UNSOLVED
My 710H2C is NOT broken :)
UPDATE: THE PC IS FIXED! YAY! Check page 3 for the update!
Boy am I bummed. After countless hours of troubleshooting and a complete clean XP reinstall, I have reached the conclusion my 710H2C is broken. :smileysad:
Ever since I got it I have been unable to run 12 of my 15 games at full resolution (2560x1600) in SLI with AA on. 3 games worked (Civ4, HL2 and FSX). The rest (like Battlefront, Doom3, Quake 4, etc.) would not. They would work 2560x1600 with AA off in SLI, or 2560x1600 in single GPU mode with AA on. I could also do SLI in lower resolutions, like 1920x1200. The symptom was the PC would just shut down completely - not reboot, just power off.
Well, the situation has slowly deteriorated to the point that NONE of may games will run at 2560x1600 in SLI mode, no matter what I do with AA. Not even the three that worked before. I was concerned I might have done something to the configuration of my PC, so I did a clean install of XP, removed the sound card/tv tuner, and installed new video drivers.
SLI is just not wanting to engage at 2560x1600 or 1920x1200 or 1600x1200. However, it does work at 800x600.
My money is on some sort of PSU problem that has gotten a little bit worse over the past couple of days. Any attempt to run the two cards simultaneously is causing the PC to power off. At 800x600 I guess its not drawing enough power to trip the circuit, but anything higher than that, and the system just shuts down.
I tried removing all non-essential peripherals (like an extra hard driver I had, the sound card, the TV tuner, even 2GB of RAM), and nothing. At this point I am fairly confident is not software, although I guess it still could be but I doubt it.
Any suggestions or ideas?
Message Edited by ZBoater on 02-13-2007 01:49 PM
Message Edited by ZBoater on 02-13-2007 09:58 PM
NvidiaXPS400
102 Posts
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Posted February 11th, 2007 17:00
can you run fsx on all ultra settings with no lag with that h2c? (If anyones ever got it to work good)
Message Edited by NvidiaXPS400 on 02-11-2007 01:20 PM
Actually no, I cannot. If I choose everything ultra high, I get about 15fps. If I do some tweaks (like turning off auto-gen and other suggestions while keeping most stuff on ultra high) I can get up to 30fps. SLI is doing nothing - I get the same results with and without it, so either FSX is a DOG or my PC's problem is causing this...
NvidiaXPS400 wrote:
can you run fsx on all ultra settings with no lag with that h2c? (If anyones ever got it to work good)
- Well, unfortunately then, it's probably time to call up Dell Support and get ready for the shotgun debug approach (replace psu, mobo, cpu, 8800's) - hopefully they don't replace one part per visit.I'll guess that you tried each pair of 2GB memory separately and ruled out it being any of the DIMM's. I'll also guess that you ran the Dell Diags after the system was fully warmed up (i.e. after it has already power cycled on you) and that also failed to give you any help.Give them a call and let us know how it goes...maybe they'll just send you a brand new one. :smileywink:
Message Edited by jsrder on 02-11-2007 01:12 PM
jsrder wrote:
Well, unfortunately then, it's probably time to call up Dell Support and get ready for the shotgun debug approach (replace psu, mobo, cpu, 8800's) - hopefully they don't replace one part per visit.I'll guess that you tried each pair of 2GB memory separately and ruled out it being any of the DIMM's. I'll also guess that you ran the Dell Diags after the system was fully warmed up (i.e. after it has already power cycled on you) and that also failed to give you any help.Give them a call and let us know how it goes...maybe they'll just send you a brand new one. :smileywink:
Yeah, we'll see. So far I am not impressed. They had me reinstall my OS TWICE, the second time because I didn't install the the Dell Support Software FIRST before anything else. I've been doing PC support for 20 years, and this sounds like a script to me, but I will withhold (further) judgement until I calm down - I am actually on my third install (second install failed for some strange reason).I'll update the thread when I am doing reformatting/reinstalling AGAIN... :smileysad:
jsrder wrote:
Part of this sounds like one of your 8800's is bad and is causing performance problems...you aren't running the Dell drivers are you? If so, you may want to try the latest nVidia drivers because those early Dell 8800 drivers appear to have been rushed.
Yeah, I tried with the Dell 97.44, the Dell 97.92 and the NVIDIA 97.92. Same difference. The thing is that 3DMark will not run anymore. I did the benchmarks last week fine, and now it wont even run for more that 1 minute before it shuts down. That sounds like a PSU problem that is getting worse. It could be the cards too.XPS Tech Support is sending a tech onsite to replace the PSU first, and if that doesnt work they will replace both cards. Sounds like a good plan to me. We'll see how it works out! This is my first time using Dell service in 3 years of Dell ownership (I also have a Gen2 XPS). So far, so good.- Part of this sounds like one of your 8800's is bad and is causing performance problems...you aren't running the Dell drivers are you? If so, you may want to try the latest nVidia drivers because those early Dell 8800 drivers appear to have been rushed.
NvidiaXPS400
102 Posts
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Posted February 11th, 2007 18:00
if i was you, i would just return the whole system for a new one...... because if you are only getting 15 fps in fsx thats sad...... I have almost everything on high on my xps400, and i get no lag at all....
Why does Dell require so much uninstalling and reinstalling of the OS?
ZBoater wrote:
jsrder wrote:
Well, unfortunately then, it's probably time to call up Dell Support and get ready for the shotgun debug approach (replace psu, mobo, cpu, 8800's) - hopefully they don't replace one part per visit.I'll guess that you tried each pair of 2GB memory separately and ruled out it being any of the DIMM's. I'll also guess that you ran the Dell Diags after the system was fully warmed up (i.e. after it has already power cycled on you) and that also failed to give you any help.Give them a call and let us know how it goes...maybe they'll just send you a brand new one. :smileywink:
Yeah, we'll see. So far I am not impressed. They had me reinstall my OS TWICE, the second time because I didn't install the the Dell Support Software FIRST before anything else. I've been doing PC support for 20 years, and this sounds like a script to me, but I will withhold (further) judgement until I calm down - I am actually on my third install (second install failed for some strange reason).I'll update the thread when I am doing reformatting/reinstalling AGAIN... :smileysad:
Message Edited by barry53 on 02-12-2007 05:33 AM
jsrder
903 Posts
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Posted February 11th, 2007 14:00