Help with a freezing video card

[Ashkael]

Hi all,

I understand that there is an ongoing topic about RAM and video card upgrades. I really thought about posting this under that topic but then it occurred to me that my problem was a little bit more specific. If the moderator feels like it, we can close this topic and I will move the discussion to the other topic.

Well, I have been out of the gaming scene for quite some time, and WoW managed to renew my interest. I had some money to spare, so I went ahead and built my own gaming system (which, btw, marks the first time I've ever put a system together). After consulting with a couple friends, I settled for the following:

- Intel "BOXD915PBLL" 915P Chipset Motherboard For Intel LGA 775 CPU
- Intel LGA 775 Pentium 4 530J 3.0 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology
- 1x Crucial DDR2 240-Pin 512MB DDR2 PC2-4200 (planning to add another stick as money becomes available)
- HD 80GB | Western Digital 7200RPM 8MB
- ASUS nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Video Card, 256MB DDR, 256-Bit, TV-Out/DVI,
PCI-Express, Model "EN6800/TD/256"

The case I bought came with a 350W power supply, but I replaced it with a SurePower 450W power supply, which has its own dedicated line to feed the video card. I also installed two extra fans inside the case to keep the processor cool.

Here’s the deal: the system works like a charm, until I try to play anything. So far I’ve tried to play Neverwinter Nights, Unreal Tournament 2004, and World of Warcraft. All three games run perfectly fine and smooth at full settings for about 5 to 25 minutes, and then everything freezes and I’m forced to restart the PC. I’ve been trying to solve this problem with a couple friends and I’ve posted on several nVIDIA-related forums but nothing good has come so far.

Things I’ve tried:

- Updating the video card drivers. I’ve tried the following official nVIDIA drivers: 71.84, 66.93, 61.77 and 61.76, plus a whole bunch of BETA and unofficial drivers.
- Flashing the BIOS.
- Updating sound drivers (I’m using the motherboard’s default sound chip).
- Installing/uninstalling service pack 2.
- Changing power supplies (from 350W to 450W).

I’ve already ruled out overheating as a possibility. Speedfan and Intel’s own monitoring software report my CPU temperature to be around 45 degrees under normal circumstances, and peaking at about 60 under heavy gaming (that is, before everything locks up). I went further ahead and with the aid of a friend moved the system to my balcony at night (it was pretty cold outside), opened the case and let the system cool down to about 30 degrees. We then launched WoW and the temp never went over 45, and it still froze after about 15 minutes of play!

Now, when the system freezes in any of the three games mentioned above, the freezing comes accompanied by some distortion in sound and a reboot. Sometimes, though (100% of the time in UT2004, about 50% of the time in WoW), I would get a blue screen with a message indicating that the display driver for the nVIDIA card got stuck in an infinite loop.

I did some research on this infinite loop problem, and found this:

http://members.home.nl/marf/Infinite%20Loop.html

The nature of the problem can be summarized as follows:

It appears that this is all due to a BIOS setting which basically has to do with the way that the CPU and RAM communicate with XP and DirectX 8.1. Basically, PC components compete for system resources and the Video drivers give too much ram to the video card which is the root cause of this problem. Specific drivers have agrivated the problem for some (Such as NVidia's 23.11 Dets)

This seems to be a very old problem that is supposed to be solved by now. The thing is, since it’s an old problem, most of the information I’ve found on the web applies only to AGP video cards.

I bought most of the pieces from NewEgg, and I’ve already talked to them about returning my video card and changing it for an ATI, which seems not to be suffering from this problem (after all, part of the reason I’m having the problem is because of nVIDIA’s inability to write a good driver for their own card, which has resulted in a HUGELY unsatisfied customer… I’m ripping my hair out in frustration by this point). However, before I do that, I still got the whole weekend to try and fix this problem for good. If any lurkers have any clue about how to solve this problem, it would be most appreciated. Alternatively, suggestions for a good ATI card would also be appreciated. I’m fed up with nVIDIA.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the temperature of the video card itself, as reported by nVIDIA's own monitoring utility, never goes above 52 under heavy gaming, which is pretty cold for a video card.

EDIT: Well, I ended up returning the card. As soon as Newegg processes my refund, I will be ordering this baby: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-102-483&depa=0

Hopefully everything will go smooth with that one.