8800GTS hardcore crashing in L4D2

xerus`

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 22, 2005
Messages
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Pretty straight forward issue. In L4D2 after a campaign or two, the game locks up with a looping sound effect playing. After about 10 seconds, both my monitors turn off as if they're getting no signal. This has also happened with Starcraft 2 beta on one occasion, but it's definitely more consistent with L4D2.

My current hardware:

Mobo: ASUS P5Q Deluxe
CPU: q6600 at 3.1ghz
RAM: 4gz OCZ Reaper or something
Video: BFG 8800GTS 640mb
PSU: OCZ modstream 520w

It seems like a hardware issue, and I haven't been able to find any other reports of a similar problem. I haven't been monitoring the temperatures of the GPU while in game, but I will start doing so. Any help is appreciated!
 
Certainly sounds like a temperature-related issue to me. If your card is overclocked, I would first start by setting it to default clocks.
 
Certainly sounds like a temperature-related issue to me. If your card is overclocked, I would first start by setting it to default clocks.

Card is at stock, and I have never attempted to OC it. Thanks though!

Also, now monitoring the temps with Everest and at idle the GPU is at 72, and the GPU Diode is at 79.
 
Clean out the GPU
Re-thermal paste the GPU cooler and GPU
Uninstall and reinstall latest or last working non-fucking up drivers from nvidia
Buy a new 8800GTS GPU cooler
Last resort is bake the card 375'F @ 8-10 minutes.

Hope it worked
 
I get this roughly once every other day in L4D2 (yes I play a lot) with my 8800GTX. Basically its going to lead up to your card dieing with the standard 2-3 year nvidia bumpgate problem.

My temps don't even hit 60 in L4D2 so heat is definitely not the issue.

I've had to bake my card 3 times now, right after baking it the crashing stops for a few weeks, then slowly comes back until its flat out artifacting when it crashes, and then artifacting in the BIOS.
 
Whoa okay, so I am not familiar with this baking the card thing. Is this a real solution to video card issues?

Edit: Haha I guess it is, interesting.

A lot of people have been saying that I should be able to run L4D2 at max settings with a solid framerate without any problems with my current hardware, but I couldn't even play on the highest settings without the frame rate dropping to 20-30 during really intense sequences. Sitting around in outdoor areas or just running through usually was at 60+, but as soon as any intense moments happen it drops down to somewhere around the 30 mark which is unplayable for me. I had to bump it down to medium settings. A friend of mine with a 7800gt says that they have no problem running it on maxed settings, and another friend of mine with an 8800GTS can also play with max settings and says his frame rate is fine...

Secondary edit: After talking to those that tell me they run at max and its fine, apparently anything around 30 and up is fine to them, but I like my games to be at the very least 60 fps during intense blood baths.
 
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situation update

I don't think it's heat related. I just had another crash, and this time I was monitoring the temps. The GPU was only at 75 when everything locked up.

I have no clue what is going on. My last guess is that my power supply is not keeping up, but this is pretty much the only game that does this : (
 
After a play session tonight with no crashes, I might have fixed it.

I downloaded evga precision and cranked my fan speed speed to 100% before I launched the game. The temp on the card must've dropped by 20C idle almost instantly. Looks like it might have been an overheating issue!
 
Of course I spoke too soon After my crash free play session of a few hours, I went back for more, but apparently this was too much to ask.

The crash this time was different though. The initial crashes were complete lock ups, followed by the monitors losing signal after 5 or 6 seconds. This time the monitors immediately turned off without warning, with the audio skipping in the background. I didn't get a chance to look at my temperatures at the time the crash happened, but there's no way the GPU could've been over 70.

So yeah, either I call it quits with this card, or I get a cooler I guess... but I'm still unsure that heat is the problem.
 
Since you don't think it's heat, try running Memtest to ensure your RAM is okay. If it tests out fine, check the CPU as well with Prime or Linx. If both test fine and you still get the crashes, undo any overclocking currently in effect, then try again. If, at stock speeds, you still get crashes, you probably want to try baking that card, or replace it. I would personally find it hard to justify spending the cost of a decent aftermarket cooler for a G80 8800GTS when you could put the money toward a newer card (even if you only bump up to a G92 card).

Good luck! Let us know your results.
 
So far I've run a memtest for 3 passes without any errors - 2 hours and 30 minutes in. Will let it run for a few more hours.

Also, out of curiosity I booted up the original left 4 dead and left it running when I went to sleep last night, and when I woke up the same crash had occurred that happens in left 4 dead 2. Very strange. So far this has happened in both L4D2 and L4D! Going to try some different games when I can.
 
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Sure is starting to look that way.

Memtest ran for 15 hours with 0 errors. Prime95 has run for 8 hours with no errors. I went back to stock settings, uninstalled and cleaned off drivers, reinstalled the latest drivers, and updated the BIOS to the latest revision and it still crashes after a little while of playing.

Looks like I'm calling it quits on this card unless anyone has any other ideas. I'm a little hesitant to do this baking thing... :I
 
Have you recently installed the latest drivers?
If so try rolling them back. I have an 8800gts(512) did not have any problems
with it for 18 months, installed the 257.21 drivers yesterday, and bam I'm blue-screening
because of nv4_disp.dll left and right. Temps are completely normal etc.

EDIT
just found this and I think that was actually my problem, since I did have youtube (among other things) running
during all those blue screens. At any rate I still think these new drivers are suspect.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1527315
Since it is related to Flash I can't be sure since I updated flash on the same day.
 
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I was having problems before I updated my drivers. Updated the drivers, still crash. I'll try a driver version from a couple months back.

Running older drivers now, just leaving the game running to see if it crashes or not.
 
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Whoa okay, so I am not familiar with this baking the card thing. Is this a real solution to video card issues?

Edit: Haha I guess it is, interesting.

A lot of people have been saying that I should be able to run L4D2 at max settings with a solid framerate without any problems with my current hardware, but I couldn't even play on the highest settings without the frame rate dropping to 20-30 during really intense sequences. Sitting around in outdoor areas or just running through usually was at 60+, but as soon as any intense moments happen it drops down to somewhere around the 30 mark which is unplayable for me. I had to bump it down to medium settings. A friend of mine with a 7800gt says that they have no problem running it on maxed settings, and another friend of mine with an 8800GTS can also play with max settings and says his frame rate is fine...

Secondary edit: After talking to those that tell me they run at max and its fine, apparently anything around 30 and up is fine to them, but I like my games to be at the very least 60 fps during intense blood baths.
What's your screen res? My old 8800GT can play the whole game throughout at 30++FPS, with every single in-game option cranked to max.
 
Interesting results with turning back to a 6 month old driver. So far Left 4 Dead 2 has been running for about 5 hours with no crashes. Will leave it on when I go to sleep and check it when I wake up to see what the result is.
 
Hopefully last update:

Left 4 Dead 2 has run continuously for about 14 hours without crashing, with 6 month old drivers + CPU overclocked to 3.2ghz. Looks like it was a driver issue. Although this problem gave me a great excuse to clean out my case, test all of my hardware, and overclock my CPU even more at the end. Hooray!
 
Nvidia's drivers onwards from 196.75 crashes for all 8""" series cards, regardless of stock or overclocked, nvidia doesn't give a fuck about there 8""" series on the windows 7 platform no more rather moving on support for last generations 2"" and current 4"" series only. My 8800GT's, 8500GT and 8600GTS all can't run without a bluescreen, crash or lockup even with the latest 257 drivers. So I'm using 192.61 for them.

Started happening since 197.""
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1508705&page=2
 
Nvidia's drivers onwards from 196.75 crashes for all 8""" series cards, regardless of stock or overclocked, nvidia doesn't give a fuck about there 8""" series on the windows 7 platform no more rather moving on support for last generations 2"" and current 4"" series only. My 8800GT's, 8500GT and 8600GTS all can't run without a bluescreen, crash or lockup even with the latest 257 drivers. So I'm using 192.61 for them.

Started happening since 197.""
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1508705&page=2

Wow, good call. I've experienced some flickering in the SC2 beta, and I think they started after I updated drivers. I always assumed that newer drivers were better, but I guess not for older cards.
 
Wow, good call. I've experienced some flickering in the SC2 beta, and I think they started after I updated drivers. I always assumed that newer drivers were better, but I guess not for older cards.

Yeah exactly the case I got did some benchmarks with various latest games and older ones with every driver updates I do, can't even finish them, because the benchmark would just start flickering then it will lockup and if I hit any key BSOD! Good Job nvidia.
 
thanks! just downgraded my certified drivers for 8800 gtx and seemed to fix my blue screens. Wonder if it was just a bad install the first time around or if the old drivers are the way to go?
 
some of the drivers for that card and other nvidia card drivers on the fan control topic clash with other software,what ends up happening is the fan speed never gets going the min the heat gets going = crash or even a dead video card

one quick way to fix this if the noise part doesn't bother you from having the video card fan on full all the time is to hardwire the thing right in to your psu

its a known problem and imho fan speed control should never have bin allowed on the driver side.
it should be done only in hardware from a hardware locked bios
 
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