graphics card lockups while playing Vegas

[SkyJockey]

Im running an ATI Radeon x1600 Pro 512mb PCI-e graphics card, and I keep getting lockups about 5 minutes into playing Rainbow Six Vegas. Everything runs fine, and then all of a sudden my monitor acts like it loses the signal and goes into sleep mode requiring me to do a hardboot out of it.

My first thought was GPU temps, but I checked it while running the game and the hottest I got was 55c, Im also running it with a 650W Power Supply.

Vegas is patched to the latest version and I meet all of the minimum requirements to play the game. Im also running the most updated Catalyst driver.

I should add that when the game runs, it runs great..very smooth.  The only other game that I have that even compares to it in terms of resource usage is GR:AW and I have had virtually no problems with it.  Im thinking that im going to try and find a demo of another game with comparible specs to see how that runs.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
~Blake

[Ronin]

Did you check the UBISoft Rainbow Six Vegas forum?  You might get a hit on their search function.  I'd help you if I could but I haven't had an ATI card for a PC in several years.

I think I've seen this issue reported on those forums, though.  So a solution might have been found already.  There is a tips and tweaks sticky on that page.

http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums?a=frm&s=400102&f=3801065024

Hope you find a solution.

[SkyJockey]

Ronin,
Thanks for the link!  It looks like the only people that were complaining of lockups on there though were those got lockups because they overclocked their PC..Since I havnt set mine up for any kind of overclocking, I doubt thats it.

Thanks for the help.

[MindlessOath]

i searched for a buncha tweeks myself... nothing too great there tho.  update your video card drivers if you havent already. i have a feeling its a driver issue.... you MAY have to use an older driver, or a newer one. ubisoft is really bad at making games so im sure that has something to do with it - they are always full of bugs

[Deep Nail]

Sounds like you are having the same problem I had. I got a x1600 apg and the dvi ram on top of the board was over heating. So what i did was got a ram cooler (I think thats what they are called) and thermal pasted it down. After that every thing is cool.

[MindlessOath]

^^^ that could be!

[Ronin]

Have you tried running your system open case?  This allows all the hot air in the system to come out by convection.  Systems that are open _generally_ run a little cooler and some much cooler (as much as 10C).  And, yes, some will run a little hotter, but very few.  It might be enough to tell if it's a heat issue.

[SkyJockey]

Have you tried running your system open case?  This allows all the hot air in the system to come out by convection.  Systems that are open _generally_ run a little cooler and some much cooler (as much as 10C).  And, yes, some will run a little hotter, but very few.  It might be enough to tell if it's a heat issue.

Yeah, I first started getting the crashes two days ago (the day I bought Vegas).  It was bad, It crashed while still in the heli.  So yesterday I opened the case and now im getting the crash in that first courtyard area where you take on the two tangos by the truck.

Im beginning to lean more and more towards over heating.

[SkyJockey]

hmm...it seems that the game is crashing right about a certain point everytime.  

You think that might be game related??

[Aramis]

I'd definitely try a reinstall.

[MindlessOath]

well... opening the case wont help cool anything greatly... the airflow wont work right. so you need a sealed case, HOWEVER thats not working for you because the airflow in your case is not good enough. invest in some new fans that you can change the speed of (that way when you game you can turn them up - they will likly be noisy then).  just getting new fans and putting them in stock possitions may not work the best, but a stronger fan will help.

i put an acrilic board (anything see through will work) then a stick of incense lit up and see the smoke flow through the case with the fans on. (smoke bad so clean it out with condensed air afterwords). then you can see if its good airflow or not.  

this is excessive i belive just replacing the fans with stronger ones would be best for you - if you have the space for a larger fan go for it! but not all cases can accomidate them.

mabe just buying a spacific cooling heatsink/fan for the grfx card might work great for you instead (or as well as buying new case fans too). these newer types of hsf's for grfx cards often come with cooling for the memory and addition cooling for your core while ur playing games.

[Lazerblade]

What's the name brand of the video card? I know you say ATI, but that's basically just the chipset, not the actual board assembler/packager (or at least typically not). The reason I ask is that there have been a few feedback messages I've read on various sites concerning some of the specific brands of cards, like Sabrent for example, that have issues with cooling. The card I bought was an x700 Ice-Q, packaged by HIS I believe. When looking for a mid-range replacement video card due to video failure of my old nVidia Geforce 5200, I found several issues with cards having inadequate cooling on their gpu's. In one case, several people complained of the cooling system actually coming loose and falling onto the board below, frying both the video card and whatever other board they had. You can get replacement cooling systems for video cards. I'd look into user reviews and comments on the one you currently have.

[SkyJockey]

its an actual ATI technologies card, not one of the "knockoffs?" like saphire, ect..

I have heard that the card can get pretty hot during gaming, so im leaning towards either cooling issues, or the game itself is bad.  I have tried a complete reinstall, and have even tried playing it without the patch and I still get a lockup.  I think im going to return the game today for another copy and see if it persists, then go from there.

[RedTornado]

HIS is good, and the HIS ICE-Q line rarely has heating issues since HIS typically puts an aftermarket cooler on it anyway. Other good brand for ATI are Sapphire, Powercolor, connect3D, Asus, Club3D, pretty much every card is the same. Sapphire makes the ATI boards though, so there's no real benefit from buying the ATI branded cards, and you can often get games with 3rd party branded cards. eVGA, BFG, XFX, and Leadtek are among the more reputable brands for nVIDIA. Just be sure to stay away from MSI. They have one of the worst overall histories of failing cards (and products in general for that matter).

As to the problem, it sounds like a software issue. Blank screens/loosing signal rarely to never happens due to heat or hardware issues.

But just to be sure, open the side of the case and put a house fan right up to it. If that fixes the problem, then the solution is better cooling. Touch the RAM chips on the card while running Vegas. If they're unbearably hot, then they could be a possible culprit. An overheating GPU core typically results in artifacts (screen distortions), but overheating RAM chips always lock up the system (not usually a black screen lock up, though). If none of that is working, download Orthos and run it for several hours.

[MindlessOath]

But just to be sure, open the side of the case and put a house fan right up to it. If that fixes the problem, then the solution is better cooling. Touch the RAM chips on the card while running Vegas. If they're unbearably hot, then they could be a possible culprit. An overheating GPU core typically results in artifacts (screen distortions), but overheating RAM chips always lock up the system (not usually a black screen lock up, though). If none of that is working, download Orthos and run it for several hours.

orthos looks to be a simpler version of prime95
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime95
http://www.mersenne.org/

which will stress cpu and memory.
if your not having an issue with that, then you want to stress the grfx card.  you can do this by getting some tools, some i like to use are
http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

which will not exactly stress your grfx card, but it runs a floating hairy cube that will tell you if you have artifacts, i belive it will tell you temps too if im not mistaken (depends on the card you have).

the other is http://www.guru3d.com/article/atitraytools/189/
which has a feature that is the same.

you dont want to overclock the card - so dont find the max mem or core.

then you may want to run something like 3dmark2k6 - which i think is a waste of time for a score but it can help determain issues sometimes.

i also suggest to lower your settings in your control panel/ccc or if your using ati tray tools, to lower the settings for directX in there and see if it is still apparent.

[SkyJockey]

Update:

So I returned the game for a different versions with the hopes that maybe it was game software related..NO DICE.  Definately something on my end.  

Ran Orthos for about 6 hours which i passed with flying colors and I have run 3dmark2k6 with no hangups.

Mindless,
I think I will try the ATI tool next then move on to see if I can work on cooling.

If nothing else works then Im sending this card back to ATI for a replacement