Hi,

I have been experiencing some difficulty for the last week or so. I upgraded my nVidia drivers to 314.07 and my first flight in FSX crashed the PC (powered itself off). During the flight I heard a high-pitched squeal from the computer but didn't pay attention to it until I was suddenly staring at a black screen.

 

I immediately suspected the drivers (saw some ppl complaining about various things online, but nothing like my shutdown problem). I reverted to 310.90 drivers I used previously (uninstalled and fresh-installed them) but the problem remained.

 

Today I used Prime95 and stressed my CPU for about a half hour. Nothing happened so I shut that program off and stressed the GPU with Kombustor. Again, no event. Then I got crazy and started Prime95 along with Kombustor. After about a minute I heard the squeal and then it shut down.

 

Does this sound like a PSU issue? I monitored the voltages and the only thing I see is that the -5V supply went from -4.75V to -5.15V just before the crash. All other voltages were stable throughout.

My PSU is a 6 month old Corsair 750W and I would think it can handle my system.

 

 

When you re-installed the 310.90 drivers did you completely uninstall the 314.07 and use something like Driver Sweeper to make sure the new drivers were completely eliminated? If not it would probably be worth doing as if the new drivers did introduce the problem a normal uninstall/reinstall may not neccesarily get rid of whatever it was that was causing the issue. You can get Driver Sweeper here - http://www.guru3d.com/content_page/guru3d_driver_sweeper.html

PieEater,

 

Yes, I did an uninstall and delete drivers from Device Mangler then used Driver Sweeper in safe mode. In fact, when I rolled back to my current 306.97 drivers I used the same process. I always use the same process even though the later drivers allow a "Clean Install" option.

 

So I have tried 306.97, 310.70, 310.90 and all have the problem. I suspect there is something changed in the card or my PSU is going Tango Uniform.

 

What I don't know is if it is possible to change some setting on the card via the driver that is in like an FPGA or flash? I don't think the card has either, but not sure. Surfing today to find out.

 

Today I will run an experiment. I have my old nVidia 260GTS that was in this Dell when I bought it. But that card is likely to unload a weak PSU enough to fool me into thinking it was indeed the GPU.

 

I also have an older Dell that has a 600W PSU that I may swap out and retain the 570, but I'm afraid the 600W may not be powerful enough for my system. Maybe if I unplug my extra USB stuff and extra hard drives. This should be no problem as my OS and FSX is on SSDs.

 

This bugs me since I haven't had my FSX flight fix for over a week now. I'm starting to shake uncontrollably.

I thought I'd ask as you can't take these things for granted. I've had one graphics card that squealed before but it was a known issue with that model and didn't cause any issues in use, I think changing the clock speeds or voltage got rid of it. I have come across more than one squealy PSU before and as you replicated the fault by maximising the load on the PSU through stress testing both the graphics and CPU my money would be on that being the problem especially as the machine is powering off rather than the graphics locking.

 

I'd use a PSU calculator to see whether your 600w is up to the job or what you need to disconnect to make it so for testing purposes - http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Thanks for the link. So going through it all, it appears the 600W PSU will make the cut. I totaled 494W give or take a fan I may have missed.

I will leave off my external USB drives just in case and do the tests again after the swap.

Edit: BTW the Corsair finder page shows 650W to 750W PSUs offered. But it is not nearly as thorough as your link PSU finder page. That one's a keeper. The 600W PSU I'm going to use today is a Tagan BZ which had very good marks a few years ago when I upgraded.

I think my problem is solved.

 

The Tagan turned out to be a 700W modular (dang nice design if you ask me). I must've paid big bucks for this thing a few years ago. Note to self: Update spreadsheet to change 600W to 700W and swap machines.

So I hooked everything up (all USBs, drives etc) for a full load and I am currently, joyously, in a flight right now. Should be about 2 hours before touchdown so I'll know for sure. But already there was no noise from a 30 minute burn-in test with Kombustor + Prime95 which is great. Couldn't go 10 minutes before.

 

Meanwhile, the other PC is doing fine in the living room with the apparently defective Corsair 750. That PC is just Tuner/Netflix/surfing so no demanding games are on it at all so I'm sure it won't crash since that PSU was stable other than flightsim/burn-in testing.

 

Thanks again for the PSU link. Later I'm moving to the 314.07 drivers or maybe the betas.