nvidia 8800 GT driver issues

[Kevinp]

I had 32bit installed fine and working properly for a long time. When I messed with the Control panel for the 3D gfx options like filtering and stuff to bump up my quality, my game crashed and after watching youtube for more then 10minutes.

I was getting blue screens and freezing and everything. I used driver cleaners, and tried all different versions of drivers both custom from Tweakforce and right off the NV website. I have reformatted with 64bit windows on, since I have 4GB of ram now anyways, and even with a 186 driver version that is stable I still crash when any type of video or game is playing within 10minutes.

Any ideas?

 

[torrentg]

"I was getting blue screens and freezing and everything."

C:\Windows\Minidump

Use winrar to make a .rar of the .dmp files there. Upload .rar to Rapidshare. Post a link here for us, please.

Other than that, for now, check that pc is getting adequate cooling. Check graphics adapter fan for proper operation and that it's clean.

 

[Cyberwolf]

I had 32bit installed fine and working properly for a long time. When I messed with the Control panel for the 3D gfx options like filtering and stuff to bump up my quality, my game crashed and after watching youtube for more then 10minutes.

I was getting blue screens and freezing and everything. I used driver cleaners, and tried all different versions of drivers both custom from Tweakforce and right off the NV website. I have reformatted with 64bit windows on, since I have 4GB of ram now anyways, and even with a 186 driver version that is stable I still crash when any type of video or game is playing within 10minutes.

Any ideas?

Aside from ensuring it's being properly cooled...What Wattage of power supply are you using? It's possible its no longer sufficient to power your card and other components (either due to new hardware additions since or due to failure of the power supply, reduced voltage/wattage for example)

 

[Lee]

Attempt upgrading to Nvidia driver 191.07. Hope that helps.

 

[Uber Philf]

or attempt the 190.62 drivers, some people are having problems with the 191 drivers on the 8 series cards.

 

[Lee]

I have the same card GeForce 8800 GT OC, and as of yet there has been no problems with the 191 drivers; read my specs.

 

[Kevinp]

I have tired all drivers. I even reformatted with windows XP and tried my old stable drivers that have always worked and my computer still crashes. It all happened since I played with the control panel a bit and even maybe from the overclock on my card that I did. I removed the overclock, but this still shouldnt be happeneing.

And that minidump folder never existed in my windows.

 

[scubasteve]

These are my settings...with a PNY 8800 GT...and I haven't had any issues.

 

[Auptyk]

I have the same card and the same thing is happening. It doesnt matter what game I play but after 10-20 minutes it locks up the system or blue screens it. I just installed WIN7 Pro 64bit 4 days ago and updated my video drivers like a day after that to 191.07. I am thinking that the problem is with the 64 bit drivers as it has done this with XP 64bit as well as the betas and RC of WIN7, and with multiple versions of drivers.
I havent added any new hardware that would cause a power drain, however I may have one of my fans going bad (it still works just is loud) but i thought that overheating would just cause the system to shut down not lock up. I am thinking I may just replace the card, but any help would be great.

 

[torrentg]

I have the same card and the same thing is happening. It doesnt matter what game I play but after 10-20 minutes it locks up the system or blue screens it. I just installed WIN7 Pro 64bit 4 days ago and updated my video drivers like a day after that to 191.07. I am thinking that the problem is with the 64 bit drivers as it has done this with XP 64bit as well as the betas and RC of WIN7, and with multiple versions of drivers.
I havent added any new hardware that would cause a power drain, however I may have one of my fans going bad (it still works just is loud) but i thought that overheating would just cause the system to shut down not lock up. I am thinking I may just replace the card, but any help would be great.

The video card is likely overheating. For 10-20 minutes it's increasing temp and then it can't take it any longer. Seems most plausible to me. Check the fan on the card. Replace it if there's any doubt. Use a fan speed control like Rivatuner. Set it at max and see if crashes persist.

 

[garylisk]

Having the same issue, pretty sure it is overheating.

I installed Windows 7 a couple weeks ago, and then last week, it started freezing up when I was playing WoW. After a few times, and being pretty sick of the issue, I tried to find a solution online, and saw similar visual patterns (lines and such on the screen and a lockup) from people reporting overheating issues.

Now here's the curious part. My case has 2 big fans and 3 smaller fans on it. It has great circulation. I used this same case and computer and video card for months with Vista x64, and then months again with Windows 7 RC. The configuration has not changed, but now I have to pop the side of the case off and point a fan into the case so it's blowing cool air in constantly. I ordered a card slot exhaust fan from Newegg, which should be coming soon via UPS, but I think these are just treating the symptom, overheating. The problem is that somehow something has changed when I switched over to Win7 Retail and these new drivers.

I have not tried installing olf Vista x64 drivers yet, but I am tempted to give it a go considering the issues may be some way the drivers are handling the card. Could they be running the card's clock speed too high, or the fan speed too low? Hard to say without a tweak tool, and sadly I can't find anything that works with Win7 yet.

But for now, the fan blowing air into the case is working well enough.

 

[torrentg]

Hard to say without a tweak tool, and sadly I can't find anything that works with Win7 yet.

Rivatuner.

 

[Puiu]

Hi gyuz,

I had the exact same problem (Win7 Pro 64 + 8800GTS). It all started a couple of days ago, and I noticed that when I played heavier games thy crashed. At the begining I was suspecting a bug in the game, but then I noticed the exact same problems when I was running other graphical-intensive software.

My first thought was overheat. And that is strange since I like to believe that I have a oversized cooling system in the case, with many fans, etc. But what the heck? I opened the window for extra cooling effect (winter, right?). It was slightly better but still it crashed. That led me to think I have a serious cooling problem.

However after investigations, the temp seemed not to be the root cause (rather a side effect). So I started looking at the drivers. My luck (or bad luck) was that I just performed a rather tricky SSD firmware upgrade and I thought it was giving me the errors.

So after days of pain, I decided to reinstall my Win7 completely. Did that, but immediately after installation, same problems. Ooops... so it wasn't because of old OS installation. Then, downloaded the latest nVidia drivers from the net (195.62 WHQL), did a Win7 reinstall, afterwards immediate driver upgrade and zap. Same thing.

At this point I was really upset. I opened the case, cleared all the dust, rearranged the cables for better air circulation, did a full RAM test, HDD test, etc. Nothing everything went OK.

One more try, who knows? Everything went fine, then Win7 asked me about the nvidia drivers automatic update, said OK, and ZAP!! Whooow... wait a minute, we're getting somewhere. Again Win7 completely unusable (not even managing to boot without a crash).

Again, reinstall. And said NO to the nVidia drivers update. Also I didn't install the latest nvidia drivers I had downloaded a couple of reinstalls before. And everything works as it should. Currently I have the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS version 8.15.11.8593 (that came with the Win7 installation kit) released on 14.05.2009.

I hope this helps someone!
And Marry Christmas!

 

[chrysalis]

new drivers does not always = good.

windows 7 introduced wddm 1.1 which has its own problems, if you want to try ruling that out grab yourself the 64bit 182.50 drivers as they are wddm 1.0.

Remember to properly uninstall the newer drivers first.

 

[garylisk]

Yeah, just an update guys, my 8800 died. I bought a 9800 and it's working fine.

Still no idea what was going on with it. I'll be testing it in another machine sometime.

 

[Puiu]

Hi guyz,

I know I've said in my previous post, that going back to the drivers provided by MS worked. Not for long. After a day or so it started to give me the same problems again.

So, like "garylisk", I've bought yesterday a 9800 to see if it helps, and it does. So it seems that the problem was my 8800 GPU after all. I still don't know why the 8800 suddenly died on me...