Ripping my hair out 101

[Badfinger]

Howdy all, any thoughts on this one?

My computer WILL either crash to BSOD mentioning nv_disp or just turns off, usually I can hear some DEEP hardware sharp tones after the video has crashed, just before this happens. Not talking motherboard beeps or anything, maybe it's just a light screech coming from my speakers.

Let me mention that this ONLY happens when playing Everquest 2, and the time it takes to crash varies from about 1 hour to 4 hours, and I can reboot the PC and windows comes right up and I can load the game again immediately, this fact is what confuses me the most.

System Specs:

Gateway 827GM (actual motherboard is MSI-7093)
Video Card is a PCI-Express 16, Leadtek Winfast 6600 TD
I have had this happen with 1 gig or 2 gigs of DDR400 RAM installed.
I use Corsair XMS RAM with heat spreaders, not the cheap stuff.

I have replaced the PSU and video card, and it crashed as well.
But the crashes were INSTA-OFFs, 7900GT KO card and a Noise Taker II 600W power supply ($140), I returned them, and instead bought 1 gig of additional RAM and an Antec True Power 480 PSU. (this was today)

Alas the crash outs continued, with the 6600 TD card back in.

I was running a memory utility just to monitor how much was free, and when I had only 1 gig in the system, I was having EQ2 crash when ALL the memory got used up, this utility DID NOT try to clear and memory up, doing that caused too much in game lag.

I don't have a spare video card atm, so I was thinking of buying a 7600GS tomorrow locally for testing further, and then if it's still conking out on me, do the dreaded replace the motherboard routine.

I have updated both the motherboard BIOS and video card BIOS, and I have used several video card drivers, and did not help.

Currently using 84.25 drivers on a freshly installed XP.

I ran trial version of Sandra Pro, and it came up with nothing helpful.

If just surfing and general use, the PC never crashes.

Back when I played World of Warcraft, once if a while, I'd get a crash, but nothing like this.

I adjusted EQ2 so I was happy with the frame rates, using FRAPS to check those, and what I am doing in game didn't matter, or if in full screen mode or windowed mode, it would crash either way, either with complete freeze or just instant black screen on monitor, followed by power hang or BSOD.
Twice it had crashed while I was AFK idle in the game.

I think it's bad video card or motherboard, any other thoughts or theories appreciated, I've had 3 different Power supplies, so I'm ruling it out.

-Badfinger

 

[es84]

hi
the issue is with the nvidia geforce video drivers or with the card
we can isolate this by uninstalling the drivers , and then load the latest drivers from the nvidia webiste ,
then run the game , the system board is not causing this, i see that you have relaced the video card as well , this was a product specific
problem with geforce 5200 , i have not come accross this with a 6800 card , uninsstall all the drivers and use the drivers that originally came with the card , this works most of the time , other wise the card has to be replaced

 

[Badfinger]

es84,
Not sure I get your reasoning on why it has to be the video card, please elaborate.

I have used the latest drivers from the manufacturer's website and CD to no avail already, Leadtek is way behind, their NEW driver for this card is STILL 77.77

I tried the last 7x.xx put out I could find, 79.97 and it too crashed.
Let's see I had 91.28 Z-Tweaked, 84.21, 84.25, all loaded at some point with this card.

I suppose now i could try the on-board video, that being Radeon Xpress 200 and see if it does anything ODD, it's the typical on-board RAM sharing piece of pure heaven that the hardware gods like to stick to the masses. 8)

One thought I have held onto: If my motherboard was bad, I'd expect more trouble then just this...

-Bf

 

[altheman]

did you use a cleanup utility before installing new drivers from nvidia??

if not, then uninstall your display drivers, then use Driver Cleaner Pro to remove all traces of it. then go to nvidia's site and get the latest drivers, and try again.

 

[Badfinger]

I seem to recall saying that I wiped the system completely, nice product spam rather than a more helpful response?

The driver is NOT likely the problem, way too much emphasis put on whether the driver is cleared or not, the OS was cleaned out, it still crashed out.

In any case, I went and got the 7600GS and it's in there, but I haven't pushed EQ2 for hours on it yet, I'm using the driver that came on the CD: 83.91

It did play Painkiller Black cranked up in 1280 for about 15 mins with no issues at all, 60ish FPS when fighting.

I'm working on something else atm, but I will be pushing it very shortly.

-Bf

 

[taylub]

Hey i have the exact same problem with my 7900 gtx same error, but i fixed it by downloading a beta dirver for it. There was no non-beta driver compatible for it so i took a risk and fixed it.

 

[Badfinger]

I went beta as well believe me, no help, the 7900 series card was tripping out the power supply I bought which supposedly covered it's high power requirements, the 7900 series in general seems to be a very problematic right now, I wouldn't go with it until it matures, what I really hate though of course, once it matures, something better is already out.

In this case going cheaper is probably wiser/miser right now because Direct X 10 is coming, and there aren't ANY cards out yet that support it, the next big thing in graphics...

In Everquest 2, the 7900 card still wasn't a huge leap, that game though is top dog for pushing the envelope, but that was their plan though, for future hardware growth, so they claim (I am the eternal skeptic).

I finished Oblivion for all that it was worth to me within the first 2 weeks of release on my old 6600 card, very unimpressed with the game (and I mean gameplay), and I deleted it off the HD. I was new head of underground guild, arena champ, etc etc.

May have to reload for fun, now that I have had EQ2 spoil me a bit.

-Bf