouse pointer had about a one inch box around it of vertical lines that traveled with the mouse. I also noticed that my FPS window had vertical lines running thru it as well. Then KABOOM crash and had to restart computer..Totally locked up. BTW, my FPS was now 60 FPS...At the higher resolution I was playing at, it was 74 FPS.

 

I think I am pretty convinced that this is a graphic card issue. First off my frame rates seem kinda weird and basically too high for my graphic cards..I mean my buddy is playing with a pair of higher graphic cards (pair of SLI 9800 Geforce) and he is at a higher resolution and game settings and is getting 38 FPS. Seems more reasonable than my 74 FPS!!! He thinks my cards are heating up or something. They are at 49C temperature. He suggested I try playing with a household fan blowing directly on them as a test.

 

When I reiterated the fact that my other sims are fine, he said that perhaps the code for CFS3 was not written for the current genre of graphic cards and drivers and that CFS3 may indeed be stressing the cards out more than other more efficient coded sims. Bear in mind I am not even into OFF yet.. I don't want to mix that in as a variable yet...I think a new graphic card is in order. Just my 2 cents worth.

Joker.

[almccoyjr 7]

Yes Taffy.....did. I just played CFS3 with my buddy for 24 minutes. All was fine but I lowered my graphics in cfs.config to 800x600, 32bit..First tried 16 bit but it did not like that...all flickers etc...immediately had to change to 32 bit and that issue went away. So....800x600 32 bit it was for 24 minutes..Then I noticed my mouse pointer had about a one inch box around it of vertical lines that traveled with the mouse. I also noticed that my FPS window had vertical lines running thru it as well. Then KABOOM crash and had to restart computer..Totally locked up. BTW, my FPS was now 60 FPS...At the higher resolution I was playing at, it was 74 FPS.

 

I think I am pretty convinced that this is a graphic card issue. First off my frame rates seem kinda weird and basically too high for my graphic cards..I mean my buddy is playing with a pair of higher graphic cards (pair of SLI 9800 Geforce) and he is at a higher resolution and game settings and is getting 38 FPS. Seems more reasonable than my 74 FPS!!! He thinks my cards are heating up or something. They are at 49C temperature. He suggested I try playing with a household fan blowing directly on them as a test.

 

When I reiterated the fact that my other sims are fine, he said that perhaps the code for CFS3 was not written for the current genre of graphic cards and drivers and that CFS3 may indeed be stressing the cards out more than other more efficient coded sims. Bear in mind I am not even into OFF yet.. I don't want to mix that in as a variable yet...I think a new graphic card is in order. Just my 2 cents worth.

Joker.

 

Ah ha....You ran for 24 minutes without issues and THEN(?) the mouse/fps corruption. Going back over your other posts lead me to believe that this corruption was there all along.

 

49C is running very cool for SLI, if the temp feedback is somewhat close to being accurate. 55-60C is typical for a "stressed" 7800GT with good airflow around the cards and in/out the case. 65-75C start watching because your card(s) are stressed and now it becomes additive to case heat. 80C should be absolute max for test purposes only; 90C and you've got yourself a hibachi.

 

You may indeed by having a temp issue after all. I've never run SLI so this is a stretch. You may be having a localizied heating problem with the vram on one of the boards that your temp monitoring is not picking up. This now makes more sense than driver/code/dx problem(s).

 

I'm going to go back over previous posts and see if I can come up with a reconstruct.

 

Never leave a wingman in trouble.

[phantomjoker 0]

Ah ha....You ran for 24 minutes without issues and THEN(?) the mouse/fps corruption. Going back over your other posts lead me to believe that this corruption was there all along.

 

49C is running very cool for SLI, if the temp feedback is somewhat close to being accurate. 55-60C is typical for a "stressed" 7800GT with good airflow around the cards and in/out the case. 65-75C start watching because your card(s) are stressed and now it becomes additive to case heat. 80C should be absolute max for test purposes only; 90C and you've got yourself a hibachi.

 

You may indeed by having a temp issue after all. I've never run SLI so this is a stretch. You may be having a localizied heating problem with the vram on one of the boards that your temp monitoring is not picking up. This now makes more sense than driver/code/dx problem(s).

 

I'm going to go back over previous posts and see if I can come up with a reconstruct.

 

Never leave a wingman in trouble.

 

Love it...."Never leave a wingman in trouble."

Yeah I am now itching to get a new graphics card..Still saving up the pennies for it. In the past though I had tried running each of the cards alone so I dunno. Installing the new card should be a good thing.

[almccoyjr 7]

Love it...."Never leave a wingman in trouble."

Yeah I am now itching to get a new graphics card..Still saving up the pennies for it. In the past though I had tried running each of the cards alone so I dunno. Installing the new card should be a good thing.

 

Ok. If you want to continue trying to troubleshoot, let me know. I'll do the reconstruct on the posts. I'll put down in 1, 2, 3+ fashion what I do to troubleshoot vid problem and you can compare to what you've done so far. I'll also include what programs (they're standard) I use to stress card and monitor temp, fan speed etc. I'll also include what your "general' bios voltage readings should be around including rail for a single card. I'll try and assist on the SLI.

 

I may need to know a couple more things about your setup if I can't find answers in the previous posts.

 

It will be time consuming and require step by step note taking. If you don't want to go any farther and rather wait on new vid, I understand. It may be time to let go of that bone; it's been just about chewed to death.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Can you take a picture/print-screen of your BIOS settings to make sure that everything is set up right? Most relevant at this point would be PCI Express settings and (for my board at least) PEG buffer settings.

 

I assume your MB did not have integrated video and that your current cards are the original video you installed with the board?

[Flyby PC 23]

Just a small suggestion - opinions vary, but some folks reckon with framerates higher than about 30, your eye cannot perceive the difference between better framerates.

 

You could try limiting your framerate to 35 max, - your view should be fine, but your PC isn't killing itself trying to deliver higher and higher framerates which you eye can't keep up with anyway.

 

I know it goes against the grain to have the best technology 'under performing' for you, but it might do the trick. Sometimes a 'workaround' is the next best thing to a fix.

 

How are you powering your graphics cards? If they are sharing a single power source, perhaps they are robbing each other of sufficient power to operate efficiently. If your DVD's and disks and video cards are all plugged into the same cable, try spreading the load more evenly. Most power units have 3 or 4 separate sets of the yellow red and black power feeds, makes sense to use them all and spread the load.

 

Even so, gut instinct still says it's a heat issue, - but I'd go with almccoyjr, Over50 and Herr Prop-Wasche. All these guys sound like they know a lot more than I do. I'm just repeating what more learned gents have told me in the past. (I just make a suggestion then run away before anybody asks me any questions or wants me to fill in the details... ).

Edited March 16, 2009 by Flyby PC

[phantomjoker 0]

Just a small suggestion - opinions vary, but some folks reckon with framerates higher than about 30, your eye cannot perceive the difference between better framerates.

 

You could try limiting your framerate to 35 max, - your view should be fine, but your PC isn't killing itself trying to deliver higher and higher framerates which you eye can't keep up with anyway.

 

I know it goes against the grain to have the best technology 'under performing' for you, but it might do the trick. Sometimes a 'workaround' is the next best thing to a fix.

 

How are you powering your graphics cards? If they are sharing a single power source, perhaps they are robbing each other of sufficient power to operate efficiently. If your DVD's and disks and video cards are all plugged into the same cable, try spreading the load more evenly. Most power units have 3 or 4 separate sets of the yellow red and black power feeds, makes sense to use them all and spread the load.

 

Even so, gut instinct still says it's a heat issue, - but I'd go with almccoyjr, Over50 and Herr Prop-Wasche. All these guys sound like they know a lot more than I do. I'm just repeating what more learned gents have told me in the past. (I just make a suggestion then run away before anybody asks me any questions or wants me to fill in the details... ).

 

Hi guys;

Powersupply is pretty evenly distributed.

 

I guess I will just get the new vid card and give that a go. Should have in a couple of weeks. I may try the limiting of the framerate in the meantime though. How do I limit it in CFS3? which is where I am doing all my testing at the moment?

[Over50 0]

Yes Taffy.....did. I just played CFS3 with my buddy for 24 minutes. All was fine but I lowered my graphics in cfs.config to 800x600, 32bit..First tried 16 bit but it did not like that...all flickers etc...immediately had to change to 32 bit and that issue went away. So....800x600 32 bit it was for 24 minutes..Then I noticed my mouse pointer had about a one inch box around it of vertical lines that traveled with the mouse. I also noticed that my FPS window had vertical lines running thru it as well. Then KABOOM crash and had to restart computer..Totally locked up. BTW, my FPS was now 60 FPS...At the higher resolution I was playing at, it was 74 FPS.

 

I think I am pretty convinced that this is a graphic card issue. First off my frame rates seem kinda weird and basically too high for my graphic cards..I mean my buddy is playing with a pair of higher graphic cards (pair of SLI 9800 Geforce) and he is at a higher resolution and game settings and is getting 38 FPS. Seems more reasonable than my 74 FPS!!! He thinks my cards are heating up or something. They are at 49C temperature. He suggested I try playing with a household fan blowing directly on them as a test.

 

When I reiterated the fact that my other sims are fine, he said that perhaps the code for CFS3 was not written for the current genre of graphic cards and drivers and that CFS3 may indeed be stressing the cards out more than other more efficient coded sims. Bear in mind I am not even into OFF yet.. I don't want to mix that in as a variable yet...I think a new graphic card is in order. Just my 2 cents worth.

Joker.

 

Just to confirm again - all other games, apps, etc. run w/o problems for extended periods of time, correct? For the record, please post examples of the other games you run (graphics intensive) and the display resolution..

Edited March 18, 2009 by Over50

[phantomjoker 0]

Just to confirm again - all other games, apps, etc. run w/o problems for extended periods of time, correct? For the record, please post examples of the other games you run (graphics intensive) and the display resolution..

 

Hi Over 50;

Yep, ALL other programs running absolutely fine....I mean I am playing COD5 while talking on Teamspeak, running Fltsim9 without a stutter, Frontline, Fuel of War, DCS Black Shark Helo sim, and sometimes with even SKYPE working in the background. Go figure?

 

at 1280x1024 32bit 75 hertz

Edited March 19, 2009 by phantomjoker

[Over50 0]

Hi Over 50;

Yep, ALL other programs running absolutely fine....I mean I am playing COD5 while talking on Teamspeak, running Fltsim9 without a stutter, Frontline, Fuel of War, DCS Black Shark Helo sim, and sometimes with even SKYPE working in the background. Go figure?

 

at 1280x1024 32bit 75 hertz

 

This is what makes your CFS3/OFF3 crash problem a bugger to understand where other graphics intensive games (as you noted) run w/o problems - whether running your 7800's in SLI or with only one card installed - and switched/substituted as well. As such IMHO I really don't see how it (crash) could be related to your power supply, page file size, memory (which you did replace), heat issue, BIOS, Directx, etc., all of which would effect most other games or apps equally.

 

This may have already been asked - but can't remember - but didn't you say you have a 19" LCD monitor (with a native 1280x1024 resolution) and the crash problem occurs even at lower resolutions?

[+Polovski 460]

Just a thought.. maybe a corrupt CFS3 CD?

[almccoyjr 7]

Just a thought.. maybe a corrupt CFS3 CD?

 

That was my first question. I wanted to see if he had run 3.0 unpatched and from cd2 without any problems so as to start on a level playing field and if had installed CFS3 previously on another computer.

 

I would think (seems logical to me) that if the cd were corrupt, the problem would be within the same area of execution, giving apprx. repeatable problems time wise. The only problems that seem to follow are mouse/pointer anomaly and ctd/hard lockup and those "seem" to arbitrary time wise.

 

What led me to believe that there's a heat issue with card(s) is that the mouse/pointer corruption "pops up" at different intervals. But is not the gpu(s); I believe it's a miniscule (sp?) heat spot somewhere on a vram chip, maybe even a pin to board connection. The mouse in game is completely static and always there where as the rest of the CFS3 is fluid/dynamic with files swapping all the time. The mouse doesn't go anywhere and gets a video "band" box drawn to it. Banding is "typically" driver/file/dx problem(s) or a video heat issue.

 

Phantomjoker's earlier posts led me down the driver/file/dx road because he indicated that the mouse/box band problem was initially there and then crash would follow at some point. Later post had mouse/box band "developing" during game play and when cards would be pushing to render.

 

The other games/apps may not thrash the card(s) like CFS3; really good flight sims beat the h*ll out of cpu/gpu's.

 

By the way, I've ordered 2gb x 4 @1066 and am going to reinstall XPP64 and re-clock back up to 3.45 so I don't have to play around with fsb, just voltage.

[Tamper 9]

Still going to wager any amount that, ultimately, this has to do with memory - not the modules themselves (they were swapped, as I recall). Rather, the BIOS settings that have to do with timing(s) and FSB settings, etc. for memory.

 

Why do I believe this? Well, because I've experienced precisely the same problem - with SLI/without, after swapping not 1 but 2 sets of (different brands) memory, different video cards, 2 power supplies - the whole gamut of stuff that's been tried/recommended here. I keep lots of parts and build PC's, so having parts to swap around helps. But no matter what I threw at it, nothing seemed to do the trick.

 

Yes, it behaved like heat somewhat (happened after a period of time), and only happening in OFF while other games worked fine (although it had also occurred at other times, each time in only one game).

 

Someone suggested setting BIOS to default; might not be a bad idea to try that (if you didn't; I admittedly have skipped a lot in this thread). If you take the time to record settings before changing anything, worse case you can put it all back and you're no worse off. Focus on the memory settings, keeping in mind that what a machine detects 'automatically' may or may not work. These things were all mentioned at points, but then got displaced by other ideas - so I'm thinking none of them were ever actually tried.

 

Something else I noticed - you have 4 sticks of memory - I know you changed memory, don't recall if you had 4 sticks previously. As a test, you should really try only two at a time, and make darn sure they are placed in the two same-color slots, starting at the slot closest to the CPU. (Running memory in 4 slots and/or in the colored pair that starts second from the CPU has definitely caused the same sort of corruption/lock-ups you report). On my 780i board - same as yours, I think, it fails to boot if I put the 2 sticks I have in the slots farthest from the CPU.

 

When I used 4 modules (same ratings) I experienced the little funny-colored squares around certain screen elements, graphics corruption-kind of thing you've seen. I thought heat and video cards, too - nope! It was a memory problem. Back to basics; took 2 sticks (of 4) out, put the BIOS settings back to lowest (800MHz, even though memory itself was rated PC2-8500 or 1066MHz). It worked.

 

Understand that, even with PC2-8500 memory, the JDEC SPD (not short for 'speed' like most think, it's actually 'serial presence detect') is ONLY 800MHz (PC2-6400); the higher settings are 'EPP' (Enhanced Performance Profile or some such) for memory that is supposed to be certified to run faster. Some BIOS will automatically set to the EPP settings, and even though the memory's in perfect working order and rated to run at 1066 FSB, it just won't. And I learned this while running OFF (or, more accurately, watching OFF crash a lot *lol*) Finally set memory FSB back down to 800, non-SLI enabled, and it works like a charm. (I've since learned I can bump it up to around 935 without trouble - but it won't run at the rated 1066 FSB for anything).