I'm At My Wit's End...

C

cabby

n00b
Joined
Dec 14, 2008
Messages
11
I've used 2 different mobo's(58X and a 680i), 2 different CPU's(a 920 i7 and a x6800 core2), 2 different video cards(1 GTX 280 and 2 different GTX8800's), installed and re-installed Vista64SP1 Ultimate 4 times, ran overclocked and underclocked and factory clocked, swapped and re-swapped BIOS, messed with driver settings until i'm blue in the face, and i still get this constant lock-up "Video Driver Stopped Responding" message after i Ctrl-Alt-Del out. Sent the error report to MS for a "solution" and the auto-reply: the problem was caused by the Nvidia driver. Of course it was.

The only thing i haven't tried yet is installing my copy of XP32 Pro. I hate to do it as i would have to dump 2 of my 3 2GB sticks of DDR3 :( I haven't been able to run a game for more than 30mins since i bought this copy of Vista64 a month ago. I like Vista64 but i cannot play my games with it installed.

Anyone else have this problem?

Drivers Used: 175.19 - 178.24 - 180.48
Ran SLI and no SLI. Ran CPU overclocked and factory clocked. CPU never exceeds 45C. Vid cards are stock-clocked. Temps never exceed 70C, usually around 54C. Machine runs Prime95 steady, no memory errors. PSU is a 1000W Corsair.

C.
 
need a little more info..... what drivers are ou trying to run???? this would help...... any overclocking??? how are your temps.?
 
What is the computer doing when the error happens? Games patched up? I run Vista x64 on my gaming rig that has an Evga 8800GTX and I dont get this error at all. It runs fine, even with two pairs of non-matching ram sticks (Corsair XMS DDR2 800 and Patriot Viper SLI DDR2 1066).
I do have on the 180.60's though. And I'de get the occasional crash in CODWaW.
 
PSU or the Case airflow sucks and the card is overheating. If your getting a 70c reading is it real time or after you leave the game? If its the latter than thats real hot
 
Your problem is most likely the system memory. Run memtest86 on your memory (burn a bootable CD). It's always found bad memory for me.

Or you can run your test which causes the error once with each stick of ram by itself.
 
As stated before, check the PSU and run memtest86. Also, do you have access to a different Vista CD that you can use to install with?
 
My money is on memory. Those nvidia driver issues in vista were known to be caused by bad or incompatible memory. Try bumping up the voltage to your ram and/or lowering the speeds or increasing the timings. As already suggested you can also try memtest, although that has been hit or miss for me in the past with ram issues.
 
From months of troubleshooting this problem myself I can confidently say its your memory, either system memory, or memory on the GFX card.

Memtest the memory at least 12 hours. If it passes, pull out each stick and memtest them separately for a few hours.

If it passes still, just run on one stick for a while and see if the problem persists. If it does, swap the sticks and use them individually until the problem stops. If the problem doesn't stop I'd say RMA any memory or video cards if you can.

If not, good luck living with it unless you wanna buy new equipment.
 
It's a well known problem. Somewhere around the 170's drivers it stopped happening to me, but now that I'm using the LATEST drivers, it's back.

No, it's not the memory (system nor video card).
No it's not my PSU (this is my third PSU and it's a kilowatt.)
No it's not my Vista install.
No it's not my cooling.
 
wasteomind said:
From months of troubleshooting this problem myself I can confidently say its your memory, either system memory, or memory on the GFX card.

Memtest the memory at least 12 hours. If it passes, pull out each stick and memtest them separately for a few hours.

If it passes still, just run on one stick for a while and see if the problem persists. If it does, swap the sticks and use them individually until the problem stops. If the problem doesn't stop I'd say RMA any memory or video cards if you can.

If not, good luck living with it unless you wanna buy new equipment.
Click to expand...
I'm beginning to suspect bad memory on my 280GTX SSC. I did a fresh Vista64 install and fresh 180.48 video drivers and put my SLI'd GTX8800's/w Zalman heatsinks/fans back in the X58 board. Machine tested OK, made sure everything was running cool, and i've been running games all day with no problems so far.

More exhaustive testing to come, i should have the cause of the lock-ups pinned-down by tomorrow....

C.
 
cabby said:
I'm beginning to suspect bad memory on my 280GTX SSC. I did a fresh Vista64 install and fresh 180.48 video drivers and put my SLI'd GTX8800's/w Zalman heatsinks/fans back in the X58 board. Machine tested OK, made sure everything was running cool, and i've been running games all day with no problems so far.

More exhaustive testing to come, i should have the cause of the lock-ups pinned-down by tomorrow....

C.
Click to expand...

Sounds very likely. I've been running V64 with 180.48 with all kinds of games. I built this 4-5 months ago and I haven't seen a driver crash yet :) Pretty stable here.
 
I know for me the vista nvidia driver errors were caused by my overclocks, oddly enough. I struggled with it for weeks only to find out that lowering the OC completely removed the error. Kind of nice when oc'ing now, since I know what that error means and don't have to go through BSOD's to find out my oc is unstable.
 
How new is your 280 GTX SSC? I had the same problem when I first received my GeForce 280 GTX SSC from mwave, after numerous Furmark testing (since I couldn't run Crysis for much longer or so than you could before the game crashed) I had come to the conclusion that I had a bad card.

I RMA'd it with an Advanced RMA, EVGA shipped my replacement card first under this process and all my issues were resolved... I gladly shipped the bad one back to them and have been going strong in Vista 64-bit with this new card since I received the replacement months ago.

Good luck with your situation!
 
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