GTX 670 Phantom problem, return it?

[wissel]

Hi all, I've just built a new PC and the graphics card drivers crash constantly.

First (usually) I get a black screen for a few seconds, then it recovers telling me nvidia driver stopped working, this happens usually a few times then I just get a black screen, PC is still on but have to reset it.

I've also had red screens, blue screens, mouse just freezes and a few others.

After trawling forums I saw lots of people having driver issues with this card and having various fixes including only using the latest driver direct from nvidia and installing without 3d or audio drivers, not running monitoring software, a conflict with Realtec drivers and a few other things.

I decided to do a complete re-install of win 7 pro (...well I've re-installed 5 times over the weekend now) changing different settings each time. Each time the drivers would crash so I decided to take the GTX 670 out of the PC and add a GT 610.

With only win 7 and the Asus MB drivers (minus Realtec) installed it was running great so I added every windows update and downloaded Prime95 to test the CPU and Ram. Ran it for about 45 mins with no problems at all.

So now I install the GT 610 driver (same as GTX 670)- again direct from nvidia with no 3d or audio. Ran it for a few hours with no problems (best I had with the GTX 670 was about 10 mins).

I guess I have a faulty card but before I return it is there anything else that you think I should try?

Any suggestions appreciated.



Here are the specs:

Asus X79 Sabertooth
i7 3820
32gb 2133 ram
128 M4 SSD
2 x caviar black drives
Hiper M1000 PSU

 

[illuz]

I would retutn it while you can, you dont wanna be stuck with a fault which may not go away. The 670s are very powerful cards!

 

[wissel]

I would retutn it while you can, you dont wanna be stuck with a fault which may not go away. The 670s are very powerful cards!

I see you have the Gigabyte 670, I was thinking of returning the gainward and going for the same.

Seems to get good reviews plus I like it having the 680 pbc, have you had any problems with it at all?

 

[illuz]

None, i jumped from the old old 7950gt which was way past its time. Im still shocked everytime i play anything, runs very silent and cool. Overclocked +90 on the gpu and +740 on the memory. Very impressed!

 

[coupe69]

How old's that PSU? I'm guessing fairly old. Have you got access to another one?

It could be the old girls on her way out, but can still just about cope with less demanding hardware.

 

[gary996]

Check and double check. If you return it for RMA and OC find no problems you will get charged for postage.

 

[covenantuk]

Raise the RMA request and if you can just try another PSU before you send it back.

 

[wissel]

How old's that PSU? I'm guessing fairly old. Have you got access to another one?

It could be the old girls on her way out, but can still just about cope with less demanding hardware.

The PSU is about 3 to 3 1/2 years old and was running an i7 920 (clocked at about 4ghz, P6T and 2 x 4890's with no problems. I don't have another suitable supply here so cant check for sure. My PSU has enough 6 pin connections to take 2 670's so I did try both. Its also fine without the 670 so I don't think its likely to be at fault.

 

[wissel]

As I can't return anyway until Wednesday I thought I'd run OCCT for a hour to get an idea of how the PSU is performing. I've never done this before so don't know what a good or bad result would be.

If I post the data once finished could someone have a look at it for me please?

 

[wissel]

Ok everything passed the OCCT tests fine, I've also tested the voltage (via mb software) idle and running prime95, here are the figures:

Idle: 12v - 12.192, 5v - 5.080, 3.3v - 3.344
Load: 12v - 12.192, 5v - 5.040, 3.3v - 3.328

From what I've read on various forums these figures seem to indicate that the PSU is OK?

Am I reading this right?

Cheers.

 

[wissel]

Well as I had a few days free I decided to give the Phantom one last go so completely rebuilt the PC from scratch (again).

.....and its now working fine!!!

I have no idea what the problem was but its sorted now so dont care to much.

For anyone finding this thread with a similar problem I'm now running the latest 301.42 Nvidia drivers without the audio driver installed. I also left out the Realtec driver for the motherboard as I don't use them anyway (I use ASIO). I have no idea if any of these drivers were to blame but I read a lot of posts on other forums saying these drivers cause conflicts.

Now its working the Gainward GTX 670 Phantom is an awesome card. Very fast and very quiet with great temps at stock. Its running idle at around 32 degree's and after running Furmark for around an hour it was at 73 degree's (and still quiet).

Now if someone could just release a water block.....