Bottleneck?

[krigl]

I was wondering once again if you tech wizards could help this noob...

My FS9 crashes to bluescreen (N4_dsp or something like that is mentioned) in graphically heavy areas. Or, in fact, even just in normal places.

[congo]

It's system instability Krigl, either the bios is set wrong or you have dodgy hardware, probably not the G-card because the problem is manifested thru card changes.

That leaves PSU, mobo, cpu and ram. HDD's don't usually cause these crashes. I get that common error if I overclock to far, it's an nvidia driver failure warning, but it's always meant "she won't take it" to me.

To fix it yourself you need to be able to diagnose incorrect bios settings and have a good understanding of your system architecture, but your best bet is a local PC nerd with test parts who can take a look and set things right.

Bottleneck is a current buzzword that has little to do with real life and more to do with nitpicking in most cases. It occurs when system components are not performance matched but it does not manifest itself in instability like you describe.

[krigl]

Thanks Congo for clearing some things up - I had a hunch that something like system instability was at work - I forgot about the SLI/Crossfire thing... thanks for taking the time to answer both posts. I'm lost here, and I don't know any proper computer nerds to help me out....


I would value second opinions too! Any other thoughts from anyone?

[congo]

Well you could do a CMOS reset to restore System BIOS defaults, but that could bugger things up and then you wouldn't know what to do, and that's also assuming there is no underlying hardware error.

Without swap parts, it's difficult to diagnose.

To be honest, gradual breakdown sounds like heat or component failure

[krigl]

Well you could do a CMOS reset to restore System BIOS defaults, but that could bugger things up and then you wouldn't know what to do, and that's also assuming there is no underlying hardware error.

Without swap parts, it's difficult to diagnose.

To be honest, gradual breakdown sounds like heat or component failure

That's also what I was thinking, but I replaced my memory recently and the mobo has no outward sign of damage, SiSoft Sandra or whatever said there was 'something' with the BIOS but neglected to inform me of what, how serious, and how to fix it

[congo]

Motherboards rarely ever "look" damaged unless it was pretty nasty, most faulty boards appear perfect visually, but mainboards commonly fail after a while when