graphics card driver fun....(edited)

Archytas

Hi all,

I have an odd problem where my graphics card only works with the driver it comes with. Its(the driver) too old to play BF2 and some other games...
Its a 6800GT gigabyte card? Anyone else ever heard of this?
Whenever I update the driver, it seems to work... XP is fine with no redraw problems, etc. But if I try 3dmark05 its horribly slow... bout 0.9fps
Games are unplayable... but If I go back to the original.... 3dmark05 runs superbly??
But the old driver doesn't run games well and I get lots of you must update your driver lark....
old driver was 61.76
the new is 78.01.... bit of a difference... I've tried going up in steps... going to 65 then 70 etc?

Any ideas?

Since I posted this... I did some tinkerin.. i put the graphics card back into my old computer(which already had the drivers from the last time i used it), and its driver number was 77.72 and it workied fine so it aint a problem with the card..
so I rolled back windows to the first day I set it up..... and all seemed to go well, I even updated the drivers and was able to run dxdiag without any probs... until I threw Direct x9.0c back on??? Now its gone iffy again... so I downloaded directx 9.0c again to make sure it wasn't corrupt and installed it again. but to no avail??

Can anyone help.. I've spent the whole day trying to fix this... and gotten nowhere... I cant even be sure its a graphics card problem any more.

Archytas

help?

Malafus

All I can give is general advice - uninstall ALL your graphics card drivers, then just install the newest ones, to help prevent conflicts.
Hmm, maybe install DX 9.0c before the drivers...

Oh, you might try going to the Gigabyte site and seeing if they have custom drivers for their cards - all nVidia cards should work with the standard Forceware drivers, but stranger things have happened.

Edit: Just thought of something else.... you don't happen to have an nForce4 mobo, do you? I had some problems with updating my GFX card drivers, and it turns out it was a conflict with some firmware for the hardware firewall on my nForce4 mobo. If you do have one of these nF4 motherboards w/ firewall , my advice would be to remove any trace of the drivers for the firewall (which is ****e anyway), then go back and uninstall/reinstall your GFX drivers.

Archytas

I have a nForce3 mobo... maybe it has the same thing although I don't think so.... Something tells me I'm gonna be reinstallin windows and settings up this computer again... but no matter. Its been a fun two days

I tried evrything and every diagnostic tool under the sun... ah well, one of those things, although its wrecking my head!! Someone mentioned that it mite be the mobo BIOS??? So I mite step them back a revision or two to see if that works....

Thanks for the advise and would appreciate any more that anyone had??

Archytas

Reinstalled windows and a fresh BIOS install too... and guess what? Still not working. I went straight to the new drivers... and no joy...

heres whats tellin me theres something wrong... Small pauses when I run dxdiag... and PCmark05 locks up and stutters when it tries to run..... Everything else works fine. The card works fine in another computer. when I put it back in my new one, The only thing that seems wrong is a little overheating on the graphics card(Its not overclocked). Could this be causing it??? Could the PSU be causing all these probelms?

I didn't think so because with a early driver it seems to work fine for a while and then the graphics lock up or BF2 crashes??

Seriously annoyed at this problem. Thought I could solve any probelm until now....

Am I allowed to offer a reward?? like for the suggestion that fixes this??

jesus_thats_gre

Do gigabyte offer driver packs that are optimised for their cards?

Archytas

Yeah... tried those too... Well actually they're the ones I have on at the moment.

Am just looking at motherboard monitor now and my voltages seem to be a bit funny.... but would that cause random lock ups and freezes in games?

+3.3 -> 3.3
+5 -> 5.28(sometimes as high as 5.79 and sometimes as low as 3.23)
+12.00 -> 12.22(nearly all the time...)
-12.00 -> -3.50(or -8.79 or -11.35, its all over the place... )
- 5.00 -> -4.70(usually around closer to -4 though I've seen it stay at -2.46 for ages?)

Something tells me my cheap PSU is maybe the problem??? But is it?? Could it be different for different drivers??

edit.... now it doesn't even work with the origial drivers..... AGGGGGGHHHHH!!

astrofool

did you remember to install the motherboard drivers as well?

Also, when installing a new graphics driver, uninstall and reinstall the nvidia motherboard drivers as well. The nVidia graphics and motherboard driver are linked, and they recommend themselves to reinstall both when driver upgrading.

When setting up windows, install the motherboard drivers first (latest ones from nvidia site), then install the gfx drivers.

Also, make sure you're using the latest bios for your motherboard.

Archytas

Didn't know bout the mobo and gfx driver thing but thats the way i did it, by fluke... but more worringly.. just ran prime95 and it failed after 2 minutes in the stress test!!!! Hardware failure detected?? My temp rose to bout 30 but thats no big problem...

Gonna try HeavyLoad and see if I can get a more detailed result....

Archytas

ok... ok.. am nowhere closer to solving my problem... reinstalled everything again and only installed the mobo drivers, gfx drivers, and directx 9.0c. and its still not working.... so I thought "ok my card is fubar...." but lo and behold I threw it into my old PC and 3dmark05 ran fine... got an average of bout 25fps....

So.... card seems to be working.....

CPU.... seems to be fine....
RAM.... 2 errors using memtest at 0000004c808 and 0000009bcf0?
PSU..... voltages seem to be a bit odd....
temps... a little on the high side on my gfx but otherwise good. My CPU only gets to about 31C under load.

GFX card -> gigabyte 6800GT
Mobo -> gigabyte k8nsnxp-939 nforce3 (BIOS f11)
RAM -> Corsair CMS DDR400 cas 2-2-2-8 1Gig (matched pair x 512mb)
CPU -> Athlon64 3200+
PSU -> jeantex 400W
hard drive -> samsung 120GB IDE

Am absolutely and utterly stumped... is there anyone I could give my computer to?for them to troubleshoot and try and get it to work?? I'll pay good hard earned money?

Malafus

Hmm, it could be your PSU, but @ 400W, even the cheapest PSU should be able to manage...

Which temperature rose to 30? CPU? Anyway, 30 is downright COLD for a load temp. STFU all people with phase-change cooling . I wouldn't worry about temps unless they approach triple digits. My GFX card under load sits at around 80 degrees... sometimes more.

The RAM errors are slightly worrying, and could possibly be due to the varying voltages.... if you have a spare PSU around, you might try using that and see if it makes any difference. Memory errors can cripple a system very easily - especially when they have to start dealing with huge amounts of rendering information. If you could take the PSU out of the other system you tried the card on, and use that, you might be able to identify the PSU as the source of the problem, or else eliminate it as the culprit.

astrofool

are you letting the motherboard auto-set your ram settings? or manually setting them to 2-2-2-8?

I'd say, given the errors, the ram is the problem, maybe try underclocking them till you get a clean run, or rma them if they don't.

stevenmu

In general when you uninstall graphics drivers, bits of info get left in the registry and I think some files can be left behind too. Some people never have problems with this, others seem to be plagued with them, and I think something like this is happening you. If you look on http://www.guru3d.com you should be able to find a couple of different utilities for totally uninstalling drivers, there may even be some specifically for your card if that causes regular problems for you. Get a few different ones and run them (each'll probably have it's own specific steps to follow) and see if that helps.

The_B_Man

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050922/index.html has a few tips bout graphics cards. it goes thru the settings in the BIOS to see if they're not slowing down the PC in anyway. maybe the BIOS settings on the new one are a bit dodgy?

K.O.Kiki

Looking through CustomPC's PSU test, Jeantech aren't even mentioned!!:eek:
IMHO, looks like your money could be invested in a good PSU -- if you want a cheap(ish), good & reliable PSU, look for any of the following:

• Seasonic S12-500 or S12-600
• FSP Zen or FX600-80GLN
• Hiper HPU-4M480
• SilverPower SP-400P1B
• Akasa AK-P460FG BLV2

If you can find a Seasonic or FSP PSU, you'll be laughing; the Hiper, Silverpower & Akasa are good budget alternatives.

Oh, and avoid these makes:

• Anything without a name (duh!)
• Thermaltake
• Ultra
• Antec
• SilenX
• Q-Tec (avoid like the plague!!)
• OCZ (yes, really)
• CoolerMaster
• Enermax (again, really)
• Hiper's HPU-4K580

Hope that helps.

Archytas

K.O.Kiki wrote:

Hope that helps.

Mucho appreciated... will be picking one up next friday(payday )

@The_B_Man
Thanks for the guide.. will go through it!

@stevenmu
Thanks for the site, have been using Driver Cleaner Pro? Dunno if its any good but it seemed to be working.. will check some others!

astrofool wrote:

are you letting the motherboard auto-set your ram settings? or manually setting them to 2-2-2-8?

I'd say, given the errors, the ram is the problem, maybe try underclocking them till you get a clean run

sorry to be an idiot... but could someone point the way to a good guide on this?

@everyone
I dunno if ya saw my other post on my PSU voltages.. but my -12V rail was -2.7(fluctuatin to -10V) and -5V was -3V(in or around)....

So maybe RAM.. maybe PSU....

Thank you everyone for getting back to me! It is much appreciated!! Really folks!

astrofool

K.O.Kiki wrote:

Looking through CustomPC's PSU test, Jeantech aren't even mentioned!!:eek:
IMHO, looks like your money could be invested in a good PSU -- if you want a cheap(ish), good & reliable PSU, look for any of the following:

• Seasonic S12-500 or S12-600
• FSP Zen or FX600-80GLN
• Hiper HPU-4M480
• SilverPower SP-400P1B
• Akasa AK-P460FG BLV2

If you can find a Seasonic or FSP PSU, you'll be laughing; the Hiper, Silverpower & Akasa are good budget alternatives.

Oh, and avoid these makes:

• Anything without a name (duh!)
• Thermaltake
• Ultra
• Antec
• SilenX
• Q-Tec (avoid like the plague!!)
• OCZ (yes, really)
• CoolerMaster
  
• Enermax (again, really)
• Hiper's HPU-4K580

Hope that helps.

Haven't heard anything bad about enermax myself, using a noisetaker 600w without a single problem here with alot of peripherals. Wizzard uses that one as well afaik. Will probs be ordering the top one here: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Enermax_111.html in a few days.

astrofool

Just a quick addition here on the new enermax power supplies, review here: http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/enermax_liberty/index.shtml

Seems to be fairly impressive.

Spear

Exactly which nVidia chipset drivers did you install? As so far there's no mention of installing an AGP driver, since it's an nForce 3 board.

Archytas

Whats this?
I installed everything that came with the mobo?? Should the chipset driver include an AGP driver??

Archytas

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=938842&page=15&pp=20

Funny... Theres a serious amount of talk relating to this elsewhere....

So here's an update. New power supply, power rails seem to be fine now... Thanks Wizzard!! But now instead of "stutters".. my computer does a total reboot after bout 15 mins in game.. Sometimes I go straight to pause to see if its a rendering issue.. and its not.. same crash. But it aint a heat issue either... 50C(card) 40C(CPU) both under load???

Apparently its something to do with GART driver and how the new drivers talk to it...

Who knows... will probably buy a new mobo, probably VIA chipset instead of nForce3... Although I really like my mobo!!:(

Archytas

Hi all.... turns out I should have paid more attention to the ram errors... Last nite I checked the RAm using the MS windows memory diagnostic checker thingy... Ran it on extended test and got 121 errors on the first pass.....

Now I need advice.. is the tool any good? Is my ram as bad as it seems...
Heres a link: http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Its Ballistix ram and the errors are all when random read writes were done. e.g. ERAND... LRAND, etc.

daywalker

Dunno about the microsoft memory tester,

a good one to try is memtest86+

have a look here
http://www.memtest.org/

Archytas

Yeah checked that the last time and I had like 7 errors.... I've heard of it being wrong though... If theres errors will it cause random crashes?