# XFX Nvidia 9800 GT problem



## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+
ASUS M3N78-EM motherboard
nVidia MCP78 chipset
2x 2GB RAM sticks
nVidia GeForce 9800 GT
nVidia MCP77/78 - High Definition Audio Controller

The problem:

I bought this card about four months ago, maybe even more, and this problem was there from day one. When running any 3D game the system will just lock up completely after a random amount of time, sometimes it's happened within seconds and others it could be a few hours but it always locks up the exact same way: no artifacts, no error messages, monitor doesn't stop displaying, the sound will stutter in a fast loop for a few seconds and then silence and a frozen screen, requiring a hard restart.

I've read heaps of threads from people with similar problems but no matter what I've done the problem persists.

What I've tried:

Different drivers, around five other versions more or less.
Upgrading the motherboard's bios, installing the latest chipset(The chipset also happens to be nvidia).
Upgrading the power supply(had a 450w previously, changed to an 800w) with 26 amps on both 12v rails.
Disabling the Nvidia audio drivers. I had heard that sometimes conflicting audio drivers could cause lockups but I was hesitant to uninstall the drivers altogether because I didn't know if it would affect the rest of the Nvidia package.
Turning off antialiasing, heard that the 9800 cards sometimes had issues with this.
Freeing up page pool memory, it currently doesn't exceed 80k.
Checking for IRQ conflicts, I didn't see any but the option to change it wasn't allowed to begin with.
Running games without sound.
Torture tested the card.
Monitoring the voltage and temperature with Asusprobe, it sits around 60c idle and 70-73 under load, have never seen it go higher than 73 other than during the torture tests, temperature doesn't seem to be a factor in the lock ups. Voltage hovers within acceptable ranges, the Vcore goes anywhere from 1.15 to 1.34. These games aren't terribly high end, it seems that anything 3D at all causes lock ups.
Reinstalling Directx.
Wiping the OS and reinstalling.
Disabling SLI.
Onboard graphics are supposed to be disabled whenever another GPU is present, there doesn't seem to be any option to force them off in the BIOS.

The thing is this ONLY happens with 3D games. I can browse the web or play 2D games until the cows come home but the moment I start playing a 3D game it's like an invisible countdown starts and the system eventually locks up. *The problem vanishes if I remove the card and use the onboard graphics.*

If anyone has any other solutions at all I'd be greatly appreciative, it seems like this problem just doesn't want to be solved.


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

The crashes seem to happen with watching video as well, but it didn't lock up. The bottom half of the video had slow white lines drawn across it until the whole bottom was white and the screen went black with a No Signal message shortly after. I checked the event viewer and found this:

*The description for Event ID 14 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: 

\Device\Video4
CMDre 00000001 00000000 00000000 00000001 00000001*

I installed the latest drivers just a few days ago, does anyone know what error could mean?


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## csc2000e (Sep 1, 2008)

70C-73C is a bit hot. I have a 9600gt and I used to have the same problems when its temps reached 70C or so. You might try clearing your 9800gt of any dust or dirt that may have accumulated over time. And make sure its seated correctly in the pci-e slot.
Have you tried increasing the fan speed? Mine is always at 100%. Programs like RivaTuner or the EVGA Precision tool software will allow you to adjust it.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

What power supply brand and model are you currently using?
Is this an SLI setup?


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. I'm currently using an "A-Power AK 800W 20+4-pin ATX PSU w/SATA + PCIe" as the power supply, have reinstalled the card into the motherboard again to make sure it's correctly seated and connected to the PSU but the problem hasn't gone away. It's just the card by itself though, no SLI. Could there be some kind of driver clash from the nForce chipset drivers for the onboard video and the drivers for the card since they're both nVidia? 
I'll give the fan speed increase fix a try and see if that helps.


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

I thought it was fixed for a while, toning down the fan speed seemed to do the trick as I was able to play a 3D game for a few hours with no problems but after logging out I decided to play a game on Yahoo with a friend and it crashed about ten minutes into it, this time there was a lot of distortion on the screen, really small horizontal white lines all over the place. I was actually able to move the mouse around for a few seconds but then the video died and the no signal message displayed, this was all with the GPU at 58c. Nothing logged in the event viewer either, I'm stumped.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

What are you seeing for CPU temp and voltages after playing for a while?


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

I monitored the CPU temperature and voltages once I think and that was the one time the program I was running crashed just seconds into starting it. The CPU temperature never seems to get very hot, it sits at around 44c idle and maybe 50ish under load, the voltage hovers around 1.15-1.4, around the upper levels of that range while gaming. The +12 is anywhere from 11.9 to 12.1. 
I had ruled it out after having a crash so early into the program and the Vcore at what seemed to be a really stable number, is it possible it could still be the cause even if the system runs the same program without errors when the video card is removed?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Don't worry about the Vcore just the 12v and 3.3v, the temp looks ok. With the card installed the PC needs more power then when using the integrated, rating wise 800w is more then you need if it is actually putting out that much a lot of these supplies are rated at a low temp (lower then they actually run) so the real output is lower then stated, the 9800 like most high power cards needs clean stable power.
See if you can monitor the 12v under load we see problems starting around 11.7v.

Did you remove the drivers for the integrated video before installing the drivers for the card?


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

The integrated video drivers were a little tricky, they came with the nForce chipset and the system automatically downloads and installs them on startup if they aren't present. I'm not sure how to remove the integrated video drivers without removing the rest of the chipset but I'll try monitoring the 12v voltages under load. The strange thing is I ran a 3D game for hours with no issues but the actual crash happened a good while after playing a doodling game on Yahoo.


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

The voltages seem to be okay, I watched them for around an hour or two while doing activities that it's crashed during before. The 12v was at 12.09 or 12.03 most of the time, it dipped down to 11.79 once throughout the entire monitoring but other than that it was always above 11.85. 

This time it crashed differently though, very thick multicolored lines(rectangles even) flickered across the top of the screen right before the crash. The voltage was at 12.03 at the time and the event log doesn't show anything out of the ordinary. I've disabled just about everything related to 3D acceleration on the nVidia control panel so that could be why the crash is different this time, but it does still crash during the same activities.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Contact XFX I think you need to RMA the card. 
However be aware that a swing from a low of 11.79 to a high of 12.09 is not a sign of a stable PSU.


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

Darn, well I guess if that's what it is that's what it is. I've had a support ticket opened with XFX on Saturday so hopefully they'll get around to it on Monday, many thanks for helping me diagnose the problem! Looks like it's back to onboard graphics for a while.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Let us know how it goes.


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## Reki (Mar 27, 2008)

Hey, I hate to bring this thread back from the dead but I was curious if anyone has heard of a USB mouse driver conflict causing lockups? I had a very strange lockup earlier where the computer locked up and the sound looped for a few seconds but this time it returned to normal. 

However, after it returned to normal the mouse would freeze every three seconds or so, at first I thought it was the video card freezing the entire system every few seconds but I found I could navigate just fine with the keyboard and the computer was running fine, the video card was only at about 61c then as well but the mouse continued to freeze every few seconds. It would explain why the computer wouldn't freeze on a 2D game I play as it's entirely controlled by the keyboard and would freeze on something simple like a Yahoo browser game (it was a drawing game with the mouse). I'm going to try using a different mouse and seeing what happens (using a USB razer mouse at the moment), does that theory make any kind of sense to anyone?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Try a generic mouse but remove all the razer drivers first.


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## lazerlord (Nov 9, 2010)

I suggest installing Nvidia's Ntune. control GPU fan to make it around %50 of 50*C around 5 min before you start the game (I say 5 min so that it cools it down before you start).


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