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Video card gone bad?

Y

YoMoma

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2005
Messages
201
The video card in my sig... A PNY GeForce 8800GTX XLR8 seems to be on its way out, or at least I think it is.
I have updated to the latest driver and it worked good for one day then went back to its old ways.
A bubble in my tray tells me repeatedly "Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered. But when I browse to another page my screen goes black for a second or 2 then comes back with the same display message.
I`ve even hooked another monitor to the card with the same results. And I`ve tried both outputs.
Sometimes it will freeze on bootup, sometimes I can hear the microsoft startup sound (when your desktop shows) but the screen is black.
Even once the screen appeared to lockup during the bootup screen, but then i took the locked up monitor out of the video jack and hooked my other monitor up. I saw something totally different then. The loadup process was complete and i was at a functioning desktop.
Whats going on here?
I have my anti-virus running a check as I speak (from my other pc) but Im not sure i will even have a funtioning display to see the results when the scan is complete.

If it is the card, anyone got any advice on a comperable PCI-E video card that wont cost nearly as much as this $450 GTX has but work nearly as well?
 
It has froze up a time or two during bootup, but mostly seems to exhibit this problem.

Whenever I browse the web, if I try to open another window or refresh the current page, close a page or click on any link in any of my browser windows, I will get a black screen for a minimum of 3 seconds and up to 30 seconds. Then for example say I click on a link, after the screen comes back from being black the new screen will be there. If i want to close a window, the screen goes black for a short time, then comes back on with the window closed.
OH, by the way, EVERY time the window comes back from being black, I get a balloon in my tray telling me "Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered".
Even when I open up programs, whenever I need a new screen up for the program or need to close a screen, it will always go black, then give the the display error.
 
Yeah you should try taking a look at the temps and the like, though it's quite likely you've been hit with a case of the 8800 GTXes.

Wonder why these things are failing en masse...
 
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If you have an 8800 original and it's still working, get a backup graphics card before it's too late, they are ticking time-bombs and have been dying since early summer 2009, cards that have seen moderate usage as well as F@H types and hardcore gamers, clear signs that something was up with the production. Someone with a microscope should collect a few dead 8800 originals and inspect them to see if they all have burnt circuits right on the board.
 
I dunno, the G80 GTSes seem to be fine, it's just the GTXes that seem to be failing with conspicuous frequency lately.

I wonder if Charlie had a partial point about more cards than the mobile 8600s/8400s being bad back during bumpgate.
 
Guys, does this sound like a Mobo problem? The southbridge fried in this pc about a year ago and had very similar results.
Funny, seems to be working ok at the moment on a different resolution.
 
It sounds like it is a Video card issue.

I would test the card in another machine.

If no other machine available

Then buy a video card from a store with a liberal return policy and test it on your machine.

If "Test" card works well, then you know 2 things. 1. Your system works without the suspect card. 2. the suspect card must be damaged.

If "Test" card doesn't work, then your problem might lie in another component.

You say it is freezing on boot, have you tried booting to a memtest cd and making sure your memory is good. http://www.memtest86.com/
 
I know this sounds crazy, but it's how to solve BSOD and instability issues with overclocking... Try increasing the voltage on your graphics card. I mean, the card is already fried, why not?

I'd imagine there's an application that can do that for your card.

I know I can that it on my EVGA GTX 285 through an app provided by EVGA and on my Galaxy GTX 480 from a Galaxy app... same with MSI and others.

I never did that on an 8800, though.
 
Sorry for the delay, grad party to organize left me away from pc for almost a week.
PC is stuck in a rut now though.
Everytime I boot it, it starts up fine, but nothing but a black screen. Hooked up a second monitor and still nothing.
Right before it started this black screen thing, it ran fine one day, but only on a different resolution than my usual. Hell, my usual resolution wasnt even available for choice in properties. Go figure.
The next day is started up great on my usual resolution and ran with no problems.
Now I`ve booted it up nearly a dozen times over the last 3 days and i get nothing but a black screen. PC is booting cause i hear the microsoft sound when I should be seeing my desktop.

Sorry I havent tested anything out yet with anyones response yet because of being so busy this week.
I`d like to try other drivers to see if that is my problem, but hell, I need to see the screen for that.
I`d like to uninstall the drivers for the card all together to let windows put a base driver in to see if I get any video. But is that possible to do with no video showing at all?
 
OK, got an update on my video card.
Yesterday I took my card over to my bro`s house and tried it on his pc.
The card did work somewhat over there, but had funny looking stuff on the splash screens. pics included in the thread, even though they are blurry.
After the splash screen everything seemed fine.
We let windows install a basic driver at first. We then installed the latest update, then rebooted the pc.
After the update upon reboot the funny looking screen still was there. Anything you would do on the pc would work fine. Although there may be a problem with the DirectX on the card itself.
When we went to play any game that involved direct x we would get a screen that said "DirectX encountered a unrecoverable error. Check the readme for possible errors." Which we did with no possible solutions.
After seeing this error message with multiple games we looked eleswhere.
We checked the device manager. And under the status of my card it said, " Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)"
Then we inputed "dxdiag" into the run feature which brings up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Under the display tab, one thing you find are DirectX Features. Which covers...
1. DirectDraw Acceleration
2. Direct 3D Acceleration
3. APG Texture Acceleration

All these features where disabled when my card was hooked up. But they where Enabled when my bro`s card was hooked up.
The driver I was using at the time was 8.17.11.9745.
I also noticed in the program that log`s your pc crashes say that "Windows was able to sucsessfully install device driver but the driver software encountered a problem when it tried to run. (Code 43)"
Could this be an internal problem with my card when it comes to directX?
Tommorrow my brother will bring his card over here and i can try it on my pc to see if I can get any video at all out of it. that may give a little more insight as to what piece of hardware is going haywire on me.
BTW, his card is also a PNY XLR8 overclocked card, but his is not a GTX 8800 as mine is.

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MrLonghair said:
If you have an 8800 original and it's still working, get a backup graphics card before it's too late, they are ticking time-bombs and have been dying since early summer 2009, cards that have seen moderate usage as well as F@H types and hardcore gamers, clear signs that something was up with the production. Someone with a microscope should collect a few dead 8800 originals and inspect them to see if they all have burnt circuits right on the board.
Click to expand...

WTF are you talking about? The problem is the solder they tried to use. They went lead free and where not mechanically prepared to deal with solder that wasn't eutectic. Changing solder is not an easy thing to do. It took them a while to get the process sorted out. They then failed to notify anyone of the cold joint issues for the whole 9-12 months that they where producing those cards. Just about all Nvidia hardware made at the time has the same problems. Cold solder joints.

Turns out, it is really an industry wide problem and others have dealt with it more gracefully. There is probably going to be even more problems with it in the future unless someone invents a eutectic solder that doesn't contain lead.
 
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