• 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.

GTX260 Freezing Issues

Khrest

Khrest

Khrest

Associate
Joined
26 Jul 2003
Posts
1,352
Location
Loughborough
I recently upgraded to a Gainward GS GTX260 and ran it under Win XP for 2-3 weeks without a problem.

I recently upgraded to Windows 7 and similarly had 2 days of gaming without issues.

As of today however the card keeps freezing. I first noticed it in Mass Effect; initially I was pleased as the sound faults that I had in that game under XP have gone away since the move to win7. However the game started freezing with a black screen for 20 secs and then continuing with a crippled frame rate.

A bit of checking with MSI Afterburner showed that the card was dropping to 2D speeds which was the cause of the frame rate drop.

Setting the Nvidia drivers to Prefer Max Performance seems to have prevented the drop in speeds, but I am still getting freezing whilst gaming, now in Mirror's Edge.

I dont see how it can be speeds because if anything the temps are lower than they were under XP. I am getting max temps of around 70c, although I do keep the fan at around 35% as I find it too noisy otherwise; but I dont see how it can be temp related when it was fine at higher temps (75c!) under XP.

Anybody got any other temps on this card for comparison or any other advice?
 
RMA it IMO - either the VRMs aren't getting sufficent cooling or it has the old BGA/Solder issue.

Tho make sure you try a couple of driver versions like 191.07, lastest WHQL, etc. first just to be sure.
 
Have the same card myself.

After I bought it let it run on Auto for a few days - no issues.But thought it quite noisy.

Then decided to try and turn the noise down so reduced Fan speed to 35%('ish). O'K for non-gaming but in gaming not right - not as bad as yours tho' more simply freezing and need of reboot etc

Now running 33% fan setting in Expert when not gaming - no issues at all and it's nice & quiet.Temp is 36c as I type.

But when gaming turn Expert off which reverts fans to auto - starting at 40% - which keeps it cooler and no problems .Temps I've seen have been in the mid 50c's (but not looked that hard as no reason to!)

Try gaming at Auto setting - see if it makes any difference, if it does you could easily set up a similar arrangement using Expert Tool
 
Last edited:
I cant help thinking its Windows7 related though. There's no consistency to the temp at which the pauses happen, anywhere between 60 and 75c. Also I ran the card for 4 weeks under XP with some pretty heavy Dragon Age sessions and saw no problems at all.

It just seems a major coincidence that it happens 24 hours after the upgrade to 7.
 
Finally it also appears that temps do not play any part. I have just run Fureal for 15 minutes and the temps hit the mid 80s, well above any that there have been when the freezes occur (usually around 65).
 
Used both 191 and 195s.

I think its down to cooling on the memory side. I have raised the ran speeds a bit (maybe I was being a bit optimistic) and positioned a fan blowing air across the rear of the PCB. It seems to run fine now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom