Windows 7 Windows 7 keeps crashing at idle

[Mholton1]

The problem started with vista as I had bought another video card and apparently vista does not support more than one graphics driver at a time. so I installed Windows 7 Build 7100 which fixed the graphics card issue but for whatever reason it seems to crash at idle. I installed Crysis and played it for a few and it was fine. Any thoughts would be welcome.

 

[carol_s]

Is your system overclocked??

Have you tested the stability with Prime95 (recommended) or IntelBurnTest??

Does your new graphics card require its own separate voltage supply (it will have either one or two cable connectors on the card to which you should connect a separate feed from a special cable from the PSU).

Do you have a power saving application installed (Gigabyte boards have a utility called Dynamic Energy Saver or DES for short) - this reduced the voltage supplied to various components on the motherboard when it is not under load - could be that it is reducing the voltage too much and this is causing the crashes. If you have one of these utilities, then switch it off.

 

[Mholton1]

New info

thanks for the quick reply carol. it's not over clocked. and there is no power mngmt. all the gfx cards are pluged into the psu via sli and crossfire calbes. i have not tried any stability as it had not been able to withstand the screensaver.


so I think I have it part figured out. I have 3 graphics cards in my computer. one of the cards is ATI. the card or software that came with it is not regulating the fans. the fans stay at 3%. when I overrode the fan control and turned them to 100% no more crashing. the nvidia cards that are in there do not seem to be having any problems. is there a way to fix the fan control as I do not want them at 100% for noise and durability reasons?

 

[carol_s]

From what little I know, it is never a good idea to mix video cards. Is there any special reason why you must use the ATI card - if not could you sell it on ebay and buy another nVidia card.

 

[loathe]

Oh man, its never a good idea to mix alright, although it should work. I dont understand why you would do it as you cant scale the cards like you can with either Sli or Xfire setup. However. Link Removed might be what you are looking for to fix the fan speed.

In my opinion its not worth the headache to mix cards like that, and you will never get them working exactly the way you want. Which card is your main display plugged into?

 

[Tepid]

I will second the fact that you can't have more than 1 manufacturer video card installed. All nvidia or all ati, etc.
The drivers will conflict and cause problems.