M4A77TD-Pro: Hypertransport watchdog timeout error after upgrading GPU and PSU

[Azrael808]

Hi All!

I'm hoping somebody here can help me. I have recently upgraded the GPU in my system from an AMD Radeon HD 5770 to a Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 and replaced my older 650W PSU with a brand new 550W Corsair PSU. I've been extremely pleased with the results; the machine is capable of much higher frame-rates and/or resolutions in games now.

However, despite the machine enduring several extremely long gaming sessions (Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Civilization V to name a few), I began to experience a (very difficult to replicate) BSOD/Bugcheck 0x00000124/spontaneous reboot. Now, I'm not overclocking my hardware, nor have I unlocked any of the additional cores in my CPU; my machine is running "as-is".

I tried re-installing the operating system from scratch in order to rule out any driver issues and it seemed to function well for a week or two, but the problem re-occurred this weekend. It seems that the reboot only occurs when the machine is logged into my fiancée's account and idling while playing music using the Last.fm service!

The next step I am going to take is to swap out the new PSU with my older model. I wondered if anybody here had any experience with issues like this? I have seen posts of people experiencing crashes/reboots while their systems are idle (usually after overclocking) and they have seemingly fixed the issue by increasing the Northbridge voltage slightly. I've never really played around with this before, so I wanted to get some expert opinions on whether power (or the lack of it) could be the cause of my reboots.

Here are my machine specs:

Motherboard: Asus M4A770TD Pro
Motherboard Driver: 1.3.0.49
Motherboard Chipset: AMD 770
Motherboard BIOS: 2301
CPU: AMD Phenom x2 3.1GHz Black Edition
Memory: Kingston 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM XMP Memory (Kit of 2)
Memory Latency: Default (set mobo to default settings)
PSU: Corsair VX550W
Graphics: Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB "Dirt 3 Edition"
Graphics Driver: AMD Catalyst Driver 12.2
Sound Card: Creative Audigy 4
Sound Driver: 6.0.1.1377
Operating system: Windows 7 64bit - SP 1


I really hope someone can help shed some light on this, or the very least assist me in troubleshooting the system!

[Azrael808]

Here's an update on my progress:

- I've been unable to successfully replicate the issue. This is despite me leaving the machine on for several days, occasionally playing Skyrim or BF3 and with it left running overnight in the same state as the previous times it's crashed (idling while logged into my fiancée's account, streaming music via Last.fm).

- Intrigued by the possibility of a PSU issue, I used the Thermaltake Power Supply Calculator and found that it suggested the power consumption of my rig would be between 560W and 580W, depending on how many USB devices I had connected. The PSU I installed alongside my GPU upgrade was the Corsair VX550W, which I had used to replace an older 600W Enermax PSU. Slightly embarrassed that I didn't check the power requirements before I swapped this out; guess I was just excited about having a nice new component in the system!

I'm going to swap the PSU back and try my hardest to replicate the issue again; my fiancée will be at home next week, so it's the perfect opportunity to see if it occurs again! Here's hoping it doesn't... I wondered if this kind of issue I'm experiencing could be caused by a struggling PSU? I would have thought I would have experienced BSODs while gaming, or running load/stress testing tools, but they only seem to occur while idle.

[HiVizMan]

You could just have found it was a driver confickt, and if you have auto update enabled a fix could have been installed automatically. I will check back periodically.

[Azrael808]

Thanks for the reply HiVizMan, just to let you know, after I switched back the PSU, the system still had a BSOD... Took a _long_ time to occur though, and again only when the system was idle.

I returned the GPU to the supplier to have them check there wasn't an issue and they have confirmed there's nothing wrong with it. Since I've had it back, the machine hasn't rebooted yet, but I won't be convinced the issue is resolved for some time, given the length of time between previous reboots.

Maybe reseating the card has had a positive effect though?