8800 GTX & GTS Crashing

Yeah, posted it on the LoTRO forums as well. Didn't get any damn help there.
I noticed that my card has a whole buttload of thermal grease just oozing all over it. It looks like so much it's insulating, not cooling. Will it void my warranty to remove the cooler and get some of that crap off? Maybe put on some Arctic Silver?

I figure if I do that, it may help.
 
heh.. well, this is a better place to get some help for sure.. the stuff oozing out is the thermal padding stuff which is used to bridge the gap from the memory tops to the bottom of the sink.. it's not recommended to use AS5 in it's place because you'd had to use way to much of it to fill that space.. plus on memory chips using ceramique is preferred.. or something less conductive. in case of overspill.. So anyways, unless you have some good high quality thermal pads (or want to experiment with ceramique) for the memory chips, I'd leave the cooler on.. it you're having temp issues turn the fan up to 100% and see if it helps.
 
That's on the upper end of ok imo.. getting into the pretty warm area.. these cards can deal with load temps in the mid to high 80s with out too much potential for issues.. it would be better to shoot for 70s load temps.. but unless you're having stability issues I would say it's not a huge priority to re-think cooling at this point.
 
Hrm. After reading on the eVGA site that you're allowed to mod your card and still keep your warranty, I did it. I removed the wholely excess thermal paste and installed AS5 (Almost half a freaking tube, there's a lot of contact areas on those cards!). My card now idles at 69. I cranked the fan up to 99% and it's down to 62. Is it safe to game on? After the post about the RAMsinks, I'm a little paranoid. They look right against the card. Should be safe, right? I'd hate to start up a game and have it blowout my card's RAM due to putting better paste on it.
 
Good news. Works in gaming! Temps are 77 under load in Jade Empire for a few hours and it's solid as a rock. Now to test D&D Online & LoTR Online...
 
No luck here though. After about 5 minutes, she dies, as usual in DDO. I guess I'll try cranking the fan to 99% again and see if she still dies. If so, I've ruled out thermals and it's time for an RMA.
 
It always amazes me how badly the thermal paste is applied to these high end cards. It would not be such a suprise if sub 100$ would get bad threatment but these are 500$ cards we are talking about.

It would be nice to see what kinda squirting tool they are using to apply thermal paste @ factories :D
 
First time I've really looked at it, but you're right. They did a piss-poor job on it.
 
So the consensus seems like the factory puts too much thermal paste on these units?
 
Yeah I think they do put too much on there. I replaced the stuff on my 8800gts last night w/ AS5 - yeah it took a decent amount of it. But, I just spread it out w/ saran wrapped finger. I didn't mess w/ the memory chips though.
 
well - having not pulled one of these 8800 sinks I should prolly advise too much on what do do then.. maybe the gap is smaller then I thought.. it's great if you did pull the sink and cleaned stuff up, used AS5, what-not and all it working better now.. I thought maybe it would take too much AS5 to bridge the gap and it might get messy.. anyways.. glad that's working out for you. :)
 
So I've effectively eliminated thermals as the problem. In addition to the new paste, I set the fan to 99% and started up DDO. Crashed within 5 minutes as usual.

Dammit. What else could it be except drivers? I've installed the Feb. DirectX, latest mobo drivers (Striker Extreme, no network tool), no OC-ing, bought a new PSU (Corsair 620), installed a new fan in addition to my 2 120s... If there's any user error, please let me know. I keep my system obsessively upkept. It's defragged (PerfectDisk 8.0 - Latest build), definitely no viri or spyware... Is my only recourse an RMA?
 
So - you do have link boost enabled in the bios? if so, try disabling it, or just hard set your pci-e frequencies to 100mhz.. Link boost likes to run your pci-e frequencies very high (125mhz) but they should really be set to 100mhz each to meet pci-e spec.. while I have safely/stably run mine at 110mhz I like keep them at 105mhz now, personally. Also is Nvidia GPU Ex is enabled, try disabling that as well.. I doubt that's it, but who knows.. that's supposed to enable chipset optimizations when an Nvidia card capable of Ex is on the mobo.. I think tests results showed very little actual performance increase when it was working.. maybe 1fps..
 
Okay, I just realized that the fan on the videocard isn't even running! WTF! It's plugged into the board and everything but it doesn't move. Uhhhh....
 
revenant said:
So - you do have link boost enabled in the bios? if so, try disabling it, or just hard set your pci-e frequencies to 100mhz.. Link boost likes to run your pci-e frequencies very high (125mhz) but they should really be set to 100mhz each to meet pci-e spec.. while I have safely/stably run mine at 110mhz I like keep them at 105mhz now, personally. Also is Nvidia GPU Ex is enabled, try disabling that as well.. I doubt that's it, but who knows.. that's supposed to enable chipset optimizations when an Nvidia card capable of Ex is on the mobo.. I think tests results showed very little actual performance increase when it was working.. maybe 1fps..
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Hey, thank you for the explanation of NVidia GPU Ex. I've been wondering what the hell that is in my BIOS (KN9 32X Fatal1ty). I didn't enabled it since I didn't know what it was, and have my PCI-e locked at 100, but apparently it wasn't necessary anyway. Cool.
 
Had them both enabled before I did my cooling stuff and disabled them. It crashed. I re-enabled them.

Does anyone play DDO or LoTRO that also has an 8800? Mine and my buddy's cards both do it (Crash like a mofo in those games). It can't be something on my system alone.
 
I play LOTRO on my 8800s in SLI and it does work fine for me.. so I know the game works well on these cards.. I don't have the hi-res client install tho.. I hope to get that tonight.. I know how it feels to have a $4K comp and not have it work right.. really frustrating.. I went through that all last month with motherboards, chasing some strange issues out of my system.. anyways.. at any point did LOTRO work ok on your machine? I was thinking maybe you could use system restore to go back to that point.. hrm.. becareful with that tool as it can wipe stuff off your desktop and such.. store files you want to keep which might have been put on there at a point after you want to restore to.. I like to put them on my USB drive just to be extra safe, lol.
 
At no point has it worked. I've had an 8800 for as long as I've been in the beta.
It works when I play it on a 7950, but I'm not about to switch back.
 
hrm.. well, that sucks.. maybe try validating your card is ok by DLing atitool and run the artifact scanner to see if there are any detectable artifacts.. your card might just be marginal.. enough to mess with some games.. I know LOTRO is very sensitive on my cards.. I can only run with a very conservative overclock of 600/1900.

EDIT: also, one other thing.. have you done a full driver clean and re-install of the 97.92s? or whatever driver you like.. anyways, that can help.. sometimes strange files left behind by lots of driver installs can mess with things also.. I like driver cleaner pro. use the "nvidia" key word for the clean, then re-install freshly downloaded drivers. see what happens. good luck!
 
I hope that works! I was also thinking, is your psu the one with 3x 18amp 12v rails? maybe you're maxing one of the rails out? does your pc instantly and spontaneously reboot when the game crashes?
 
No, it goes to the bluescreen as it dies. DriverCleaning didn't work either. Installed a new fan as a blowhole too. Nothing. Gonna install a friend's XFX 8800 GTS and give that a shot.
 
foo! ok, yes, good idea.. see if the issue follows the card or not.. maybe let the friend try your card also.. ?
 
But WHY in only those games? Why NOT in those others? It's something very specific.. (Gotta wait until he finishes playing Black & White 2 to get the card)
 
My other LOTRO buddy says when he plays it his mobo makes noise.. like it's working the system harder than with other games.. so maybe it's just that.. it's stressing your machine somewhere which it hasn't been hit with many other games..

Are you OCing your processor or memory at all? I see stock in your 1st post.. but wanted to see if you were playing with that at all.. maybe try setting your memory timings to "2t" (command rate) just to loosen them up.. I have seen mem issues which were only present with certain games.. guild wars used to lock my amd system up because of too tight timings.. but everything else worked great..
 
maybe try relaxing your memory timings..(try "2t") or up the vdimm just a little?... if it's not drivers, and the pci-e freqs are locked @ 100, and it's only on these two games.. and the card passes atitool (you should let it run for a while longer than 11 mins for full validation, but that's good enough for now).. anyways.. I am starting to think it might not be the video card.. but that's just a hunch.
 
Still testing, but apperantly it's fixed by lowering the timings to 2t from 1t. Odd. I'll let you guys know if this worked for sure very soon.
 
Kensaku said:
I hate my life. My $4000 computer can't even run for 5 mins.
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I can't agree more! I spend so much money on computer parts to be sure that I run vista with gaming but it all came down to the drivers but, heck when it works its a fast pc :p
 
Have you guys tried runing nvidia stability test for at least an hour , or it crashes in there too?

Also try disabling onboard sound device
 
Fox_T said:
Have you guys tried runing nvidia stability test for at least an hour , or it crashes in there too?

Also try disabling onboard sound device
Click to expand...

For me the test runs for about 15mins before a blue screen, and yes I disable my onboard sound becuase I use an X-FI.
 
acetken said:
Still testing, but apperantly it's fixed by lowering the timings to 2t from 1t. Odd. I'll let you guys know if this worked for sure very soon.
Click to expand...

sweet.. I hope that did it.. yeah, sometimes a game will just push the system harder and trigger any sort of unstable setting you have.. however minor it is.. anyways..

happy friday. yay.. I'm going to play some lotro tonight and this weekend. wewt!
 
LOCO LAPTOP said:
For me the test runs for about 15mins before a blue screen, and yes I disable my onboard sound becuase I use an X-FI.
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I thought you did:) ... I tried runing mine for 30mins -all tests pased, didn't try any longer than that though, might leave it on overnight to c if mines crashing too. good luck
 
Okay, dropping it to 2t doesn't STOP crashes, just lessens them. Now it takes about 10 or 15 minutes to bomb instead of 5. Tried adjusting the settings to Auto (5-5-5-18-1t - Ugh. Stupid game...) And am trying it with this. If all else fails, I have an 8800 GTX ACS3 coming. If a new card don't fix it... My head a splode.
 
I've been going thru all sorts of fits with my system. I've tried both the Asus Striker Extreme and the EVGA 680i SLI mb's and I'm getting freezes and lockups in 3DMark06. My system is running with stock settings and I've tested the cpu and the ram thouroughly to eliminate them as the source of these lockups. I believe it's either a video card/driver issue. I'm only running XP, haven't tried Vista yet as I wanted to be sure my system was totally stable before introducing any new headaches. I tried one game Dark Messiah Might and Magic and it locks up seconds after starting the game. I'm ready to swap the 8800 out and replace it with my X1950 XTX.
 
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