Problem with Nvidia 9800 GTX+

Dickmcsavage

Hi guys I have been experiencing issues with my gainward 9800 gtx+. Basically, whenever I am playing a game, from time to time, the graphics card fails and ceases to send a display to my monitor causing my monitor to go completely blank. I continue to hear audio for a couple of seconds before the audio starts looping. I then have to hard reset the PC. I have tried a number of things to try and resolve this issue like making sure my display drivers are up to date. The latest drivers seem to have made the problem worse! I have also tried playing games on older drivers but only to experience the same problem. A friend of mine suggested that it may be an issue with my DVD drive not sending info quickly enough so I downloaded a no CD patch for some of my games but again I am still experiencing the problem. I have been having this problem since I bought the card which was around Christmas time of last year. I've contacted gainward (who made the card) and Ive yet to hear back from them. Its been almost a week at this stage. Below is a list of the games that I have been experiencing the problem with the most:

Fallout 3 (only seems to happen in outdoor environments only)
Call of Duty 4 (happens intermittently at random points)
Neotokyo (happens pretty much as soon as I start playing)

Here is my machine spec if it helps:

Manufacturer:
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

Processor:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs)

Memory:
2046MB RAM

Hard Drive:
1 TB Total

Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+

Monitor:
Plug and Play Monitor

Sound Card:
Realtek HD Audio output

Speakers/Headphones:
Keyboard:
USB Root Hub
Mouse:
USB Root Hub
Mouse Surface:
Operating System:
Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.080814-1236)
Motherboard:
Computer Case:

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

leninbenjamin

From my own experience: audio looping suggests it's a problem with the audio device.

I used get that a lot on my laptop when playing TF2, went away when i turned down the audio quality in the options. Seems the integrated audio in this Vostro couldn't handle it.

Dickmcsavage

Thanks for the reply. I'll give it a go but it's the display that gives out first and the audio continues on as normal for a few seconds before looping which suggests that it's a graphics problem. On top of that, it's been happening with a number of different games.

Deano12345

Sounds like the card could be overheating.Can you do day to day stuff like browse the internet and watch videos ?

Dickmcsavage

Yeah everything else is fine. It's literally just when I start playing games that I have the problem. It's weird though because with the older drivers it would take a little longer before happening but with the latest drivers it's happening sooner than ever!

Dickmcsavage

Well I've tried everything at this stage except one thing. I'm gonna get a lend of a graphics card from a mate and if that works no problem then I think I'll have to get in touch with Komplett to see if I can get a replacement. Thanks for the replies btw!

Deano12345

Hang on till the morning,I have one other idea

Deano12345

It sounds odd but look up how to bake the card (In the oven).I told a guy here to do it do his dying 9600GT and it worked !

jimoc

I was the card baker and its been running 24/7 since Friday midnight with 0 problems

First thing you should do is, the next time you have a failure, go into the bios setup screen and see if you have any graphic defects, such as dots or lines etc, so you can rule out driver issues in windows.

If you have defects in there, then its baking time.
If you dont have issues there, then the problem could be something else and baking may not fix it.

One thing to make very very sure of is that you remove the heat sink and all of the sticky pads over the chips, as well as cleaning off any thermal paste from the chips.

The plastic connectors etc that are built onto the board are fine, they can withstand the oven, but anything removable should be removed.

Then pre-heat the oven to 200 C.
On a baking tray, put 4 little balls of tin foil and sit the card on them, with the chips facing upwards (so they don't fall off)
Put the card in for 8 - 10 minutes, I left mine for 10 minutes. Leave to cool for at least an hour before you reassemble.

Deano12345

jimoc wrote: »

I was the card baker and its been running 24/7 since Friday midnight with 0 problems

First thing you should do is, the next time you have a failure, go into the bios setup screen and see if you have any graphic defects, such as dots or lines etc, so you can rule out driver issues in windows.

If you have defects in there, then its baking time.
If you dont have issues there, then the problem could be something else and baking may not fix it.

One thing to make very very sure of is that you remove the heat sink and all of the sticky pads over the chips, as well as cleaning off any thermal paste from the chips.

The plastic connectors etc that are built onto the board are fine, they can withstand the oven, but anything removable should be removed.

Then pre-heat the oven to 200 C.
On a baking tray, put 4 little balls of tin foil and sit the card on them, with the chips facing upwards (so they don't fall off)
Put the card in for 8 - 10 minutes, I left mine for 10 minutes. Leave to cool for at least an hour before you reassemble.

I love the smell of deep fried graphics cards in the morning

monkeypants

Before we get the oven mitts out, I'd check the card temperature. Install Rivatuner and see what it says for temperature.

Dickmcsavage

Hi Guys. Thanks for the replies but here's an update on the situation in the last while: Got a lend of a 6800 from a mate and that worked fine, no problems at all so I assumed that it must be the graphics card itself (the 9800) that is the problem. So I contacted Komplett and they were happy to replace it with a GTX 260. Happy days I thought until I installed it and now Im having problems with that! It's weird though, it doesn't crash all the time but about 70% of the time and it happens on launch of a game. I would launch the game, it would go to a black screen and nothing would happen. I would then have to reset the PC. The weird thing about it is that when it does work, it seems to work fine although I have had one or two instances where it crashed in the same way as the 9800. So anyways, to try and sort out the issue I did the usual: changing drivers etc etc. I then decided that it might be a good idea to flash the BIOS. Did that but still having the same problems. I'm beginning to think that it's my PSU now as it's not exactly a massive brand name although 630w should do it and of course the 6800 would need a lot less power compared to the 9800 and the gtx260. Any thoughts? A bloke in work actually said to me something about changing voltage in the BIOS but I wouldn't have a blue's clue how to do that!

Deano12345

Dickmcsavage wrote: »

Hi Guys. Thanks for the replies but here's an update on the situation in the last while: Got a lend of a 6800 from a mate and that worked fine, no problems at all so I assumed that it must be the graphics card itself (the 9800) that is the problem. So I contacted Komplett and they were happy to replace it with a GTX 260. Happy days I thought until I installed it and now Im having problems with that! It's weird though, it doesn't crash all the time but about 70% of the time and it happens on launch of a game. I would launch the game, it would go to a black screen and nothing would happen. I would then have to reset the PC. The weird thing about it is that when it does work, it seems to work fine although I have had one or two instances where it crashed in the same way as the 9800. So anyways, to try and sort out the issue I did the usual: changing drivers etc etc. I then decided that it might be a good idea to flash the BIOS. Did that but still having the same problems. I'm beginning to think that it's my PSU now as it's not exactly a massive brand name although 630w should do it and of course the 6800 would need a lot less power compared to the 9800 and the gtx260. Any thoughts? A bloke in work actually said to me something about changing voltage in the BIOS but I wouldn't have a blue's clue how to do that!

Sounds like a PSU issue to me,whats the 12v Rail look like on that power supply ?

Dickmcsavage

I actually haven't got a clue about this 12v rail stuff. Read something about it online yesterday and couldn't make heads or tails from it.

Deano12345

Dickmcsavage wrote: »

I actually haven't got a clue about this 12v rail stuff. Read something about it online yesterday and couldn't make heads or tails from it.

Just look at the sticker on your PSU and you will see a ''12v'' with an amp reading under it.That reading is what you need to find out

Dickmcsavage

Just had a look at the sticker there and there was a couple of different things with "12v" on it so I just thought I may as well give you all the info on the sticker:

Ac Input 115v/230v 60/50Hz 10.7A/6.2A

DC Output +3.3v +5v +12v1 +12v2 -12v +5vSB
Max combined Wt 24A 32A 21A 22A 0.6A 2.0A

Max Peak 630W

monkeypants

I had a 6800 GTX Ultra in an old desktop. It required two 12v connections from the PSU and the instructions stated clearly that these connections should be dedicated.

Dickmcsavage

When you say dedicated do you mean that you literally have to have two seprate cables going into it? The way that mine is, is that theres cable coming from the PSU and at the end it forks out into two PCI express power connectors.

Actually just to add to the situation once when I restarted the PC, I got a message saying that a serious error was encountered etc etc and it suggested a number of solutions one of the things was to lower the hardware acceleration by going to the control panel > display > settings tab > advanced > troubleshoot tab > adjust slider. I did this and still had problems playing games (bear in mind I lowered it to the point just after it says direct 3D will be disabled etc). When I went to set it back to full, the PC crashed in the exact same way as it has been with the games.

monkeypants

Dickmcsavage wrote: »

When you say dedicated do you mean that you literally have to have two seprate cables going into it? The way that mine is, is that theres cable coming from the PSU and at the end it forks out into two PCI express power connectors.

That's exactly what I mean. We're going back a few years and it was an AGP card rather than PCIe, but I do remember the installation instructions. The connectors were molex rather than PCIe ones. Each rail had two molex connectors, so if I was connecting drives, I could happily connect two. But nVidia said that this card required two separate rails with nothing else connected to them.

Check the documentation for the card as I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but when I think of graphics card problems, I immediately think of power and heat.