[Messerschmitt]

Hi there, before I go ahead and format I would want a last help attempt in regards to my problem.

Now I do not know specifically if it's hardware or software but here is what happened.

I got RivaTuner and I have a 8600 GTS factory OC at 720mhz. Now what I did I played a bit with it, trying to OC it a bit more until I ran in system freeze-up during game play. Well after a bit of these, ever since returned it to normal my system will still freeze during game time this time also accompanied by BSOD which says something about nv4_disp.dll errors. (all these freezes are accompanied by the looping sound, and the BSOD usually appears after 5-10 seconds if I leave the freeze continue).

What I have noticed is that these freezes disapear if I reduce the clock from the factory 720mhz to 700 or even 670mhz (or the freezes are only once in the blue moon) but I CANNOT leave my GPU at the default 720mhz since my games will freeze very often causing the BSOD (TF2, L4D, etc)
I have did a full un-install of RivaTuner and used programs to such as Driver Sweeper to delete all the display drives and install new ones, but the problem still persist (tried the 162, 169, 175 and 178 drives)

Bottom line now is that I cannot play if I don't have RivaTuner installed and reduce the clock quite significantly from the default 720mhz. Which this of course will reduce my performance.

Now do you think somehow it might have damaged the card or something is snaged in Windows and maybe a format of drive C will work out? Any other tests I can do?

Formating is a big hassle and it will take me at least a full day to do it since I haven't formated it since Sept 2007

[puntoMX]

Messerschmitt, on Nov 25 2008, 12:34 PM, said:

Now do you think somehow it might have damaged the card or something is snaged in Windows and maybe a format of drive C will work out? Any other tests I can do?

I would think that the card is overheating/bad timings and if it´s still in warranty I would send it back ASAP; before you do so test the card in another system first to be sure it´s defective.

[Messerschmitt]

Hi, I don't have another system to test the card unfortunately.

Also the card is not overheating as it allways stays at 50-60c.

[Nexus_06]

Sounds like the ram went bad. RMA it.

[Messerschmitt]

Why ram?

How come I stop getting the BSOD if I lower my GPU clock?

[puntoMX]

He´s talking about the video RAM.

Either way, your card is bad, RMA it . Overclocking has it´s price some times...

[Messerschmitt]

Yea, I guess, I never done it before but since all you did in Riva Tuner was a slide bar I said to do it little by little. When it started freezing I lowered back to previous setting. Well, it seems rather than having a bit more clock now I must have less to be playable :/

It was the first time I ever tried to OC anything, and I guess it will be my last time. My other computer went solid for 5 years with no problems what so ever, of course never messing with the hardware. That should've teached me a lesson.

Now do I have to expect to be paying all the shipping charges? I mean if I end up paying 50-100$ for the hole RMA process, maybe I should just buy a new one, maybe a 8800 GT (since I was stupid enough to buy a 8600 GTS, I paid 240$ too)

[weEvil]

Messerschmitt, on Nov 26 2008, 02:08 PM, said:

Yea, I guess, I never done it before but since all you did in Riva Tuner was a slide bar I said to do it little by little. When it started freezing I lowered back to previous setting.

That's not how you OC.

You raise the bar, you check for artifacts and anomalies with ATi Tool (its not ATi specific), then raise the bar again.

Just like you OC the CPU. When you do overclock you do a stability test.



Also since this is the G80, it could have the dreaded issue that nVidia recalled so many mobile GPUs for. There were rumors desktop cards were affected, but not as bad or as frequent.

This post has been edited by weEvil: 26 November 2008 - 04:02 PM

[Nexus_06]

Generally the lower end cards don't have any cooling on the ram, so you can add ram coolers to them to prevent overheating.

Generally RMA is like $15 for the shipping or less. (At least in the USA). Don't tell them you overclocked the card, just say it stopped working.