NF3 + 6800 + 7x.xx drivers = game freezing issue

[dmagro]

Being in the same boat as many of you, and finally so pissed off that I can't run certain games, I've got to do something about it now.

How many of you have switched to an alternative video card to remedy the situation? I'm considering that but would love to hear how well that worked out for people who already went through with it.

 

[GatorFX]

It's usually much cheaper to switch to a VIA Pro Mainboard than to buy a different AGP card. My BFG 6800 GT OC 256MB AGP card was @ $399 when I bought it, a bit cheaper now (@ $299 at some stores). My ASUS A8V Deluxe with VIA K8T800 Pro Northbridge cost me @ $119 plus tax/S&H and it completely solved ALL my graphics problems with my 6800 card, seriously! All I had to do was get rid of my nForce boards and switch to the VIA Pro. Now Doom3 and everything else I throw at it runs flawlessly!

P.S.,
Trying to run Doom3, in particular and for example, would freeze on screen, sending my audio into a loop, it would lock up my computer for several minutes, often needing a hard reboot just to get out of it, on and on... This only happened with nForce boards and no longer with VIA Pro. It may very well be that the nForce chipset lacks the voltage requirements to drive GPUs like the 6600 and the 6800 but this is only a guess. Why else would a VIA Pro board run beautifully with my 6800 card now? No games have problems anymore, not one. I've even downloaded demos of games I don't have, to try and choke my graphics with the VIA Pro Mainboard. So far, it can't be done. Nothing slows it down now, nothing!

 

[dmagro]

It's usually much cheaper to switch to a VIA Pro Mainboard than to buy a different AGP card. My BFG 6800 GT OC 256MB AGP card was @ $399 when I bought it, a bit cheaper now (@ $299 at some stores). My ASUS A8V Deluxe with VIA K8T800 Pro Northbridge cost me @ $119 plus tax/S&H and it completely solved ALL my graphics problems with my 6800 card, seriously! All I had to do was get rid of my nForce boards and switch to the VIA Pro. Now Doom3 and everything else I throw at it runs flawlessly!

P.S.,
Trying to run Doom3, in particular and for example, would freeze on screen, sending my audio into a loop, it would lock up my computer for several minutes, often needing a hard reboot just to get out of it, on and on... This only happened with nForce boards and no longer with VIA Pro. It may very well be that the nForce chipset lacks the voltage requirements to drive GPUs like the 6600 and the 6800 but this is only a guess. Why else would a VIA Pro board run beautifully with my 6800 card now? No games have problems anymore, not one. I've even downloaded demos of games I don't have, to try and choke my graphics with the VIA Pro Mainboard. So far, it can't be done. Nothing slows it down now, nothing!

Good idea. I'm not sure what video card I would get to replace the 6800 GT anyways. I'll be looking for a 754 pin CPU motherboard for the amd64 3000 and bfg 6800 gt I guess.

 

[GatorFX]

Yep, I tried everything that was ever suggested and then some, to get my 6800 to work with two different nForce3 boards plus one nForce2 board and nothing worked. I have an AMD64 FX-53 CPU and the ASUS A8V Deluxe which is Socket 939. Wish you could see how well it all runs now, it's truly incredible. It's what I had always expected to see after spending all that $$$ to get good graphics performance. Really pissed me off too that I had those nForce problems, cost me too much time and money trying different power supplies, memory, monitors, CPUs, settings...stupid useless things that other people suggested and it all came down to the incompatibility of the nForce chipset! This rig is SWEET now, giving me 3DMark03 points of over 13,000 and beautiful, lag-free/stutter-free graphics. My GeForce FX 5200 (garbage) only gave me @ 1,000-1,200 points and lagged worse than a three legged dog. Now I don't need to buy all PCI-E stuff and I just keep my old hardware, just used the new VIA board and all is razor sharp and Laser fast!

 

[[Retaliation]]

well...i guess i should consider myself lucky or something...my MSI K8N Neo 2 was giving me issues when i 1st bought it(about 2 months ago) all i did was get away from the 7x.xx series drivers..im on 81.98 now...i updated my nforce drivers a week ago...no issues there either...eveything is on (vids oc'd)...GART is installed...its just like every other box ive built...BF2 runs better now than it ever has...none of my games have any issues what so ever

 

[GatorFX]

@ Retaliation,

Wow, maybe waiting for the NVIDIA update would have helped me too. I just had way too many months of aggrevation and wasted way too much money to wait any longer, believing that there was nothing more that could be done. Glad to hear you're not having any more issues with nForce and a 6600-6800 graphics card. You should consider yourself lucky as anyone not having this problem should feel. I was still having problems even well into the 8x.xx series of drivers but got rid of my nForce3 board prior to the release of NVIDIA version 81.98, the one I'm using now with my VIA Pro and 6800 card. Wish I was in your shoes, if I still had the nForce3 board. At least my computer does what it's supposed to now and runs all games well too. I'm really glad to hear your MSI K8N Neo 2 is OK now. I hope the same can be said for others now as well. I guess time will tell if the new driver does the trick. That would be great!

 

[oldpablo]

In case others missed it, I too am back to normal after the last few drivers were released. Currently using the latest versions of both drivers (forceware/nforce) and all is well. For those of you still having the issues, be aware that it may no longer be the same issue.

 

[Nazo]

All I can say is it wasn't gone a month or so ago. I had the 7x.xx drivers on my 6800 and stutters and freezes like crazy. NVidia WILL eventually fix it by pure accident if nothing else probably, but, you may have a long wait in for you if you plan to wait for that to happen. Personally, I'm not so patient and just went straight for the best I could get while I could still get it (they pulled this particular one off of the catalogs and ATI hasn't made any more for a while yet, so I got it just in time.)

 

[dmagro]

Yesterday I tried the latest drivers 8x.xx, and reinstalled my GART drivers. Quake 4 ran pretty good, for a change, but I was still only running it at 800x640. It had me excited though, I thought the new drivers actually had fixed it. Unfortunately, the next game I tried, World of Warcraft, had constant flickering of the screen, so I shut it down, rebooted, tried again, same thing. Oh well.

I then went back to the 6x.xx drivers while keeping GART drivers installed, and it was back to the momentary freezes.

So it looks like a new motherboard for me. I'm really dissapointed in Nvidia, although I continue to love their products. This may well have been the last time I'll consider a motherboard from them.

PS: Any suggestions as where to look for a 754 pin AGP motherboard that's up there in the "best bang for the buck" category?

 

[Nazo]

DFI makes some VIA based socket 754 boards. Those are definitely bang for the buck, just a lot of bucks to be honest. Well, I guess as far as cheaper systems go, you could try maybe someone like EPoX. I set someone up with an EPoX VIA board recently because it was cheap. It was a 939 board though. I think it had the same overclocking features my current board has, which aren't bad at all.

BTW, while I'm thinking of it, I should warn people that we can't entirely trust VIA either. Look up forums talking about the Envy24 soundcards if you want to see what I mean. Just like nVidia, they toss out some drivers and just leave everyone to their own devices on these things. If you have a problem, well, good luck. Maybe you'll figure it out if you're lucky. They sure aren't going to help... *sigh* These days I find myself hard pressed to find ANY company out there that makes hardware (and the same applies to software) which isn't just reprehensible. The 8T800 chipset seems to be pretty decent from what I've seen so far though. I think mainly you just are going to have to rely on getting support from the manufacturer of the board, not the chipset. I know at least EPoX has responded to my tech support questions, even if they still haven't figured out how to fix the 1T timing issue on this board. They at least pretend to try if they don't actually try (I'm not really sure which, the 1T timing issue sounds like it's pretty elusive,) which, in my book puts them far ahead of companies like nVidia who can't even be bothered with a safe response like "we are looking into it."

 

[GatorFX]

Nazo is right, as many VIA chipsets have problems but I've had no problems with the K8T800 Pro I'm using now. I have other VIA boards that just don't play well with certain memory types too.

I take it you're trying to stick with an AGP Mainboard, so you can use your AGP card? If so, they're getting harder and harder to find. I did see a couple of Socket 754 VIA K8T800 boards at TigerDirect, one a DFI with the K8T800 Pro and one was an EPOX with the K8T800. I like Gigabyte tech support the best and I own many still but the Gigabyte AGP boards I see left are all nForce3, not VIA K8T800 and the same boards I had trouble with. Looking at these two Socket 754s, at TG, I'd most likely go with the DFI and the Pro chipset but I've had no experience with their tech support. I have contacted EPOX before and they do get back with you and try their best to be helpful. It's a tough call, given the slim pickings right now of AGP boards. I really believe going with the VIA K8T800 would be your best bet as far as compatibility with a 6600 or 6800 graphics card, only because mine works extremely well with a BFG 6800 card.

 

[Nazo]

Newegg has no shortage: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ice=&MaxPrice=&SubCategory=22&Submit=Property

That result includes the nForce boards (and I noticed that while I find S939 DFI NF3 lanparties impossible to find, the 754s are still in production apparently, or at least not sold out,) so you'll have to exclude them, but, you'll find there's quite a number of non-NF3 boards too. AGP isn't dead yet, and 754 users have an even easier time getting an AGP system since everyone just simply assumes S939 users wouldn't even THINK of keeping a high end AGP card. (Everyone but ULi.) Do some research on the ULi chipsets, they may be good. I researched on the new S939 chipset that allows 8x AGP and 16x PCI-E on the same board and it seemed impressive, except that the test board had little to no overclocking options and the one and only board I find out there right now is missing memory voltage controls for no reason (hey, it's a super-generic el-cheap brand, what do you expect,) but, I don't know anything about their previous chipsets. The fact that they are the only ones out there who seem to give a rat's rear end about us AGP users made me feel pretty happy towards them though. ^_^ VIA's solution to the problem is just demote the AGP card to a PCI card, and nVidia's is just ignore us until we go away (I swear that I just want to throttle some necks right now...)

 

[cherrypik]

Just wondering if I might have this problem. I just upgraded my MB from Asus K8V-SE Deluxe to the DFI Lanparty nf3 250gb. I currently have a A64 3000+(754), PNY 6800 with 2GB of Corsair RAM. I haven't got the MB yet.

 

[Nazo]

I'm sorry, we can't tell you anything for certain except that it's most likely to happen when you have a 6800 and a socket 939 nForce 3 motherboard. There are other combinations of hardware that have the same or very similar problems, and sometimes even with the combination of the 6800+nF3 ultra the problem just doesn't occur. Earlier someone has mentioned that they actually borrowed the precice same model video card from a friend and ran it in their system and it didn't have the problem while their own card did have the problem. In other words, the only way to know if it's going to happen is to fire up the system and run a game that will show the problem in an obvious manner. Right now no one has been able to guess just exactly what the cause is enough to figure out how to know in advance if you'll run into the problem or not.

Sorry, wish we could help you. You'll know soon enough anyway I guess. I'm not sure about socket 754 though. I think I've seen people mentioning problems with it too, so I don't assume you're safe by any means. I just think it's supposed to be the ultra that is most likely to show the bug.

 

[oldpablo]

754 does it as well (I'm 754), in the beginning I actually wondered if it was only 754 and not 939.

 

[[Retaliation]]

i no longer have the email from BFG..but the short of it is...that theres an issue with some pc's with the 64 bit architecture and the way it communicates with the NF3 chipset..something about(some pc's cant handle the speed)..and they also went on to say that many forums are rampant with ppl and this issue..and that its also ATI users having this problem(although ive yet to see an ati user having issues)

 

[AlexC]

I am having the exact same problems. Nothing helps but running 6x.xx drivers. Try running HL2 or BF2 with those drivers. I researched this video card for weeks prior to purchasing and now I feel I have been abandoned with crappy hardware and no support. BFG tells me its a common issue and there is nothing they can do.

AMD64 3200+
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum
BFG 6800GT OC
2gb Corsair XMS

PS: I have tried different motherboards, processors (754 and 939), ram, power supplies (Antec True Blue 480, Antec Truepower 480, and Antec True Control 550), and hard drives. The ATI is the only video card that works.

 

[[Retaliation]]

I am having the exact same problems. Nothing helps but running 6x.xx drivers. Try running HL2 or BF2 with those drivers. I researched this video card for weeks prior to purchasing and now I feel I have been abandoned with crappy hardware and no support. BFG tells me its a common issue and there is nothing they can do.

AMD64 3200+
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum
BFG 6800GT OC
2gb Corsair XMS

PS: I have tried different motherboards, processors (754 and 939), ram, power supplies (Antec True Blue 480, Antec Truepower 480, and Antec True Control 550), and hard drives. The ATI is the only video card that works.

im wondering if you can tell me what vid drivers you have tried,your mb driver version #...do you have your GART drivers installed? you and i have the same vid card..and damn near the same mb(yours only has more speed on the lan and extra firewire over mine) and my box runs just fine...maybe its something simple..id be glad to try and see if i can fix it for u...you never know

 

[seanmcd]

The only time I had issues with this combination (I used to have MSI K8N Neo2, BFG 6800 GT OC) was when I had fast writes enabled, and or the MSI CORECenter utility running. I definitely couldn't run the CoreCenter utility while playing games. It often resulted in BSOD's actually. Other than that - the combination ran flawlessly.

 

[[Retaliation]]

The only time I had issues with this combination (I used to have MSI K8N Neo2, BFG 6800 GT OC) was when I had fast writes enabled, and or the MSI CORECenter utility running. I definitely couldn't run the CoreCenter utility while playing games. It often resulted in BSOD's actually. Other than that - the combination ran flawlessly.

well..thats because core center is total trash(look on MSI's forums) no one uses it..they have never gotten that utility right from day one..i have everything turned,including fast writes..and everything run great..thats why im inclined to think its a simple setting that may be wrong

 

[Suflex]

Sys:
A64 3000+
Gigabyte K8 Triton NF3 250GB
XFX 6800 GT
2x512mb PC3200 Kingston
HEC 420w PSU
DELL 21' old crt ...

I've been following -and occasionally posting on- this thread for quite some time now.

I've concluded that basically the problem lies with the MB unable to act as an effecient intermediary between the 6800 and the CPU, Are they too fast for the NF3? But how come ATI runs with no problems? maybe the 6800 consumes too much power and the NF3 can't regulate? I really don't know and don't want to know!!!

As I said above, ONE thing I'm sure of is that the NF3 is the culprit here, why? Because my freezing issues were solved by reverting to older GART drivers, of course this did not solve the stuttering hickups I have (actually it made them worse)....

I've tried all the forceware versions there is and it made no difference at all, only the GART thing resolved the freezing, nothing fixed the stuttering and lag...

NV's way of dealing with this problem inspires much confidence in me to buy more of their motherboards when I upgrade i.e. they can forget it..

 

[AlexC]

im wondering if you can tell me what vid drivers you have tried,your mb driver version #...do you have your GART drivers installed? you and i have the same vid card..and damn near the same mb(yours only has more speed on the lan and extra firewire over mine) and my box runs just fine...maybe its something simple..id be glad to try and see if i can fix it for u...you never know

I appreciate any help you can offer. From what I have read, it appears there are good cards and there are bad cards. It appears that I have a bad card.

I have used all configurations that you are referring to plus some. GART installed and not, several power supplies, used an AMD Sempron 2600+ 754, AMD64 3000+ 754 on a Asus A8NE-Deluxe motherboard and an AMD 3200+ 939 processor on the MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum, 512mb, 1020mb, and 2048mb of both corsair bugdet and XMS ram configurations, changed bios settings such as fast write, used several nforce drivers, and this is in combination with about 7+ clean installs of windows. The only thing that helps is to run the 66.89 nvidia drivers and the card runs fine with games such as WoW(this could change with upcoming patches), but there are issues running newer games such as BF2 and HL2 with these drivers.

I am very disappointed with nvidia and BFG for the lack of support they have offered to resolve this obvious flaw in this chip, and in my opinion shows a lack of moral responsibilty to their customers. For the past 8+ years, I have used nvidia products with good results. But after blowing $400 (prices at the time) for a geforce 6800GT OC, with an advertised lifetime warranty, that will not work with a large percentage of motherboards, I am going to take a serious look at the ATI as my next card.

This week I have started to upgrade my system much earlier than anticipated. I reluctantly used another nforce motherboard, the MSI K8N Neo 4F 939, and I am still debating over the video card I should use. Plus, I will not buy another BFG product because of the run around they gave me over a period of 2 months.

Any suggestions on a good video card in the $250- $300 range? ATI? I will consider the geforce 7800GT if the performance is much greater than the ATI at the same price. My current games are WoW, BF2, HL2, DoD (source), Counter Strike (source). I will also be using virtual PC for training purposes with intallations of MS SBS 2003 Server, 2003 Server, etc.

Sorry for the lengthy reply.

 

[Nazo]

I went with ATI because I couldn't trust nVidia anymore and because it had a decent chance of running correctly even on a NF3 system. Unfortunately, they have their own issues (such as some graphical quality problems I'm seeing where shadows don't appear quite right in many games like NFS-MW and Sudeki) but, in general if you decide to stick with AGP at all, you probably need to go ATI since nVidia abandoned AGP wholeheartedly (which is ironic when you think of all the work they must have done to create the HSI bridge that gave them the edge over ATI who must create a whole seperate chip for both versus nVidia only having to produce the one to sell both to AGP and PCI-E users.)

Anyway, from what I hear the 7800 series isn't TRULY better than the X1x00 series. In fact, the X1x00 series is supposed to have PS 3.0, which was the main thing nVidia held over ATI's heads for a while there. Now, it is easier to get the highest of the high, the 7800GTX 512MiB because ATI produces less cards and it's nearly impossible to get their highest range. Anyway, personally I've been pretty happy with my X850XT PE other than that the stock cooling has to be upgraded (it's loud, has serious thermal cycling, and on a hot enough day just isn't sufficient if your AC is broken or something.) It doesn't have PS 3.0, but, then NFS-MW shows that you can do things like HDR apparently with 2.0 without dragging the system to a halt. Having had a 6800 and having played games like Far Cry with all the PS3.0 stuff enabled, I can say that there truly isn't really THAT much benefit to the end user and right now companies are supporting PS2.0 as well as they can for a reason. From what I read, 3.0 mainly just makes life easier on the programmer, but, I'm afraid he'll have to just bear with it for a while because he still has to support the hardly dead ATI cards for a while to come (remember, they MUST count on the average user having mid-range and the majority having low range, then just add the ability to scale up to the high range.) I mention the X850 series because that's more the price range you're looking at right now than the X1x00/7800 cards. That said, a 7800GT is supposed to be better than a X850XT PE, so if you see one in your price range it's the better choice versus a X850/X800 card. The ATI equivalents are also very good though. Take a look at this post to get a very very rough idea of which cards are best (at 3DMark05 mind): http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1028663000&postcount=3589 That shows overclocks as well, which is kind of handy because you can get an idea of how much overclocking affects things. That's important because some such as the 6800GS don't seem so great at first, but, then overclock so much that they equal and maybe even just slightly rival the X850XT PE most of the time (you just have to bear in mind that you can't rely on overclocking.) Remember, nVidia cards do worse in 3DMark05 (which I hear is because they are better at OpenGL and worse at Direct3D, so I consider the benchmark to be perfectly valid since so many games use D3D.) So the 6800GS is actually worse at some games than the X850XT PE.


BTW, Suflex, the fact that this problem only rears it's ugly head when software (the drivers) gets involved means that it's not one of the issues you suspect. Eg, power, speed, and that sort of thing. My suspicion is that there is a hardware bug though. Something in the NF3 chipset that doesn't work quite as it's supposed to that the old drivers didn't trigger. Perhaps some command goes down wrong and when it screws up, then it reduces power to the card or something like that maybe. All I know is that the motherboard is fast enough and powerful enough to handle similarly powerful cards from ATI, which verifies my suspicions that it isn't those first issues. Whatever command or whatever is going wrong is pretty nVidia specific and if it really even does affect ATI users at all, probably only by affecting the motherboard. I suspect that most likely nVidia came up with some speed hack designed to push their benchmarks up a little bit higher and get those every so slightly higher framerates people expect to see when they upgrade drivers (which is silly, drivers shouldn't be expected to increase framerates and benchmarks, they should be concentrating purely on fixing problems instead. Unfortunately, whether they should or not, everyone now expects to see a speed increase when they update their drivers.)

 

[Sunkist]

My 6800GT has been having the stutter problem since June when I got my MSI K8N NEO2 and during the last two months or so it has begun restarting itself or the screen messes up when it is just on and no one is using it. Had to move the 6800 to my linux box and stick a Geforce 2Ti in my main just so I could use it still. Before I switched I tried installing the nforce and video drivers over again but no matter what combination I did onve the video drivers got installed the screen would go out once it started installing the video drivers. Now I have no idea what to do but I sure dont wanna be using a Geforce 2 for any long amout of time.

 

[seanmcd]

well..thats because core center is total trash(look on MSI's forums) no one uses it..they have never gotten that utility right from day one..i have everything turned,including fast writes..and everything run great..thats why im inclined to think its a simple setting that may be wrong

I wouldn't call it total trash - I run it from time to time to check temps. It does it's job fine. I just wouldnt' start it with Windows or leave it running while playing games.

 

[bl4cklight]

Sunkist:

during the last two months or so it has begun restarting itself or the screen messes up when it is just on and no one is using it.

Restarts & "messed up screens" are typical of faulty hardware; those are not related to this stutter issue. Bad hardware, problem with power supply, or overheating.


My status update for this thread: still using Forceware 81.95 , with FastWrites OFF. Never had stutters with this combination (horrible stuttering with 77.X + FW/noFW, none with 66.X + FW ): GuildWars, Dungeon and Dragons online beta, Half Life 2 Lost Coast, Uru, etc. running flawlessly. I consider that problem "solved", but i'll be watchful when installing any new drivers in the future...

 

[Sunkist]

Sunkist:
Restarts & "messed up screens" are typical of faulty hardware; those are not related to this stutter issue. Bad hardware, problem with power supply, or overheating.


My status update for this thread: still using Forceware 81.95 , with FastWrites OFF. Never had stutters with this combination (horrible stuttering with 77.X + FW/noFW, none with 66.X + FW ): GuildWars, Dungeon and Dragons online beta, Half Life 2 Lost Coast, Uru, etc. running flawlessly. I consider that problem "solved", but i'll be watchful when installing any new drivers in the future...

Well I would get the stuttering issue too, and once the restarting began I was going to just RMA the board but now that I have it in my linux box it runs fine, even ran doom3 so I think it is the same issue everyone else has just worse. When it restarts windows says it is a driver issue thats causing it.

 

[Warrior]

yeah well i have a ATI card now.. back on my 9700 pro and im still getting random freezings.. more glitches now then freezingz.. so who ever says go ati can go shove his !!!!!! stickers up his ass... other then that.. things run great.. my 9700P runs at 9800pro clocks...

dont worry i took the plunge and my ASUS A8N SLI is in the mail......

 

[Nazo]

Actually, everyone says "ati is less likely to cause the problem" rather than "go ati" as if it were the end all absolute solution. As a general rule of thumb, if you do go ati, you probably won't have the problem though.

Only absolute solution is to switch to a board using a different chipset. Nvidia only cares about nForce 4, so that's an alternative for the people who can afford to make the plunge. Mind you, when nForce 5 comes out, you'll be utterly screwed when some other problem crops up perhaps since nVidia won't care anymore about nf4, but, you get the idea.

Personally, I'm thinking more seriously about being darned careful what boards I buy in the future. I'm thinking of sticking to alternatives like VIA and ATI now that nVidia has shown how quickly they will just abandon their users.

 

[Warrior]

you dont really hear about VIA fixing their issues really.. even though VIA isnt not an enthuseist board chipset anymore... come to think of it.. they are really aweful chipsets.. but from what ive seen the scores are right up there with Nvidia.. if not better.. but it seems we have a real winner with NF4.. and i hope my experience will be better.. this board seems like a real winner...

 

[Ka0s]

Hmm I have a question regarding the 6800GS. Ive been researching the forums and I am trying to find a stable video card around the 150-200$ range that will run Elder Scrolls oblivion when it comes out. I first got a ATI X1600 And the card was a complete failure. It had major freezing/restarting issues which is a known problem with Sapphire cards that i didnt research to deeply before i purchased.

This time around im looking at the 6800GS. Ive read in these forums of the problems that were related to the 6800. But nowhere in the thread did i see mention of the GS? Is it just for other 6800 models?

Im trying to decide to buy this card :

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2&Sku=P56-7024

My only problem is i dont want to have tons of problems.. My specs :

AMD Athlon x64 3200+
1gig of Corsair ddr ram
Currently have a geforce 3 in my machine
400w PSU +12V 12A (im gonna have to upgrade this too as far as i know)
Board : Gigabyte GA-K8NS

Any help would be appreciated as im wondering whether to get the 6800GS or the 6600GT and which one i will have less problems with on a nforce3 250 chipset.

Thanks for any help in advance!

 

[Nazo]

If I understand it correctly, the GS is just a 6800 made in a smaller process (thus running cooler and overclocking better.) In other words, the actual chipset hasn't really changed, it just got smaller. Therefore any problems in the old one would remain in the new one if this is indeed true. Anyway, it really looks like the problem is somehow the motherboard chipset rather than video card, so I wouldn't trust even the 7800 that has been bridged to AGP (can't remember whether the AGP one was GT, GTX, or what.) It may be that basically all nVidia high performance cards are going to run into the issue.

Well, that's the immediate answer anyway. Actually, if you look back a little, I see a lot of people claiming the latest forcewares (8x.xx) may have finally fixed this issue (sad that it took them a whole 10 version numbers to fix this if it is true, sadder still if it isn't true for whatever reason and they still haven't fixed it...)

EDIT: That link of yours doesn't work. Oh, and your PSU may be enough if you don't have a lot of serious power drawing things like your CPU running at 3.2GHz or something and it's a high quality PSU rather than just some cheap thing that came with the case or something. If you do have to get a new one, I just recently found out about the "XClio" brand PSUs and got one for it's dual 12V and I've been quite impressed at how almost rock solid it's holding most of my voltages (I say most just because the monitor program won't show all the sensors, but, I suspect the others are as stable.) You'd be surprised, for most systems even with some pretty heavy power drawing things, you don't actually need 500+ watts so much as it seems. What you REALLY need is quality. A substitute for quality is raw power (eg a 550W is more likely to hold at least a stable 450 or so in actual production) but, it's a poor substitute that can actually end up costing more in the end.

 

[Warrior]

If I understand it correctly, the GS is just a 6800 made in a smaller process (thus running cooler and overclocking better.) In other words, the actual chipset hasn't really changed, it just got smaller. Therefore any problems in the old one would remain in the new one if this is indeed true. Anyway, it really looks like the problem is somehow the motherboard chipset rather than video card, so I wouldn't trust even the 7800 that has been bridged to AGP (can't remember whether the AGP one was GT, GTX, or what.) It may be that basically all nVidia high performance cards are going to run into the issue.

Well, that's the immediate answer anyway. Actually, if you look back a little, I see a lot of people claiming the latest forcewares (8x.xx) may have finally fixed this issue (sad that it took them a whole 10 version numbers to fix this if it is true, sadder still if it isn't true for whatever reason and they still haven't fixed it...)

EDIT: That link of yours doesn't work. Oh, and your PSU may be enough if you don't have a lot of serious power drawing things like your CPU running at 3.2GHz or something and it's a high quality PSU rather than just some cheap thing that came with the case or something. If you do have to get a new one, I just recently found out about the "XClio" brand PSUs and got one for it's dual 12V and I've been quite impressed at how almost rock solid it's holding most of my voltages (I say most just because the monitor program won't show all the sensors, but, I suspect the others are as stable.) You'd be surprised, for most systems even with some pretty heavy power drawing things, you don't actually need 500+ watts so much as it seems. What you REALLY need is quality. A substitute for quality is raw power (eg a 550W is more likely to hold at least a stable 450 or so in actual production) but, it's a poor substitute that can actually end up costing more in the end.

the agp one was a 7800GS.. i thought that 6800GS was a 7800 stripped down thus the lower temps and better overclocks....

 

[Nazo]

I'm sorry, 6800GS isn't NV40 on a smaller process after all. I had previously read that this was so, but, I see now that I look it up better that the 6800GS is a NV42 (which is still on a smaller process I suppose.)

Anyway, if I were you, I'd assume that a 6800GS is as likely to repeat the problem as, say a 6600GT. It's rarer, but, it happens. That's assuming the drivers haven't fixed this (sorry, I can't verify now that I'm using ATI.)

 

[Warrior]

before i got rid of my NF3 board the new drivers did help ALOT.. and i almost think they partially solved the issue .... but im on NF4 now and on a 6600GT.... and i can almost say that the issue is still there... i get a REALLY HARD lag...like everything just freezes.. but it happened only once a session when i play a game... like it has to take a dump every game to feel better...figurativly speeking

 

[Ka0s]

im sorry the link didnt work...here is is again

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1782292&Sku=P56-7024


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1782292&Sku=P56-7024

so is it wise to just skip on the 6800GS? The only other thing i can find close in quality that i wolnt have problems with is the 6600GT..i havnt heard many issues with that card..

Any help is appreciated. I previosuly got the x1600 sapphire and had major problems..i just want a good stable card for Oblivion when it comes out. My price range is 150-200$

 

[Ka0s]

also is the risk just as intense with the 6600GT? so either card i choose i might have issues. Maybe theres a card out there im missing around my price range that wolnt have problems on my nforce3 board

 

[Warrior]

x800xt?

 

[Ka0s]

is it AGP and 256mb?

 

[Ka0s]

prices seem to be around 300$

i need something around the 150-200 range