Thread: Hardware issues

I picked up 2 used video cards last week hoping to end my poor performance in BF3... I got 2 6970s to replace my old 4850. I am getting BSODs in BF3 now. I do not think it's the new cards.
My specs...
Asus Crosshair formula iv MB
AMD 1100t 6core processor
PC power and cooling silencer 750 wt psu.
Corsair H50 CPU cooler
Corsair Vengeance 4x4 (16gb) ram
corsair force 3 120 gb SSD (OS)
3 Vraptor 150s for storage
2 6970s
I thought it was heat at first, I moved everything over to my older (bigger case) with better air flow (a raidmax smilodon). Large fan in front, pulling in.
The radiator fan is pulling in across the rad, I have 2 side fans. one near cpu, pulling in I believe, the lower one near GPUs is pushing out.
I removed the lower HD bay for more room for the cards.
Some of the BSODs lasted long enough and pointed to hardware or CPU directly overheating or not responding in time. I have reapplied thermal paste (twice thinking I had it too thick the first time).
I also noticed that I was dropping a core on the CPU. Seemed to be the same core each time (core 3). I've tried playing wiith one card (swapped both), both cards same results. Sometimes it wouldn't BSOD< just lock BF3 and I'd get an error that BF3 crashed. Thinking maybe the new cards are working so well that they are exposing an issue with my CPU? Looks like the cheapest option would be to get the new bulldozer since it will work on my mobo. Any other ideas before I pull my hair out and play on my ps3?
I was able to do a few different stress tests (with furmark and one other) with no crashes. GPU temps were stable. not over 80C
Thanks, hope I listed enough details.
Brian

did you update your bios and chipset to have full stable support for dual cards? Did you COMPLETELY remove the old video drivers, then restart and then install the drivers for your dual cards?

I updated the bios, I uninstalled and rebooted then reinstalled catalyst. I did not go through the reg deleting everything ATI. I've had the issues with 1 or 2 cards though. I scanned for new hardware a few times with no updates to do.
Brian

Are you running dual monitors? I just did a fast search for "dual 6970 causing system to crash" and there are lots of threads out there about dual 6970s combined with dual monitors causing issues.

Black, are running both monitors in an eyefinity setup when playing BF or just using the "extend display" option?

One other thing to try is manually adjust the fan speed to something like 50% before starting the game and see if that helps. With an old set of 5870's I had to manually kick up the fan speed when playing Borderlands and it was the only game that did that. But those again were 5870's

I have a single 25" monitor.. nothing dual. I did call up AMD and they think it may be the CPU because it keeps disabling/dropping a core. I'm half tempted to take this time to get an i7 2600 and find a board that's decent. Once I get the replacement 1100t from AMD, sell it with my Crosshair and the ram to offset. I did find a used/tested 2600 for 150 locally.
Brian

sounds like a good plan and a great upgrade for $150. I love my i7