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Build going haywire, please help.


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Hey guys,

 

So about two years ago, I built the system I'm currently on.  Now I'm not a hardware genius by any means, but I've built countless PC's over the years for myself, for friends, parents of friends, friends of friends...  I've been able to solve every issue that has come my way, but with my current build, I'm not so sure what the deal is. 

 

My specs are:

 

I7 4770K

ASUS Z87-A

Mushkin enhanced black line 16gig DDR3 2400

PC Power and Cooling Silencer MKII 950 watt

2 x XFX 7870 Double D 2gig

Samsung 840 250 gig

Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 64mb cache 2T

 

Here's a list of the issues I'm having.

 

When using firefox, scrolling or opening new tabs or pages causes it to stutter.  When it stutters, I hear the fans kick up a notch.  (now I'm not sure if this is only due to the poor memory management of firefox as it seems to happen when firefox approaches 800,000k of memory usage)

 

I sometimes get artifacts when gaming.  Just recently had it happen on the desktop for the first time.  (I removed my primary GFX card and put the secondary in its place, leaving it with just one card. No artifacts since, although it has only been two days and the artifacts were never a constant thing, so I could very well see them again.)

 

AMD display driver randomly stops working typically when I am viewing flash video with a few browser pages open.  I am currently using AMD beta driver 15.4.  I think this only started after using the beta driver, however, I can't for the life of me remember if it ever happened before that.

 

Google earth runs poorly, sometimes stuttering.

 

I just want to include this bit of information.  There was a period of time where the computer was running with the power cable half dislodged.  Could I have damaged my power supply? 

 

Is there something obvious that I am overlooking?  Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Is your the EVO variant or just the regular Samsung 840?

 

Have you run any health tests on both it and the 2TB drive?

 

Driver Sweeper or Driver Fusion to clear up any old video drivers and then install the new ones?

 

How old is the power supply?

 

Are the video cards overclocked any beyond the factory settings?

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Thanks for the quick responses guys.  The 840 is just the regular Samsung 840, not the EVO or the PRO version.  I have not run any health tests on my hard drives.  Any you recommend?

 

I have not tried any kind of driver cleaner programs. I typically just use the catalyst uninstall and then install the new one.

 

The power supply was bought along with the rest of the system, so it's about two years old at this point.

 

The cards are listed as the Ghz editions, so I'm guessing they are slightly overclocked from the factory setting.

 

I seem to be getting the same behavior with one card other than the fact that I haven't had artifacts since switching cards out.  Like I said, it hasn't been long, so I wouldn't be surprised if I see artifacts again on the secondary card.

 

I have not tried a different browser.  I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

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HD Tune is a pretty good one to use. SiSoft Sandra can provide a nice overview of everything, see where things are heating up, and such.

 

What are the system temps like?

 

When was the last time you applied thermal paste to the CPU?

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All of these issues sound like GPU problems... You wont see display driver crashing, stuttering, artifacts, and so on otherwise. I would downclock the card(s), set fan speed manually, and clean the system out physically of dust. Also try non-beta drivers.

 

I had similar issues with a few r9 280x cards, which are basically 7970's

 

 

Firefox, disable 3d acceleration perhaps. AMD for a long time had issues with jumping between 2d/3d clock rates causing stuttering. Could try updating drivers too

 

Gaming artifacts - if they are new then probably dust/heat or the cards cant handle the speeds. Often times when summer comes up you will hear of people having issues tied to heat - their system may handle the heat in the winter but the higher ambient could be enough to push it over the edge.

 

display driver stops working again GPU/gpu driver issues.

 

google earth stuttering- gpu

 

 

 

Your power supply is fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 


When using firefox, scrolling or opening new tabs or pages causes it to stutter.  When it stutters, I hear the fans kick up a notch.  (now I'm not sure if this is only due to the poor memory management of firefox as it seems to happen when firefox approaches 800,000k of memory usage)

 

I sometimes get artifacts when gaming.  Just recently had it happen on the desktop for the first time.  (I removed my primary GFX card and put the secondary in its place, leaving it with just one card. No artifacts since, although it has only been two days and the artifacts were never a constant thing, so I could very well see them again.)

 

AMD display driver randomly stops working typically when I am viewing flash video with a few browser pages open.  I am currently using AMD beta driver 15.4.  I think this only started after using the beta driver, however, I can't for the life of me remember if it ever happened before that.

 

Google earth runs poorly, sometimes stuttering.

 

I just want to include this bit of information.  There was a period of time where the computer was running with the power cable half dislodged.  Could I have damaged my power supply? 

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I am actually still on the stock thermal pad that came with the CPU.

 

My CPU is between 40C and 56C which is high since all I have is a browser open at the moment.  Even as I type this the temp keeps fluctuating.  The room is cool at the moment.

 

My GPU is at 43C (not fluctuating)

 

I have two radeons and I am seeing the same behavior with both of them.

 

The system is clean at the moment.  I guess I should put some arctic silver on it and see what happens?

 

I downloaded Sisoft Sandra and it was like walking through a maze.  Can anyone guide me as to what I should be looking at on it?

 

Thanks again guys.

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Did it happen after updating the drivers? 

 

 

I know the latest two Catalyst releases were a bit funky and would give me artifacts in several games even thought the GPU was perfectly fine when I rolled back to an earlier driver release. 

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I was definitely getting artifacts before I switched to the beta driver.  I'm not sure about the *catalyst driver has stopped responding* error.  I think that was only after the beta driver but I could be wrong, I apologize for not having more information.

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Hey Frank,

 

Before the beta driver I was using the latest driver.  It's interesting what you say because even though I was getting artifacts in one game (dayz), my GPU temps were always stable.  I hate problems like this.  I know this is a pain with the information I'm giving.  You guys are awesome.

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