260 GTX keeps crashing...

Chong Warrior · 13 Mar 2009 at 14:54

This card is only a few days old but within 5 minutes of gaming it always crashes back to the desktop and there's a mesage in tray saying Drivers have recovered from an error (a bit ironic as I swapped from a 4850 as I was tired of buggy ATI drivers lol)

I've installed the 182.08 drivers when I first got it. Uninstalled them and installed the 181.22 drivers but still same problem.

Tried running 3D Mark 06 and Vantage while monitoring temps and fan speeds but it runs those ok. Card is pre overclocked to 621 core / 1350 shader / 2000 memory but temps aren't going over 65c.

Running Windows Vista 64 and games crashing are Company of Heroes and Far Cry 2. Any ideas?

Rybo89 · 13 Mar 2009 at 15:30

fully uninstalled the ati drivers from before with driver cleaner?

Rroff · 13 Mar 2009 at 16:50

What motherboard? not an Asus P5 series is it?

Chong Warrior · 13 Mar 2009 at 16:53

Rybo89 said:
fully uninstalled the ati drivers from before with driver cleaner?

Uninstalled yes, not used driver cleaner as I'm not paying to uninstall drivers.

Rroff said:
What motherboard? not an Asus P5 series is it?

P5K Deluxe

Rroff · 13 Mar 2009 at 17:16

ick

despite what some people say this is a major problem with asus p5 boards... your better off with the ATI I'm afraid

even tho thats just papering over the cracks atleast it will normally work a little more reliably. Sucks. Dropping your RAM back to CAS5 667MHz might fix it but no guarantee and that would drop performance or you can carry on testing different drivers until you find one thats semi stable... putting a fan on the NB if it doesn't have one might help too.

Chong Warrior · 13 Mar 2009 at 17:20

This is a new one on me.... will have a look a into it, cheers.

Chong Warrior · 13 Mar 2009 at 17:49

For such a popular combo there's not much mention of an issue like I'm having. If all the ASUS P5 mobo's (most popular motherboard series ever?) couldn't work with a 260 GTX it would be everywhere surely?

elpedro · 13 Mar 2009 at 18:33

Wait what? What's up with the P5 boards? Had my P5Q-E since last June, ran an 8800GT, 4870, GTX 260 and now GTX 280 on it without hassle.

Kelt · 13 Mar 2009 at 18:53

Might be worth putting the 182.06's on.

Likewise, I have no such issues with my P5Q Deluxe and 8800GT. Runs sweet as a nut.

Rroff · 13 Mar 2009 at 19:15

No it doesn't happen with every case, but the asus P5 boards (and nForce chipsets) seem to have some issues that result in a higher probability of the dreaded nvlddmkm.sys BSOD and driver recovery error.

Obviously the asus P5 series is a wide range and very popular so they are going to have a bigger percentage but even so the figures are roughly 70% asus P5 boards, 20% nForce chipset, 10% other for cases where this error report has been uploaded.

If you search any hardware forum for this error 9 times out of 10 you will see the person is using an asus P5 board.

Sean_UK · 13 Mar 2009 at 19:42

This might sound silly, but try underclocking the GFX cards shader clock and see if the problem still shows up

Chong Warrior · 13 Mar 2009 at 20:31

Sean_UK said:
This might sound silly, but try underclocking the GFX cards shader clock and see if the problem still shows up

Well I've just taken off the pre-overclocks and underclcoked it to what a standard 260 GTX should be 575/1250/1000 and I've just played 2 full levels of Company of Heroes first time

Nice one.

Good of these companies to sell Extreme Editions that can't even run at their default speed :rolleyes:

p0ss3s3d · 13 Mar 2009 at 20:39

Chong Warrior said:
Good of these companies to sell Extreme Editions that can't even run at their default speed

Yep, my XFX Core 216 Black Edition (666/1150/1404) only runs @666/1070/1404, that sort of sucks but TBH even at these clocks it outperforms a friends GTX280 in a fair few games

Upping the fan to 55% still doesn't let me hit stock clocks, I think the cooling is terrible in terms of cooling everything (hard to to explain but I hope you get what I mean)...

gurusan · 13 Mar 2009 at 20:40

You just seem to be having awful luck with video cards!

p0ss3s3d · 13 Mar 2009 at 21:00

gurusan said:
You just seem to be having awful luck with video cards!

Me???

gurusan · 13 Mar 2009 at 21:03

nope, chong_warrior. He was having trouble with a 4850 as well if I recall correctly

p0ss3s3d · 13 Mar 2009 at 21:04

gurusan said:
nope, chong_warrior. He was having trouble with a 4850 as well if I recall correctly

I had a manky 4870 before this LOL. It had poopy BIOS yet, wouldn't cover me to use the hotfix :confused:

.

Chong Warrior · 13 Mar 2009 at 21:10

gurusan said:
You just seem to be having awful luck with video cards!

Yeah and it's for that exact reason I decided to get this card from the place just a couple miles down the road from me. Too slow and expensive doing by post with this place.... just need to decide if it's worth the hassle of trying to get this swapped or just live with it at stock speeds....?

EDIT - yeah had a nightmare with an IceQ 4850, couldn't be bothered with all that again lol!

p0ss3s3d · 13 Mar 2009 at 21:13

Chong Warrior said:
Yeah and it's for that exact reason I decided to get this card from the place just a couple miles down the road from me. Too slow and expensive doing by post with this place.... just need to decide if it's worth the hassle of trying to get this swapped or just live with it at stock speeds....?

EDIT - yeah had a nightmare with an IceQ 4850, couldn't be bothered with all that again lol!

I would find the highest stable overclock that works for you. Then think will I miss those Xmhz??? Chances are, it won't bother you but if the shop is just down the road it's hardly a large hassle...

Chong Warrior · 13 Mar 2009 at 21:15

I think I'll see what the memory and core can do. If it's just the shader core that's struggling then I probably won't bother.

Though I'm not sure if the shader and gpu core are directly related to each other for performance? In Rivatuner it links them when overclocking with the shader roughly 2:1 ratio