• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Game crashing / freezing with artifacts - faulty card, driver issue or game issue?

dirtydog

dirtydog

dirtydog

Permabanned
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
47,396
Location
Essex
I recently got a 9600GT. So far it has been faultless in every game and also 3dmark, but in one game, Test Drive Unlimited, it regularly crashes/freezes, and displays artifacts on the screen as in these photos:

mm4rxf.jpg


6ofr6r.jpg



This can occur after 10 minutes or after an hour. I then need to hard reset because the computer does not respond.


I have never overclocked the card and I am running the latest WHQL drivers from the nvidia website. GPU temps are never above 55-60c and even running the fan on 100% did not prevent the crashing occurring again.

I have looked on google and I gather the game TDU has presented problems for other nvidia card owners. Perhaps TDU stresses the card in a certain way which other games don't, and reveals a fault in the card which would otherwise remain hidden?

Or is this a flaw in the nvidia drivers? Perhaps an earlier set of drivers would work better and if so, which ones?

Any advice would be welcome.


My system specs:

Windows XP
Pentium dual core E2180
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L
OCZ Platinum XTC 2GB PC2-6400
XFX 512MB 9600GT
Corsair VX450W
 
Last edited:
I had a 9600Gt, but had loads of problems with it from the day it was delivered, it seemed to struggle doing the simplest things. also it crashed when i was browsing the web so that went back for a refund.
 
Trouble is mine is behaving itself 99% of the time so it's highly unlikely the place I bought it from (not OcUK) would accept it as being faulty, because when they test it, it will 99% likely behave itself! :)

I'm currently running the card at 550/850 rather than the default 650/900 to see if that stops the crashing in TDU. Someone on another forum said it worked for him so we'll see. Obviously I shouldn't have to do that though!
 
Faultless in every other game implies a driver issue, although Test Drive unlimited can be pretty stressful on the graphics card. Maybe try a few other apps that are stressful to make sure.
 
dirtydog said:
Not so simple when they're likely to say there's nothing wrong with it.
Click to expand...

is the card running at normal speeds or was it one that was overclocked out of the box? when i got my 8800gt i was having a problem like that with oblivion but everything else seemed fine, i flashed the bios with a default one that wasnt oc and it fixed the problem
 
Langlest said:
is the card running at normal speeds or was it one that was overclocked out of the box? when i got my 8800gt i was having a problem like that with oblivion but everything else seemed fine, i flashed the bios with a default one that wasnt oc and it fixed the problem
Click to expand...

Default is not overclocked: 650/900 (1.8GHz) which I believe is reference clocks for a 9600GT.

I've tried it for a few hours on 550/850 and can't reproduce the fault as yet so that might be a workaround but as you can't prove a negative, it is too early to say as yet.
 
easyrider said:
But there clearly issomething wrong with.

when you apply for a RMA email them these very pics!
Click to expand...

You know what stores are like when you RMA something - they'll plug it in, give it a quick test, see that it works okay then either give you a refund minus 20%, or return it to you, declare it working and charge you the return postage...

FWIW I have emailed them with a full description of the issue and asked if they will give a refund even though they will probably not be able to reproduce the fault themselves. I gave the URLs of the photos above also.
 
Last edited:
Underclocking it from stock 650/900 to 550/850 seems to have done the trick. I played for hours yesterday without a problem. (there's nothing special about the 550/850 speed btw, I just chose it arbitrarily)

I also left it running a replay of a race overnight and it didn't crash during that either :)
 
dirtydog said:
Underclocking it from stock 650/900 to 550/850 seems to have done the trick. I played for hours yesterday without a problem. (there's nothing special about the 550/850 speed btw, I just chose it arbitrarily)

I also left it running a replay of a race overnight and it didn't crash during that either :)
Click to expand...

Nice one that you have got a working card again but RMA time if it's not running stable at stock :).
 
Some games just don't work well with some cards, and it is usually a software fault if the card is running fine everywere else

My very old 7600 GS used to artifact on cronicles of riddick, and crash i sent the game back, the card was a good one as i overclocked it about 15% or so, yet even at stock speeds riddick would not work, shame as it was supposed to be a very good game
 
Quelle surprise! The store replied with a generic form reply and completely ignored my actual email.

If I return it, it is entirely predictable what will happen: they'll declare it to be working perfectly and refuse a full refund. I'll just hang onto it and just RMA it to XFX if it deteriorates.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom