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Nvidia Graphics Kernel driver crashing all the time

Defiant306

Defiant306

Defiant306

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18 Oct 2002
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South, Scotland
Hello

I purchased a Inno3D GTX 780 iChill HerculeZ X3 Ultra DHS Edition 3GB from OCUK at the start of the year and since then I've had a lot of Nvidia Graphics Kernal driver crashes with it. Up to this point I have put up with it as it was fewer with some of the games that I played at the start, but I completed a number of system upgrades of late and refreshed my Windows 8 install expecting that it was possible due to the OS.

It happens with 3D games, it wasn't to bad but happened in Hearthstone (Yeah it's 3D is not exactly taxing :rolleyes:), Civ 5, D3 and a few other games that I played through this year. But of late with the purchase of new games and resuming of MMO's have had no end of issues even lasting only 5 minutes in the likes of Endless Legend. MMO's like Star Trek and WoW will hang for 5-10 seconds while the Kernal fails and then recovers. Even Diablo 3 does it.

But the likes of Endless Legend and Heartstone fail and just continue fall over and over trying to recover to the point I give up playing. I have tried stock clocks on the CPU and I have no issues with non accelerated applications. I have also noticed that Flash, Firefox and Twitch is also another accelerated application that fails on a regular basis when I try to us them with a game on the other screen.

I have also tried full screen, windowed mode, window maxed with no real difference. The Inno3D GTX 780 isnt very taxed and I've ran the Inno overclocking application (Doesn't fully work btw) to monitor it as well as HW Monitor and they all show the card is cool and not taxed. I'm at a loss and I don't have spare hardware to swap out part to test each component of the PC, I believe (Rightfully?) that the card may be at fault, but I'm not 100%. Also I have tried about 10 different versions of the GeForce drivers as well with no change :/

So I'm looking for advise and help.
 
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The Soundblaster Z looks suspect in your sig. My brother had the same type of crash and we went right through changing every piece of hardware until we figured out it was the Soundblaster card X-Fi. I have had a couple in the past that caused lockups in games, black screens too. Bad drivers notorious for them. Not sure about the new cards though so it might be not the case.

Easy to test too as you have onboard sound or just remove it and play with no soundcard

He had the issue only in certain games, World of Tanks did it everytime but he could play LFD2 for hours without an issue.

We put an AMD 7850 in and no lock ups to prove it was just a nvidia cards issue.
Changed it to an ASUS sound card and no more issues.

just my two penneth.

dont understand this bit though

The Inno3D GTX 780 is very taxed and I've ran the Inno overclocking application (Doesn't fully work btw) to monitor it as well as HW Monitor and they all show the card is cool and not taxed.
Click to expand...
 
I went from a Asus D2X Xonar card to the SB Z card and I still had consistant issues with some games like HS, CIV 5 (Civ 5 can crash outright and artifact on the screen badly until the game hangs or becomes unreadable) and Firefox has not been any worse or better with Twitch, Flash and such are as bad as well.

All being said the OS doesn't crash, BS or reboot and stock speeds on the CPU and GPU give no difference to the issue. I have done some CPU burn in at stock and 4.3Ghz and all is stable with the memory as well.

I'm wondering if the card is flawed as these are handpicked chips as they are designed to be able to clock very high if you try. Not that I've tried due to the fact that Inno tweaking tool doesn't work well and they don't even host the tool on their website.

My previous Rig i7 930 (stock) with its motherboard from Jan to Aug also saw these card issues.

The only components that have been consistent have been the memory, PSU and GPU. PSU is rock solid and the memory on testing has given me no issues.

Anyone know of any checking programmes for NVidia cards?
 
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In the past, driver stopped responding errors happened for me. Loads was bad stick of ram, memtest86 showed loads errors.
And other times is if I run a unstable overclock on the GPU.
 
So you think its the Corsair 16Gb of system memory?

The GPU is designed as a higher output possible card for the core speed but I never use the tool to clock it higher so its sitting in NVidia's recommended range for core speeds.
 
I have an inno3d 780 non dhs edition and although my 780 works perfectly fine on my system i did have an issue with kernel errors on my old 670 which turned out to be a faulty stick of ram, it would not cause any problem at all when on the desktop or watching movies or any desktop related things.

It did however randomly give me kernel errors when playing certain games, i tried quite a few things but after testing both sticks of ram seperatly one of them caused the errors and the other was fine when only using one stick at a time.

I thought it was the card first, then thought it was the motherboard, then thought it could be my ageing 650w PSU, i RMA'd the memory and have never have the problem.


I can only think of updating the mobo bios, try 1 stick of ram at a time, or ask around for someone in edinburgh to test it for you in their computer.

Good luck
 
i had a problem with my gpu, it was caused by the nvidia audio drivers clashing with the onboard (which i was using) audio drivers. removing the nvidia audio sorted it for me.

my issue was not 100% the same, i was getting performance drops (sometimes to lower than my previous GPU)while playing games.
 
I have the same card and the same problem interesting enough :/ if I knock of 50mhz of memory and core it helps keep thinking its my psu hmmm
 
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kola said:
I have the same card and the same problem interesting enough :/ if I knock of 50mhz of memory and core it helps keep thinking its my psu hmmm
Click to expand...

Have you been overclocking it or running it at stock speeds with Nvidia own variable self speed stepping?
 
When ever I was getting nvidia driver crashing it used to be either conflict drivers or very high memory usage which turned out to be ram in high amount of cases the gfx card needed more voltage or knock down to stock
 
Under clocked the GPU and Memory 50Mhz each and so far Ive been playing Endless Legend without any crashes.

I used MSI's Afterburner program to do it.

I've now set the memory as I post this back to normal, the core is running at 1124Mhz instead of its peak 1174Mhz.

I'm beginning to think the bios setting for this card are to high for the chip when they set it after hand picking these. Not sure I can be bothered about pursuing a RMA for this.

If its rock for a while I might start edging the core limit up until I can find the peak, anyone know of a way to rewrite the Bios limits?
 
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if it is crashing on stock settings and you are having to under clock it to get it to run then it is faulty, I would RMA it, you might even get a 970 as a replacement which would be an upgrade, but I would ask what they intend to do before deciding to send it in (go through the retailer not direct)
 
andybird123 said:
if it is crashing on stock settings and you are having to under clock it to get it to run then it is faulty, I would RMA it, you might even get a 970 as a replacement which would be an upgrade, but I would ask what they intend to do before deciding to send it in (go through the retailer not direct)
Click to expand...

This tbh.

If it's crashing on stock clocks I'd say it's on the way out. They're open tomorrow give them a bell and see what they can do for you.
 
Well after what has been a harrowing year with my life I have finally plucked up the courage to deal with this issue. With the latest 2 sets of Geforce drivers my underclock of 100MHz on the GPU and Memory is no longer stopping the Kernel crashing and without the unclock playing a game just crashes the whole PC.

So tired of it all, fingers crossed I can get it all sorted.
 
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