Solved GPU Artifacts and crashing. (idle and gaming)

[ThaKang]

I've been reading these forums for a while but I never needed to register, but since this problem has crept up it's my last hope.

Incoming wall of text!

The last few months I've had problem's with my GPU's, I narrowed it down to one of them which was a little sensitive to games. Being under warranty I sent it off to be replaced/repaired, after 3 weeks I finally had a shiny new OEM GPU, I popped it in, hooked my SLI back up and prepared for a nights of lag free gaming.

After 15 minutes of... Checking mail, checking lifehacker and a few gaming blogs, I got a colour artifact on my screen (pictures Below)

(It starts worse, but by the time I grab my phone it mostly disapears)

Strangely, both GPU's run perfectly fine alone, but in SLI they do this. I did some research and it appears this might be VRAM corruption? - Personally I haven't a clue.

Here's a list of what I've tried so far (not in order)
Rolled back drivers
Tried a clean install multiple drivers dating back to July 2011
Reinstalled windows
Reseated GPU's, RAM too
Older Bios and latest Bios
Rolled back Reltek drivers (I read they can interfere with 28x.xx nvidia drivers)
Running one GPU while the other was disconnected (seemed to fix it)
Reset Bios to defaults (Still running with no overclocking atm)
Used Who Crashed to try and research the problem (TDR Time out)
Disk Check etc.

My system

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE X58A-UD3R

Processor:
i7 CPU 950 3.07GHz, @3.7GHz (back to Stock now)
Corsair H70 Cooling

Memory:
Corsair 8GB RAM @1600MHZ DDR3

Hard Drive:
128GB Crucial Real SSD C300's Raid 0

Video Card:
MSI 1GB 460 Cyclone SLI 2 way

PSU:
OCZ ZX 1250W '80' Plus Gold

Sound: Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro Series

Operating System:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

This is the crash dump analysis (who crashed program) Two days

computer name: THAKANG-PC
windows version: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 6.1, build: 7601
windows dir: C:\Windows
CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz Intel586, level: 6
8 logical processors, active mask: 255
RAM: 8588238848 total
VM: 2147352576, free: 1905565696



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Crash Dump Analysis
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Crash dump directory: C:\Windows\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.


On Thu 09/02/2012 00:04:44 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\020912-23446-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: nvlddmkm.sys (nvlddmkm+0x801F10)
Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA800AC073C0, 0xFFFFF8800FE97F10, 0xFFFFFFFFC000009A, 0x4)
Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys
product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33
company: NVIDIA Corporation
description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33
Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: nvlddmkm.sys (NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33 , NVIDIA Corporation).
Google query: nvlddmkm.sys NVIDIA Corporation VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

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On Thu 09/02/2012 00:04:44 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: dxgkrnl.sys (dxgkrnl!TdrResetFromTimeout+0x214)
Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA800AC073C0, 0xFFFFF8800FE97F10, 0xFFFFFFFFC000009A, 0x4)
Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\dxgkrnl.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: DirectX Graphics Kernel
Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.

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On Wed 08/02/2012 22:29:23 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\020812-23774-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x7CC40)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0x0, 0xFFFFF88008A54110, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.

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On Wed 08/02/2012 21:40:31 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\WD-20120208-2140.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: nvlddmkm.sys (nvlddmkm+0x17DB08)
Bugcheck code: 0x117 (0xFFFFFA80115A74E0, 0xFFFFF880103CFB08, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT_DETECTED
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys
product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33
company: NVIDIA Corporation
description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33
Bug check description: This indicates that the display driver failed to respond in a timely fashion.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: nvlddmkm.sys (NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 275.33 , NVIDIA Corporation).
Google query: nvlddmkm.sys NVIDIA Corporation VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT_DETECTED

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I tried the fixes I came across for the VIDEO_TDR time out, RelTek audio and some lan drivers apparently conflict so I tried rolling those back to older ones, no luck.

Any idea's on this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance, oh and if theres any other required information I'll add it ASAP.

 

[Maguscreed]

I can think of very little you haven't tried that would make a difference at this point.
It would seem you have been railroaded with two bad cards in a row.

 

[ThaKang]

I can think of very little you haven't tried that would make a difference at this point.
It would seem you have been railroaded with two bad cards in a row.

That's every nerds nightmare, I was thinking that may be possible but unlikely,
my other thought was it could be that my last card could of maybe ruined my second PCIx16 slot.

It seem's to be a sticky situation, I have 2 cards, one being possibly faulty again, and the other perfectly fine but isn't the best running on it's own, and I can't really afford to upgrade to a new GPU at the moment. Not to mention the cards are discontinued by MSI.


Thanks for the feedback anyway, much appreciated!

 

[Maguscreed]

Well artifacts are very rarely software driven usually they indicate a problem with the display hardware itself.
The video tdr error can also signify a bad card. I saw direct x driven crashes, crashes of your display driver itself. Short of reformatting to create a clean environment I really don't know what else you could do to remove software as a possible cause. So yeah, I would look at RMA'ing again. This happened to me a long time ago with a 7800 nvidia card, took 3 of them to finally get one that worked right.

 

[ThaKang]

Sad times. I'll have to RMA when I get back home from work then. Oh well, maybe I'll hit a bit of luck and they will accidentally send me a 590 by mistake haha.