Death of a GTX460?

C

CHUFLY29

Weaksauce
Joined
May 27, 2008
Messages
111
So, last night while playing DX:HR my computer hard locked. I powered it down, and after a few seconds I brought it back up. Half way through loading Windows, it blue screened citing "nvlddmkm.sys" as the culprit.
I started by booting into safe mode, to do a re-install of the drivers. In order to keep it simple I selected only the graphics driver along with the "Perform Clean Install" option. That resulted in the installed saying that it failed, but stating that the driver was actually installed. I decided then to boot back Windows to see if that helped, but the BSOD's continued. Back to safe mode I went, and removed the device completely from device mangler. On the next go around, I let W7 detect the card, oddly enough all it did was install a basic VGA driver. I then downloaded the NVidia beta drivers (285.27) and gave that a shot. Much to my surprise the installed worked (or at least finished without throwing an error). I booted back into Windows and was able to fire up DX:HR but it would crash out after about 5 minutes (I was running Afterbuner at the time to monitor temps and they were fine ~50-60 C).

I moved onto other possibilities and ran a battery of tests to test my chip OC (25 passes in LINX and 0 errors), memtest which reported no errors, and a few HDD test (WD Diag, chkdsk) which reported nothing amiss with my drive. Lastly, I tried running Furmark, but all it resulted in was hard lock of the PC.

Does anyone on [H] have any other suggestions for tests or should I just call it quits on this card and head to Newegg for some shopping?

EDIT: RMA is not possible since the original sales receipt cannot be found (which Palit needs for the process to happen)
 
Last edited:
check the warranty first, the 460 hasn't been out that long, it should be under almost any manufactuer's warranty.
 
H-street said:
check the warranty first, the 460 hasn't been out that long, it should be under almost any manufacturer's warranty.
Click to expand...

Yea, funny story about that (should have included that in my original post). I purchased this from a friend, who in turn had purchased it from Microcenter. Palit won't do any RMA work without the original sales receipt (no surprises there). However, the big burn is that my friend no longer has the receipt, and Microcenter was unable to print out a copy (I assumed they might have something in their system).
 
Have you tried to contact palit? typically the sales receipt is only used to show date of purchase. if no receipt they would go off the manufacturing date.

I'm a little suprised microcenter couldn't bring up the receipt though, how long have you /friend had the card?
 
Is the fan working? How long are you able to run the card in Windows without playing games? My first guess would be overheating since it's only happening in 3d apps. If that's not the case, try reseating the card (take it out entirely and put it back in). I always suggest people reseat their cards when running into any video card problems. Sometimes it is a simple fix to an otherwise frustrating situation.
 
That's pretty chintzy of them, as the cards have only been out 14 months (and I'm sure their warranty is at least two years).
 
Thanks for your answers so far [H]'ers!

H-street said:
Have you tried to contact palit? typically the sales receipt is only used to show date of purchase. if no receipt they would go off the manufacturing date.

I'm a little suprised microcenter couldn't bring up the receipt though, how long have you /friend had the card?
Click to expand...

I'll loop around with MC again, I was on the phone with a rep when I asked so it's quite possible they were busy (or didn't care) and didn't actually check

defaultluser said:
That's pretty chintzy of them, as the cards have only been out 14 months (and I'm sure their warranty is at least two years).
Click to expand...

I don't think the warranty period is in question, rather the lack of a original sales receipt. They state on the web site that if you purchased it from a vendor, that you must go through them for the RMA process. That being said, I did contact Palit through e-mail and they were willing to work with me but still required the original sales receipt.


CruisD64 said:
Is the fan working? How long are you able to run the card in Windows without playing games? My first guess would be overheating since it's only happening in 3d apps. If that's not the case, try reseating the card (take it out entirely and put it back in). I always suggest people reseat their cards when running into any video card problems. Sometimes it is a simple fix to an otherwise frustrating situation.
Click to expand...

I did reseat the card, but what I didn't try is moving do a different PCI-E slot (been burned by that before). I'll give it a shot when I get home.
 
If you can't RMA it then try baking it...nothing to lose at that point.
 
tricky0502 said:
how old is your psu?
Click to expand...

The PSU is quite new. I recently had it swapped out recently (used to have a HX520W).

Well, my swap to a different PCI-E card didn't work out, same behavior when I fired up Furmark or a game. I did verify though that the temps aren't rising to anything ridiculous and that the fan is spinning. I'll check one last time with Palit and MC. If nothing comes of that I guess it'll be off to NewEgg for a new card. Thanks again for people's reply.
 
tricky0502 said:
how old is your psu?
Click to expand...

I think tricky might be on to something. Perhaps it's your PSU giving out. It's a 520Watt and you have a GTX 460 overclocked and a CPU overclocked. Maybe the PSU is starting to show it's age, specifically when the video card and the processor are stressed at the same time. .

Check with another PSU if possible.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
I think tricky might be on to something. Perhaps it's your PSU giving out. It's a 520Watt and you have a GTX 460 overclocked and a CPU overclocked. Maybe the PSU is starting to show it's age, specifically when the video card and the processor are stressed at the same time. .

Check with another PSU if possible.
Click to expand...

The PSU in my sig was wrong (corrected now), I got a HX650w to replace the aging HX520w. My mistake :)

That being said, it's probably a good step to try just to cover all my bases.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top