Real problems with XFX GeForce 6600GT AGP

[Mutley]

Ok, I'm still having major problems with my XFX 6600GT AGP video card.
There could be a variety of reasons for them.

2D performance is fine - no problem at all.

3D is where the problems are. This happens in BF2, HL2, DOD:s, etc. After 10 minutes of playing, wierd artifacts start appearing, textures go missing, and worse, you get polygons stretched to infiinity so you can't see anything. If you keep playing, sometimes the game will freeze, forcing a reboot, othertimes I'll get a BSOD. I've stopped XP rebooting so I can capture the message - I'm told there is a problem with nvdisp.dll, the nVidia driver.

I've tried all sorts of things, including cleaning out drivers, updating the chipset APP drivers, switching on/off AGP fast writes, playing with AGP aperture....to no avail. I have read that people with SiS chipsets have problems with certain nVidia cards, so that might be it.

Right now I'm thinking it could be one of the following problems:

o Motherboard compatibility problem - maybe need the right mix of AGP GART and nVidia drivers
I've installed the latest SiS AGP drivers. Seemed to help a bit, performance improved, but the graphics problems remain.

o Power supply
I have an Enermax E365 which produces max power of 350Watts, with 17amps on the 12V rail. From what I can determine this should be sufficient. I've removed power from everything but the CPU HSF, DVD Drive, motherboard and Graphics card - still no joy.

However, it could be the supply...but I have no way of telling - no other PC to test.

o Over heating
This seems unlikely. I've run some temp monitoring while playing BF2 and other games. Core temp rarely exceeds 70c. Maybe its a false reading?

o Faulty card
????

Right now, i'm running reg cleaner and driver cleaner, going to remove the AGP drivers as well as nVidia drivers, remove the gcard, clean the connectors, check the HSF is seated properly, then put it all back together...

My PC spec., if it helps
o MSI Max2LRU motherboard (SiS 645DX chipset)
o 1Gb Crucial PC2700/DDR333 RAM
o P4 2.0ghz Northwood
o WD 7200RPM 80Gb HDD

(Nothing is overclocked by the way)

I would welcome any ideas....

[Mutley]

Nobody got any ideas?
hmmm.

Well, I'll provide some updates of my own...I hope this might be useful to someone.
As an additional note to the above, I have been able to run this card through AquaMark3, 3Dmark03 and 05 with no problem....

I started (almost) from scratch. Removed the nVidia driver, booted to safe mode, and used driver cleaner, and reg cleaner to remove all the crap they could find, which was quite alot, and this included some old ATI driver files. I really don't see how they could be significant however, as once new drivers are installed, they aren't part of the graphics subsystem any more, but whatever, this is WIndoze we're talking about.

After that I removed the card, cleaned the contacts with isopropyl, and brushed out the slot. Then re-assembled the whole thing.

Oh and I also re-installed the latest AGP GART drivers.

Then I installed the nVidia drivers that came with the card - 77.77.

Then I started testing, using BF2. The results were better. One thing I noticed was that I don't get odd VDU behaviour anymore, where the monitor won't sync correctly (I have to turn it off and on to fix this). However, after playing for a bit, wierd polys and odd textures started to appear and eventually lock up the PC.

So, next was to ensure Fast Writes are set to "on". Many SiS chipset owners say this needs to be on. Tried that. Again it "seemed" a little better, but still ended up screwed,

Next, install RivaTuner, and select "motherboard compatibility mode", reboot, and test, and............

So far, success. Get off texture flashes on occasion, sometimes the game stutters a bit (but thats low G-RAM and BF2 for you). I still have some other things to try, and I don't think I have conclusively fixed this yet, and I'm not convinced there isn't a fault with the card.

One theory is this: On later nVidia cards, such as the 6600GT, the core operates at two speeds - one for 2d and one for 3d. It has been suggested that older motherboards and some chipsets (such as SiS and Via) have problems with the graphics card spontaneously changing core speed. Possibly the speed is dropping at some point during the game causing problems. This holds makes some sense in my opinion.

Alot of people have similar problems to me, and the common factors are that they have nVidia cards, that are 6600 or 6800 or similar (cards that have two run speeds), they have motherboards which are old-ish, with SiS or sometimes Via chipsets. The behaviour I've described is more in keeping with a broken graphics card, poor power supply, or over heating. Thats what makes this so frustrating - there are so many factors involved, its very hard to get to the bottom of.

Anyways, for anyone interested, these links are quite useful:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=1029
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=1159&st=0

I shall keep trying things, and keep this forum updated....

Mut.

[sawyen]

Hey there Mut, sorry to hear that the 6600GT problem is still there..

Never personally used an SIS chipset before, but if you're pretty certain the card's not duff.. you could try contacting SIS tech support and see if they know of a solution. I usually contact them motherboard vendors directly... alternatively, there's always XFX, see if their tech engineers ever got into this kinda problems.. pop them an email, and see what they say.

Even though Scan has excellent customer support, but if the card is fine.. you'd be paying a handsome amount for the RMA handling + services. While you're waiting for SIS/XFX to respond, you could try updating your BIOS.. they tend to have gfx card fixes. You could also try googling out some way of disabling them dynamic speedsteps.. I'll try to google you some once I get to the office..

I'll keep you posted..

Now I feel kinda guilty getting the 9600XT off you..

[Mutley]

Hiya sawyen,

No worries about the 9600! That was always a risk. Its a reminder to me really that things haven't really changed that much in the world of build-your-own-pc. I've been building them for , well, lots of years. The boxes have got nicer, the manuals better, the drivers as well, and better construction, but when things go wrong, there are still so many things that could be factors.

In searching around, I've found a lot of people with similar issues as mine, especially related to the SiS chipset (mine being the 645DX - quite old now). I keep my machine up to date pretty much, so it has the latest BIOS with the optimal BIOS configuration, I have the latest chipset drivers for SiS from SiS's website (both IDE and AGP drivers), and this has all helped a little.

Some users problems have been solved with better PSUs, mostly because they have had crappy no-name PSUs with peak power quoted instead of constant total power, and very poor 12v rails. Mine should be OK. I don't think what I'm seeing as caused by the PSU.

FOr some people its a duff card. I really don't want to RMA the card unless I'm pretty certain it has broken, cos it will cost be alot as you say.

RivaTuner has an option to force a constant clock rate on the GPU, which is pretty neat. I'm going to try that. But first I'm going to try a number of different nVidia drivers. I've read some suggestions regarding which work better than others (check the links in my previous post).
what puzzles me is that I don't recall reading anything about varying clock levels on the 6600gt in any reviews I've read.

If you find anything, I'd be glad to hear it. I'll be looking as well! I'm guessing that with coolbits enabled, I could probably force the core speed as well.

Mut.

[GFiSH]

I've got an XFX 256MB 6600GT AGP and have never experienced any problems that you say you have. My spec was XP3200, MSI K7N2 Delta 2 Platinum with 2GB Corsair TwinX2048C2PT. My power supply is a Hyper Type R 480W, so maybe thats where the problem is?

[Mutley]

Yeah power supply has come up alot as a possibility, but I'm 90% sure its not that. I think there would be other problems, and they would occur more consistently. Increasingly it looks like a mboard/chipset issue. The reason I say that is I have used RivaTuner's motherboard compatability option (which only becomes available if it detects an SiS chipset, or Via, or old nforce and some others). Since that things have improved, so much so that I can play several rounds in BF2 and then some minor odd things happen. Mostly wierd textures mapped onto objects, like cooling towers having blue camouflage. I reckon this is caused by problems with the card changing speed and the mboard not handling that.

I'm going to try that, and some different drivers, and get back on how that worked out.

BTW, has anyone tried changing PCI latency values for their graphics card? Just dropped mine from 64 to 32 and framerate has improved...

[shaithis]

Go into RivaTuner and underclock the card (especially the core speed)....also if you can disable pipelines, i would try disabling all but 1 (yeah, it'll run like crap but if you can do it its a good test).

its just the symptoms you describe sound earily like the kind of artifacts and side-effects I have seen from overclokcing core speeds too far and enabling pipelines that were disabled for good reason.

[Mutley]

I would agree, however the card is completely stock - Only received it a few days ago.
The card has not been tampered with in any way - no pipes unlocked, no overclocking.

However, underclocking is a good idea as a test, so I'll give that a go, thanks!

[sawyen]

You do know by tampering with them frequencies.. you're effectively voiding warranty? I would just force it to run at a constant frequency to see if it helps.. if it doesnt, you're rest assured its not the dynamic clockspeed stepping thats causing the problem..

I also highly doubt its the PSU, but then again it really depends how old is that unit.. I had this old FSP 300W.. and it just went like *snap*.. before it went, it throttled the 1.3Ghz Athlon cpu and caused plenty of artifacts on my Geforce2 GTS before letting go into a puff of fragrant electronic toast... We might be POTENTIALLY wrong about the PSU anyways..

I havent googled anything yet.. havent had anything since this morning.. lousy research meeting lasted through till like not 30 minutes ago. Will look out for info later for you m8..

[Mutley]

Cheers mate.

Ill leave the clock alone I think. The behaviour in games kinda suggest to me it might be clock speed stepping. Just tried using the latest drivers again, and I got some lock ups. Definately think the later drivers, or at least the latest is not the greatest, at least for me. Going to compare to the 77.30 drivers that came with BF2 - anyone know if they are different from the 77.30 you can get from nVidia's site? I would have thought there would be an key you can enable in the registry to allow you to over-ride clock stepping.

[Mutley]

Meant to say, the power supply is maybe 3 years old. 350W Enermax, its pretty strong. 17amps on the 12v rail. Which should be sufficient. The PSU isn't driving much.

[Mutley]

Forgot to say why I think it *might* be dynamic clock speed stepping (thanks for the correct term sawyen). In RiveTuner you can adjust the fan speeds depending on the mode of operation. For 2d operations I reduced the fan speed to 70%. Big reduction in noise, stable temperatures, not getting above 55c. 100% fan for 3d.

So, I play BF2, and after a few minutes, I notice the fan noise suddenly drop....hmmm thats interesting, time to exit the game.

[johnnr892]

Mutley, I was running an SiS chipset board and I tried all sorts of drivers with supposed fixes but nothing hleped, in the ned i bought a NF7 v2 and i have never looked back, brilliant board and 100% compatible.

[Mutley]

Mutley, I was running an SiS chipset board and I tried all sorts of drivers with supposed fixes but nothing hleped, in the ned i bought a NF7 v2 and i have never looked back, brilliant board and 100% compatible.

Interesting, sounds like you had the same problems then. I finally managed to get it fixed.
Its definately a chipset issue.

Check this post out:

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=60400

Mut.

[xEcstasy]

Mutley I just like to save I freaking love you (not literally) Ive had this problem for so long and gave up. I must have tried every single driver, rivatuner crap, everything! No one ever said anything about the writes combining crap. If I woulda looked here, it woulda saved me alot of time and hard drive space for all the crap I downloaded lol. Thanks alot, your a god, and thanks for sharing the information.

[Mutley]

And another happy customer!
I'm very pleased to have been able to help. It was certainly a frustrating exersise getting to the bottom of the problems, but well worth it.

Mut.