B-Grade GTX 670 crashing - anything else to try before RMA?

[Swinbag]

Hi Guys,

I'm after a bit of advice on issues with a b-grade 670 that I bought from OCUK 2 weeks ago if possible, I'll list the system specs first:

• MSI P55-GD80 Motherboard
• Intel Core i5 760
• 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport (4 x 4GB Modules)
• Corsair HX850 PSU
• Samsung 830 SSD
• ASUS Xonar DG (Unified Drivers)
• Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

Quick background - My GTX 480 was driving me mad noise/ heat-wise, so I sold it to a friend for £100 and picked up a B-grade Gigabyte GTX 670 WF 3X for £220 - It was definitely an impulse buy, but I felt that I got a pretty nice deal for only (effectively) £100 outlay.

However since installing the card I've had nothing but issues, mainly TDR's in games where the Nvidia driver stops responding and has to 'recover' itself.

When it first happened I was running the newest 314.22 drivers, and after some searching around it seemed a lot of other people were experiencing similar issues since installing these drivers - so I performed a clean uninstall and rolled back to 310.90 but the problems persisted.

A lot of people on the Nvidia forums were suggesting that a format and re-install of windows was the only way to resolve it, and being a fairly fresh install anyway I gave it a shot yesterday - installed the older 306.97 drivers and I'm still getting crashes.

It happens in all of the games I am playing currently (Hitman Absolution, War Thunder, ARMA 2, RO2 & Dirt 3) The crashes occur at different times, ARMA will crash within 5 minutes every time - I get a black screen, and the fans on the card ramp up as if it's been reset; the whole time I can hear game sound but can't get any video back, I have to open task manager and end it.
War Thunder can run for an hour or more before the game drops to 30 FPS, and if I minimize I can see the popup in the bottom-right corner saying the driver has crashed.

Never had a single issue with the 480 in 2 years, nothing else changed when the 670 was installed.

Things I've tried

• Made sure all chipset, network adapter and sound card drivers are up to date (Tried both the official & Unified drivers for the sound card)
• Run Memtest on my RAM - no errors
• Reverted to stock settings in BIOS (CPU Normally OC'd to 3.8GHZ)
• Latest BIOS version already installed
• Monitored GPU temps in afterburner, max is 58c & idle is 28c

Is there anything else anyone can suggest trying? Sorry for the uber post but I'm pretty close to my wits' end and I'm thinking an RMA is in order; I'm happy to give any suggestions a shot however.

Cheers

 

[RJC]

Hmm, definitely something a miss

Only option I can think of is it possible to test the card in a completely different system, part from that I would RMA the card.

Stick a post in the customer section with your text above.

 

[pastymuncher]

Have you tried underclocking the card to see if it's a stability issue?

 

[Swinbag]

Hmm, definitely something a miss

Only option I can think of is it possible to test the card in a completely different system, part from that I would RMA the card.

Stick a post in the customer section with your text above.

Might be able to get it in a mates system, I'll give that a go if I can cheers.

Have you tried underclocking the card to see if it's a stability issue?

I haven't yet no, I'm guessing it's just a case of bumping down the core clock in afterburner?

 

[arc@css]

I haven't yet no, I'm guessing it's just a case of bumping down the core clock in afterburner?

Yes, try dropping the values down by small increments.

 

[melvis]

exact same card as me so something sounds iffy i had no problems even with 314.22, in fact im using them now.

 

[Swinbag]

Yes, try dropping the values down by small increments.

Gave this a go last night; dropped it by -10 at a time and kept re-trying until I'd gone down to around 900 core and was still getting crashes the whole time.

exact same card as me so something sounds iffy i had no problems even with 314.22, in fact im using them now.

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's going to need an RMA at this point to be honest, I'm in the process of opening one now - thanks for the help guys will update with the results when I get them, may help someone in the future

Cheers

 

[Swinbag]

Well I'm officially stumped, just had an email from OCUK to say the card passed all their benchmarks and is on it's way back to me

 

[Hyburnate]

Tried a fresh install?

 

[Swinbag]

Tried a fresh install?

Yeah carried out a quick format and re-installed windows, then went straight to the 306.97 drivers but still had the same crashes. This was the point at which I decided to send the card back.

The only other thing I can think of is to carry out a secure erase on the ssd and another fresh install, there's a chance I can borrow back the 480 that I sold to test it so I'll give that a try.

 

[tommybhoy]

It sounds like the TDR bug, both teams can get the TDR bug, but as the 670's voltage locked, there's not much you can do about it as adding voltage usually sorts it for most.

I imagine it passed the testing@OcUK as the actual card is in working order as such, but it's not much use to you(perhaps the same reason the card was originally returned), if you still have time, my advice would be to DSR/14 day money back guarantee and take the hit on testing before you get a return postage bill on top of a possible useless card.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

Does anything get recorded in the Windows Event Logs?

 

[Swinbag]

It sounds like the TDR bug, both teams can get the TDR bug, but as the 670's voltage locked, there's not much you can do about it as adding voltage usually sorts it for most.

I imagine it passed the testing@OcUK as the actual card is in working order as such, but it's not much use to you(perhaps the same reason the card was originally returned), if you still have time, my advice would be to DSR/14 day money back guarantee and take the hit on testing before you get a return postage bill on top of a possible useless card.

Unfortunately I'm past the 14 days (In hindsight it's my fault that I didn't take the issue seriously enough at first, assumed it was down to dodgy drivers and I was away working most of last week so couldn't test) and AFAIK the card is already on it's way back to me.

Does anything get recorded in the Windows Event Logs?

Just an entry to say the display driver had crashed and recovered or something along those lines IIRC.

 

[Swinbag]

Tried updating the BIOS on the card to the latest F13 version today, can play ARMA for an extra 5 or so minutes now before it crashes.

Going to try and test it in a friends system a bit later on if I can.