GTX460 performance and other issues

[strumpusplunket]

I've had some peculiar issues with my overall system behaviour since I installed my GTX460, and I'm also not convinced it's giving the level of performance it should be.

The issues are:
1. There is no image on my monitor during POST.

2. The POST takes much longer than it did before, with my 4870 in the PC. I get nothing on screen until the Windows 7 welcome screen. It takes a lot longer on the welcome screen than it did before. It also takes longer for the PC to become usable once it boots into Windows.

3. I have had issues with sound corruption. This initially happened whenever I tried to play Mirror's Edge. The sound just became distorted, stuttery and broken-up either within a minute or so of starting or right at the game menu. I thought it was just an issues with this game, but it just did the same thing in Batman AA (though I have played a few hours of this game without issue). Sound remained corrupted after quitting the game, and I needed to restart.

4. Performance seems... ok, but not what I'd expect. For instance, my Batman: AA benchmark gives me: Min - 32, Max, 60, Average, 55FPS. This is at 1680x1050, everything max, 16XAAQ, PhysX normal. From browsing other forums and reading review benchmarks, I think this should be somewhat higher?

I'm feeling a little concerned by all this. Anyone experienced anything similar with a new gfx card? Or with a 460 in particular? Any ideas as to what's going on? Is my card duff/one of the dying 460s I've heard about?

(I performed normal ATI driver removal procedure, and then ran DriverSweeper in safe more before installing Nvidia drivers. I've also disabled HD audio on the 460 in both Nvidia control panel and device manager in case that was causing conflicts).

 

[strumpusplunket]

The issues with corrupted sound, and long POST and boot-up times are at stock.

I've only benched Batman with my OC on, but I will just now try without and post back...

 

[strumpusplunket]

Update: yep. At stock, Batman benches 2FPS lower than with the OC on.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Thanks for the comparisons. Yeah, ok, maybe the performance is about standard then.

This does still leave the noticeably longer POST/startup times compared to the system with a 4870 in it.

And, even more irritating is the sound issue. I reran the Batman benchmark with PhysX on high after reading your posts, and the sound distorted almost immediately. So perhaps it is PhysX related. The trouble is it doesn't always go wrong straight away so it's hard to test for.

But why would PhysX cause this kind of issue, and is there anything I can do about it?

 

[strumpusplunket]

Yeah. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling my sound card as well, just in case.

Vexing, this be...

 

[strumpusplunket]

No, mate. One of the first things I checked. No IRQ conflicts with GFX card or HD audio and the sound card.

I really can't puzzle out what could be causing this. Never happened with my 4870 at all, and now has happened in two different PhsyX games on repeated but seemingly random occasions...

 

[strumpusplunket]

Yeah, I think I've come to terms with the performance now. Having run some other benchmarks, it seems about where it should be for the clocks I have it at now. A little bit behind most review sites' scores with similar 460 overclocks, but then I imagine that's because they tend to test on overclocked i7s and I have a Q6600...

Anyway, the longer POST/startup times are still annoying but I can live with them. The long time on the Windows welcome screen is a little bit worrying because I have read so many reports of the 460s malfunctioning after a couple of weeks with a permanent hang on the welcome screen. But then again, so long as mine just lingers there for an extra several seconds I can live with that too.

That does leave me with this sound issue that I've been mentioning. This clearly suggests something wrong somewhere in my setup, but I really can't figure out what it could be...