Crashes after upgrading from 650Ti to 1660 Super Mini ITX OC

Pinko · 21 Oct 2020 at 21:23

Just upgraded from a GeForce 650Ti to a Gigabyte GeForce 1660 Super Mini ITX OC (went with mini version as tower isn't that big). I had previously removed my game list so installed something quick to test it out, Battlefield BC2, and it ran perfectly fine. With the 650Ti the GPU was at 100% on High settings in Task Manager. With the 1660 ITX it was at 0.1% on High settings. So thought all was good.

Decided to play Team Fortress Classic (old but great) and the game was juddering and I noticed in the Task Manager the GPU usage went between 40-60% consistently. This game came out in 1999 and lets just say you could play it using a brick for a GPU - the recommended GPU via Steam is a "32mb+ video card". After playing for about 2 minutes the PC crashed and restarted. Tried again, and same again, crashed and restarted.

I have GeForce Experience installed and all drivers are up-to-date. Did a clean install of the drivers. I haven't installed the Aorus Engine as I have seen posts suggesting it isn't really needed - I have no plan to push the GPU, I really just wanted something that would allow me to play some modern games at reasonable settings.

Wondering what could be causing an ancient game to crash but a more recent, albeit still dated, game to run fine. I'm currently re-downloading Doom to test that out but thought I'd see if there'd be any advice from more knowledgeable folk here.

The 1660 spec states 450W PSU, mine is 460W so thought it would be fine.

Appreciate any advice.

PC Specs are below. I have made no modifications to the PC bar this new GPU.

Dell XPS8700 (bought 2013)
Windows 10 (64-bit OS)
Intel Core i7-4770 CPU @3.40GHz
12GB RAM
Dell 0KWVT8 Motherboard (BIOS fully up-to-date)
Dell D460 AM-02 PSU (I believe this is 460W)
Dual monitors, both 1920x1080, 60Hz.

mattferg · 21 Oct 2020 at 21:49

It's the PSU. Might be rated for 460w when new but capacitors age. I had a similar experience with a Corsair a few years ago.

andy_mk3 · 21 Oct 2020 at 22:05

Yes you're likely going to need another PSU. 4th-gen Intel CPU puts your system at around 7 years old, and for a PSU that only just meets the overall wattage to start with, it likely needs to be replaced. It may be designed in a way that has more wattage on the 3.3/5v rails than the 12v rails too, leaving you with less wattage than usual anyway for GPU power.

Pinko · 21 Oct 2020 at 22:24

At least it seems like it's the PSU and not the GPU at fault. Just out of curiosity, why might it be that the ancient game that would run on a 32MB GPU cause a crash, while BF:BC2 with a recommended 512MB card not cause a crash?

Guess I'll post in the power supplies forum as that's one thing I've never replaced before.

Cheers the advice.

andy_mk3 · 21 Oct 2020 at 23:47

Pinko said:
At least it seems like it's the PSU and not the GPU at fault. Just out of curiosity, why might it be that the ancient game that would run on a 32MB GPU cause a crash, while BF:BC2 with a recommended 512MB card not cause a crash?

Guess I'll post in the power supplies forum as that's one thing I've never replaced before.

Cheers the advice.

What frame rate does this old game run at? If the card is running away at 600fps it might be your issue there

opethdisciple · 21 Oct 2020 at 23:58

Check the new card is seated properly first and the cables are properly plugged in.

Pinko · 22 Oct 2020 at 00:04

no idea what said:
What frame rate does this old game run at? If the card is running away at 600fps it might be your issue there

Steam in-game FPS shows the old game runs at ~60fps and even dropped to 32fps at one point, while Battlefield BC2 runs at ~200fps. Seems odd... I used to play the old game on an old Windows XP laptop with sweet eff all of a GPU in it with zero problems. I'm pretty sure I played this game first using a Voodoo2 12MB GPU with no problems.

opethdisciple said:
Check the new card is seated properly first and the cables are properly plugged in.

I'll re-seat it and double check all cables are plugged in. I had to use a 6pin to 8pin adapter so perhaps there's something wrong there.

Pinko · 22 Oct 2020 at 00:34

Just played Doom 2016 on Ultra everything for a bit over 20 minutes. It maintained 60FPS throughout - it didn't go to 61FPS or 59FPS, it stayed exactly at 60FPS throughout - and no crashes. The old game crashes within 2 minutes so there must be something odd happening that is restricted to this old game. Gonna download Wolfenstein II tomorrow and test that.

I'll re-check the seating in the morning.

pieman109 · 22 Oct 2020 at 01:56

The game might just be too old for the drivers/gpu hardware. I had a very similar problem with C&C tiberium sun, just could not get it to run.

Roadrunner_668 · 22 Oct 2020 at 02:04

what is the power consumption of the new graphics card ? and what does the dell PSU have on the 12v rail ?

id look there first it might only have like 300w on the 12v or something being an oem psu

upgrade it !

Pinko · 22 Oct 2020 at 15:40

When watching a YouTube video earlier on how to setup HWiNFO to link with Afterburner I got a crash and restart. That's never happened this PC before watching YouTube.

opethdisciple said:
Check the new card is seated properly first and the cables are properly plugged in.

Re-seated the card. Same juddering in the older game. Didn't play it long enough to allow a crash as I'm not sure it's good for the system to be crashing so much.

pieman109 said:
The game might just be too old for the drivers/gpu hardware. I had a very similar problem with C&C tiberium sun, just could not get it to run.

I can see there are a few posts about older games not being compatible with nvidia cards. Bummer if that's the case here.

Roadrunner_668 said:
what is the power consumption of the new graphics card ? and what does the dell PSU have on the 12v rail ?

id look there first it might only have like 300w on the 12v or something being an oem psu

upgrade it !

PSU states 385W on the 12v.

Power consumption so far:

Doom 2016 on Ultra Settings: Averaged around 50W, max it went to was 70W when a tonne of enemies and guns were going off.
BF:BC2 on Highest Settings: Averaged around 100W, max 118W
TFC (old game): Averaged 25W, max 34W

Roadrunner_668 · 22 Oct 2020 at 22:33

maybe not the psu then :/ just thought it was an idea

Pinko · 22 Oct 2020 at 23:00

Definitely open to any ideas!

Ran Wolfenstein II on highest settings ("Mein Leben!") for 30 minutes and all good.
Ran an MSI Kombustor stress test for 30 minutes and all good.

However, I've also had two crash and restarts just browsing the internet, which has never happened this PC so that has to have something to do with the GPU (or relatedly to PSU).

Checking Event Viewer in Windows and there have been six critical events, all just in the two days that I've had the new GPU installed. The critical events are listed as "Kernel-Power. The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly." This seems more related to the restart than the actual event that caused it and there are no clear events occurring just prior to the critical events.

I'm a bit stumped. I might just replace the PSU anyway for sh!ts and giggles just in case, no harm I suppose.

Roadrunner_668 · 22 Oct 2020 at 23:02

I would still be looking at power to be honest

get yourself one of those wall plugs and keep an eye on the consumption. If it goes over about 440W at the wall thats probably your problem !

Quartz · 22 Oct 2020 at 23:04

Pinko said:
PSU states 385W on the 12v.

IIRC it's split into three, with a max of 12A or 18A on the highest power 12V line.

Roadrunner_668 · 22 Oct 2020 at 23:06

further compounding my thought tbh

a better psu will only be about £30

not top dog quality but will do the job

i would start there !

Roadrunner_668 · 22 Oct 2020 at 23:06

OK maybe £40

Pinko · 23 Oct 2020 at 14:04

Roadrunner_668 said:
OK maybe £40

I'd happily double that to get something solid and reliable!

The dimensions of Corsair RM PSUs are 160x150x86 and are 20mm longer than what I have. It would be pushed right up against cables coming from USBs at the top of the PC.

Would a TX650M be overkill? Maybe enough with a TX550M?

Newegg has my system as using ~340 Watts.

Quartz · 23 Oct 2020 at 15:22

Do check that it's a standard ATX PSU. Dell sometimes used custom sizes and power outs.

Pinko · 29 Oct 2020 at 21:08

Okay, so just installed new TX650M.

Played old game again. Much smoother and same FPS as the old 650Ti. However, after about 20 minutes the game crashed and the PC restarted. Previously it would have been about 2 minutes in before the crash. So the crash has been 'delayed'.

Played Doom 2016 again just to check in case and played 30 minutes on ultra and no issues. Removed the 60fps cap and was getting >100fps on Ultra.

Can't be the PSU I guess. Can't be the GPU either if Doom plays OK.

Must just be the old game being incompatible.

Thing I don't get though is, in relation to the old game that crashes the PC:

650Ti and Dell 460W PSU, the old game gives ~70fps and never crashed
1660 Super Mini ITX OC and Dell 460W PSU, the old game would give ~30 fps and crashed
1660 Super Mini ITX OC and TX650M, the old game gives ~70 fps and crashed

So the new PSU did something given the fps difference between the two PSUs. It does though seem that this old game ain't gonna work with the new GPU... bummer.