More Awesome Than You!

Up until recently, I've been playing the Sims 2 with a GeForce FX 5600 AGP8x w/256 MB.  This worked fine (I bought the card long before I started playing when it still cost around $200) even though I didn't have the best framerates.

Then over this last Christmas, I bought the Half-Life 2 GOTY edition.  (Yes, I've been killing people instead for a change of pace.)  But when I installed HL2, it immediately demanded that I update my nVidia drivers or else it wouldn't work.  No prob.  Done that plenty of times, but hadn't done for well over a year by this time.  I upgraded my drivers to the most current available and got a pleasant surprise.  My framerates improved quite noticeably in Sims 2.  I was REALLY happy... until disaster struck.

Although game play was fine.  My computer would randomly crash now when doing just about any other task like email, web browsing, working in non-3D apps.  I subsequently went through some dozen or so driver versions that HL2 would take and found that every one of them had the same side effect.  And even though I suffered through this to complete HL2, I was still faced with the problem of going back to my older, stable drivers and thus dropping the framerates on Sims 2 again.  The difference is so acute, I really didn't want to go back.

So after much hemming and hawing I decided to buy a newer video card and just start fresh with that.  I picked out the eVGA GeForce 6800GS AGP8x w/256MB DDR3 from NewEgg based on its great reviews and all the talk about how it totally blows the older 5000 series out of the water in terms of framerates.  My system matched or beat all the specs needed for the card.

The card arrived yesterday, and I immediately went to install it.

Imagine my disappointment when after installing the drivers, my whole system experienced an abrupt power failure.  AND every time I tried to boot up again, the power shut off after only a minute of Windows running. I thought maybe the driver set was doing it, but couldn't have the Windows running long enough to download a new set.  And this only caused another abrupt power shut off that this time corrupted my WinXP installation making impossible to boot!  :'(

Luckily, after nearly four hours of work I had fully rescued my system and not lost anything on the C: partition.  But I am now back to my old card, the old drivers, and the old framerates.  The new card went back RMA to NewEgg for a replacement as I DEARLY HOPE this was a faulty card causing my problems.

Needless to say, I've been really down over this long, drawn-out mess.

Anyone ever experience that kind of problem with a video card causing power failure?  The specs said a minimum 300W power supply.  Mine is 420W and not overloaded with components, so it should be nowhere near hitting peak power draw, especially if it bombs before I can even start a 3D app.

 :-[ :-[ :-[

Hmm, that's surprising that it said only 300W power supply was needed for a geForce 6800. I have a 300W power supply and when I went to upgrade my card, I was limited because many of the newer cards were requiring 350W+, and a tech guy I talked to recommended 450W minimum. (So I upgraded to a geForce 6600 - NOT a 6600GT because the GT version required 350W. I know I could have upgraded my power supply but wasn't up for doing it myself or having my computer out of commission for even a little while).

Despite what the specs say, I still think it could be the power supply and you'd have to upgrade it to use the new card.

I'd agree with that, I had to.

So you think a 450W is really going to make a difference over a 420W?

I used a website (don't have the link) to calculate all the wattage the peripherals in my box were drawing.  Adding the card didn't come anywhere near 420W (came in at about 335W total), and I even unplugged one of my DVD drives and the Zip drive freeing up some 30W of draw so with the card should have been drawing closer to 300W).  The system STILL conked out.

Well, how much is ACTUALLY being used now you have the old card back in?

Huh... went back to the same site to calculate what you asked.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

With the old card its says 339W, with the 6800 it says 329W.  That's weird!  And seems wrong. I would think swapping them the 6800 would be higher!

The flashing ATTENTION note at the top says:  "Because of the increased power consumption of of the new high-powered video cards, the recommended minimum (total available amperage) for +12V is 24A, for SLI 35A.

My 420W power supply only has 18A on the +12V rail, but then the ultra-expensive 600W power supplies on NewEgg are only just cracking 20A for +12V so I don't think that's exactly an issue.

Edit:  I just noted that I only have a single +12V rail, so dual rail PSUs will have the combined amperage of both?  I guess that could be the problem right there!

Sounds like you might have cracked it!

Sorry to hear about your video card woes, Allen.  I just wanted to point out to you that the warning about the minimum amperage is in reference to SLI (Scalable Link Interface) technology.  SLI is a special configuration using two video cards which work together to double your graphics power.  I'm pretty sure that it is only possible using 2 PCIE cards.  Where you're using a single AGP card I can tell you that this is not your problem. 

It's unlikely that it is your power supply (unless it is faulty).  420W should be more than enough to run your standard pc with that video card. The new card you bought might be damaged or might not be compatible with your system.  I've ran into a lot of funky problems with certain video cards not wanting to cooperate with some motherboards.  It couldn't hurt to send the card back and maybe try a different type.  Have you considered trying an ATI card? If you don't want to switch to ATI perhaps try another brand or model of Nvidia card. 

Oh, and while you still have the old card, perhaps you can try downloading newer motherboard chipset drivers (Via? ALi/ULi? SiS?) and see if that solves the crashing issues. You might get lucky.  Unfortunately when I had the same issues the only way I was able to resolve them was to replace the AGP with a PCIE card (or replace the board).  If your motherboard doesn't have a PCIE slot then you might want to try a different model of card or different brand of motherboard.  My AGP problems were initially solved by swapping my Abit board with an MSI board.  They were both Via based, yet with the Abit board and the AGP card I had random crashes, but with the MSI board I didn't. 

Best of luck.  I know how frustrating these sort of problems can be.

Edit: Gah sorry, that warning about the amperage is a bit unclear.  I misread it and thought they were referring to SLI only.  The 'new high-powered video cards' they're referring to are PCIE cards.  The  GeForce 6800GS should run fine on a 12V/18A rail. The requirements are : A minimum 350W system power supply (with 12V current rating of 18A or more). Check out http://www.bfgtech.com/6800GSOC.html

Hey Scotbo,

I've installed the latest greatest chipset drivers.  My chipset is Intel 875P.  My motherboard is an Asus P4C800-E.  I'll try installed the updated drivers for my old card again and see what happens.

Thanks for the advice on the power supply.  I had one ordered last night, but I was still able to cancel it this morning.  I'd rather not spend more money if it isn't necessary.  And in the replacement eVGA brand card still has problems I'll return it but stick with the 6800GS and go with a different manufacturer like BFG.

Alas, I'm not in a good position to update my motherboard right now.  I have a socket 478 processor and motherboards that support those CPUs are not common anymore.  Also likely end up having to replace my memory, and its unlikely I'd want to get a new motherboard that is still locked into AGP graphics because those are rapidly phasing out as well.  I figured my current MoBo/CPU setup should get me by for the next 2 years until I can upgrade in one fell swoop.  I just wanted the better video performance for now!

Thanks again!

No problem.  I'm glad I could help a little bit anyway.  I hear ya on not wanting to replace the mobo and I really hope you're able to work it out without having to spend a lot of money.  It ended up costing me a lot more than I intended as well. I had a nice ATI 9800 pro rendered completely useless by my new motherboard so ended up having to buy a PCIE card.  I bought the board I have (Asus/Asrock- with both AGP and PCIE slots) so that I wouldn't have to upgrade my video card right away.  Too bad my system refused to cooperate with my plans. >:(

You might want to do a google search on your card/ mobo combination and see if you can find anyone with similar issues. It's possible that it could be something simple but your problems sound very similar to mine and I really think it's a hardware problem, or at the very least bad driver coding. If the new card doesn't work I hope you can find one that does. If a different brand doesn't work try a different model. Good luck!

Dunno if I'll be helpful, but I went through a similar thing a few months ago. I upgraded to the exact same card Pegasys has the non-GT 6600. I ended up spending over $200 to get this $120 card to work :P I only had a 300W power supply so I upgraded to a big fat 600W (the extra power means I shouldn't have to upgrade it again for a while, I think), which meant I had to buy a new case because my micro-tower case wouldn't fit the new power supply. I still had problems, though, and eventually I had to upgrade my motherboard because the socket wasn't the right kind that the card needed. Might be something else to look into, I can't remember what the different socket types were but you might know what I'm talking about.

That's a great piece of advice, and it did give me some insight.  There's a poster on the eVGA forums (the manufacturer of my new card that bombed) in which he's running the exact same motherboard and CPU I have in combination with the eVGA 6800GS.  For him, its working like a dream.  So there's high hopes that this card was just a bad one.

Well that's good news, eh? I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that the replacement card works. :)

Well I guess I'll never know.

I RMA'd my card back to newegg asking for a replacement of the same kind, but they are out of stock now so they auto-refunded me my money.

I haven't quite decided if I want to try with a new card again because since I upgraded the chipset drivers 5 days ago I haven't had my system crash yet while running the latest NVidia drivers.  So for now I appear to be benefitting from increased frame rates with no random system crashes.

I read somewhere that late March is when the video card companies release new products anyway.  So maybe it would be prudent to wait until then and see if I still want to get a 6800GS if the prices drop on them.

I'd say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Does anyone out there HAVE a 6800GS and can report what kind of framerates they get with TS2?

Well I'm glad to hear that everything seems to be running stable for the moment and I hope it continues to do so.  If you are able to hold off for awhile you probably will be able to get something much better for a lot less.  Maybe they actually sorted out the chipset problems.  If so, yay! It's about freakin' time.

How can you tell what kind of framerates you're getting in the Sims 2?

Fraps is one program you could use (www.fraps.com). In addition to monitoring framerates, it also allows video and picture capture.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2162.0

I'll be damned! Thanx Sara, never knew about that!

Thanks, both of you.  The cheat code was what I was looking for tho! :)

I just had my system crash again this morning due to the video driver. (sigh...)

Well it made it about 7 days this time.  Guess I should start looking at vid cards again.

 :P

Seems like it is broke, then!  I sympathise, it's a real pain when your game crashes for no apparent reason!

There are several things to consider here. First is power. You need to look at more than the nominal wattage of your power supply; the rated wattage is only at room temperature, and actual power delivery drops as the PS warms to operating temperature. Cheaper power supplies suffer a significant drop in power output as temperature increases, in some cases it may be as much as 30% or 40%. The next thing you want to look as is regulation. Again, cheaper power supplies may only maintain output voltage within 10% or 15% (usually under rather than over) and this can be a problem both for CPUs and for the newer graphics boards which require their own power input. Finally, there is the the amperage issue, as has been discussed.

The power supplies that come with cases and in prebuilt systems are usually pretty cheap, and even the mainstream Antec power supplies
don't have very good regulation. Personally, I won't use any PS that doesn't have regulation better than 5% on the + rails, and 1% would be preferable with the high power demands of current products. I get my power supplies from PC Power and Cooling, and wouldn't use anything else. Their (relatively) quiet Silencer 470 model has regulation within 5% and the amperage is good:

Output:
+5V @ 32A
+12V @ 26A
-12V @ 0.8A
+3.3V @ 28A
+5VSB @ 2A
continuous = 470W
peak = 520W

Regulation:
5% (+3.3, +5, +12)
10% (-12)

If you need more power and better regulation, the Turbo-Cool 510 may be the ticket:

Output:
+5V @ 40A
+12V @ 34A/38A
-5V @ 0.3A
-12V @ 2A
+3.3V @ 30A
+5VSB @ 3A
continuous = 510W
peak = 650W

Regulation:
1% (+3.3, +5, +12)
5% (-5, -12)
Ripple:   0.5% (p-p)
Hold Time:   20ms
PG Delay:  300ms

These are neither cheap nor glamorous, but the PS is the heart of your system, even more so than the CPU, and a lot of hardware and "driver" problems can be traced to poor power. And they last a long time—longer than your CPU or graphics board—making them a good investment.  The Silencer 470 is $99, and the various Turbo-Cool 510 versions are around $190-200.

Finally, nVidia has a long history of wonky drivers and substandard image quality in "2D" mode, always going for speed over quality. You might consider giving ATI a try (unless you play mostly Open GL games like the Quake and Doom titles). I've been quite happy with the AGP version of the Radeon X800GT I bought a few months ago, although I did have to return the first example of the Sapphire-built board. There are also AGP versions of a few of their other current products, if you can spend a little more.   :)

Check out the links here:  http://www.pcpowercooling.com/technology/

Hi Allen,
I am experiencing similar issues, so I feel your pain.
I have to say that everything ran fine until I upgraded my nvidia drivers.   I'm running a Geforce 6200 AGP, and since yesterday, when I decided to be kind to my system and update my drivers, I've been having constant lock-ups during gameplay, and once, for the first time ever since I've had this pc, my machine  started revving so badly to the point where it sounded like the damn thing was going to explode. At that point, I turned off the computer and let it sit for a minute and once I turned it back on, all was fine again.
I have been reading a lot of things like this online lately, about the new drivers...you might want to do a google on nvidia lockups, there's a ton of people having the same issues.
I am going to try to downgrade my driver, if I can find the older version, and I'll let you know if that helps at all.
Sorry for you troubles, I feel your pain!
-RabidAngel

PS, You might want to check out this link... It's got a ton of info on this exact driver. I'm in the process of reading through it right now to find a solution.
http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_1.html

Hey I appreciate all the advice people are throwing out on this.  Thanks to all.

Just to clarify again, this is NOT affecting my game.  In fact, I have no problems when running any 3D application -- The Sims 2 or Half-Life 2.  It's when I'm doing mundane tasks like checking email and such -- 2D apps -- that the system hits an "unrecoverable error" caused by the video driver.  The screen suddenly blanks out and the whole system reboots.  I get the WinXP error message about the driver once I've logged back into Windows.

My stable driver version was 61.76.  Any driver version "7xx.xx" or "8x.xx" (which is what Half-Life 2 demands in order to run) is responsible for these crashes when using 2D apps.

Pity you can't run two drivers and switch between them!

My issues were very similar to what you're experiencing, Allen, except I was never able to find a stable driver so I was always plagued with crashes. I guess the problem was that I play a lot of newer games which required newer drivers so I didn't go back too far with previous versions.  I didn't want to put up with crashes in 10 games just to achieve stability in one, so I eventually just gave up and bought new hardware.

I experienced crashes, black screens, freezing and reboots while browsing and whatnot, but I also had problems playing games.  I could play sometimes for hours, but other times it might crash within the first two minutes.  It was pretty random.  It seemed to be an issue with the hardware/driver interface, and if I recall correctly I got an error saying something about a communication problem and the card would stop responding. 

I did a lot of research on this and it seems to be very common.  People with different motherboard chipsets and both Nvidia and ATI cards all have similiar issues, so it makes it very hard to narrow it down. The only common denominator seems to be the AGP bus.  I found a lot of suggested work arounds, but none of them worked for me. Switching to PCIE was the only thing that saved my sanity.

I really wish I could offer more help and I hope you manage to find a compatible card. It sucks that you're stuck with having to choose between playing one game or the other.  I feel your pain.  :'(

Getting so you need three different computers and a KVM switch and network so you can do all the things you want!

Well I finally figured out the problem... yes, it was the power supply.  I've replaced it with a model that has dual +12V rails, and now I can run the BFG NVidia 6800 GS card I that was causing the exact same system power failure I was experiencing with the previous eVGA card.

But this story does not have a happy ending.  In fact, the cure has been worse than the disease.

This card has so far destroyed my ability to play 3D games.  Whenever I load one up (Sims 2, Half-Life 2, even the NVidia demos from the install disk), I get brief 5-second pauses of normal video operation betwen LONG 10-20 second pauses of everything freezing.  This has happened with the drivers that shipped with the card and the latest drivers from NVidia.

I spent nearly two hours in the phone queue for BFG tech support last night before I hung up.

Will be trying to reach them again this morning.  If a solution can't be found, I"m RMA'ing this one back too.  And then I have no idea what I'll do.

----------

BFG tech support ran me through all their solutions including a complete driver scrub and re-install of the card.  Didn't help.  They want me to send the card back.   :-[

Sorry to hear that, Allen.  I was psyched at first when you said you solved it with the power supply. Doh! Perhaps the power supply isn't really the root of the problem but just made it seem a little better.  I replaced my power supply too when I was troubleshooting and seemed to work at first, but it didn't really solve it.  Can you get a different model card in return for the one you sent back, or is it just a straight exchange?  Do you know anyone with a computer who might be able to test the card for you before you send it back? Testing with another motherboard might be the only way to find out if the card is truly faulty or if it's just a general system incompatibility.

The power supply was a definite issue because at first I had the same problem with the BFG with the power cutting out once the new drivers were loaded.  The power supply resolved that.  I was quite relieveing to have something working finally, then well... you know the rest.

I've already RMA'd the card back. I'm taking a chance on a straight replacement.  The tech said that the only other thing I might try is re-installing Windows, but that's a pretty drastic step. I'll consider it if the replacement card has the same problems.