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January 8th, 2014 15:00

nVidia GTX690 Performance issue

Hello,

After receiving my alienware machines I have had a crashing issue since Battlefield 4 was released. (http://answers.ea.com/t5/Battlefield-4/BF4-causes-reboot/m-p/1851723#U1851723) Since the problem started it only occurred with Battlefield 4 which lead me to believe it was a problem with that specific game. After exhausting almost every trouble shooting issue we could with their support staff I was left with few options. I ran Unigine's Valley Benchmark on the machines and sure enough the computer would hard reboot mid way through the benchmark like in Battlefield 4. Just to confirm this I reproduced the error with both FurMark and Folding@home. When the videocard is stressed the whole computer reboots. MSI Afterburner logs confirmed it was not overheating or a fan speed issue. 

The two options still on the table were one that the power supply could not properly support the 12v rail (ridiculous since its a Dell made machine) and second was that Dell/Alienware use their own drivers. Easy enough to fix, the auto update in Alienware Autopsy did not detect and new updates, but a quick visit to their site and a call to support easy enough located a few updates. After performing the update the computer did not crash while running the three tests above. However... The scores for the test run with the nVidia drivers seriously out did the Alienware drivers. For Unigine Valley the nVidia drivers scored 4434 with an average fps of 106.5. With the Alienware drivers they scored 1649 and an average fps of 36.4.

Obviously the crashing rules out using nVidia's drivers but this seems to be an unusual and unacceptable drop in performance. Anyone have any solutions or tweaks?

8 Wizard

 • 

17K Posts

January 8th, 2014 15:00

Also the Alienware supplied drivers are quite seriously out of date...

 
While Dell supplied cards are OEM, they are basic Reference Design cards. This means you can get drivers at AMD.com or nVidia.com. I suggest latest Release version (non-beta).
 
As a last resort, if you are still having problems (after trying above Power and Driver Tips) ... try re-seating card or even the other slot.
 
Also, try adjusting PCIe v3.0 option in BIOS.

January 8th, 2014 15:00

Also the Alienware supplied drivers are quite seriously out of date...

8 Wizard

 • 

17K Posts

January 8th, 2014 15:00

The two options still on the table were one that the power supply could not properly support the 12v rail (ridiculous since its a Dell made machine)

Yes, the 875 PS has Five +12v Rails, but they never released the rail designations.

My 875w PowerSupply is (DPN) OGM34R

-----P14 (6 pin)
   \---P15 (6+2= 8 pin)

-----P16 (6 pin) 
   \---P17 (6+2= 8 pin)

The Aurora video card power supply leads are as follows. This assumes wire-colors = rails
Rail 1 = P14 6 pin/P15 8 pin
Rail 2 = P16 6 pin/P17 8 pin  

---------------------------

Assuming the power supply wire colors indicate the 12v rails going to the video cards:

Try with a power connector from each wire set at the same time. Meaning:
use either P14 OR P15
and also
either P16 OR P17

This might help to engage as many rails as possible.

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