Reguarding Nvidia's 8800GTX, and my fury.

[acrobat]

NOTE: This problem is now resolved! There seem to have been a bunch of faulty 8800 cards out there on the market.... I am leaving this original post intact, because it describes the problems and things I tried. So hopefully this can help anyone else, should they have problems with their card and find this thread. I posted the solution to the problem on page 4 of this thread. And I think this direct link should show the single post, or you can just go to page 4 and see it:
http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...4&postcount=44

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Heres the story. I spent a fortune on an uber PC at Christmas. I've never spent anything even close to that much on a PC before, but I wanted to treat myself to a good PC that can play games without having to spend the first 10 minutes lowering all the settings only to still see the game struggle along at 2fps.

So I got a dual core, 2gig etc.. and I went with an 8800GTX. My first few weeks was good, but then I got a game called Company of Heroes. I loaded it up, and it crashed and I had to reset my PC. I thought, "Hmmm wierd", so I tried it again, and it crashed again. So I googled and found that it could be a conflict with Bit Defender, so I completely uninstalled Bit Defender and it still crashed. I then found that it might be a conflict with Creative X-Fi cards, so I uninstalled that and used my onboard sound instead. It still crashed. I then thought it might be RAM so spent an age speaking with Corsair about my RAM. But it wasn't that. I basically faffed around for ages trying to find out what the problem was, until someone explained to me about going into the console thingy after the computer had restarted again, and finding the crash logs the PC makes. They then helped me understand all the gobbldygook and it pointed at the Nvidia drivers.

I tried to find a solution and the only real option that I could come up with, or anyone on the internet could suggest... is that I just RMA the graphics card and get a replacement one. So I did that, and got a replacement card, but the exact same crashes remained.

So I do more googling, and I find a few forums with discussions about the same kind of crashes. One of the forums suggests that its the fault of the drivers, not the hardware, and that people just need to be patient and wait for Nvidia to sort their drivers out, and basically, "It serves me right for buying a new technology etc..".

So I wait like... 8 months, and I've tried all the Nvidia drivers I can find. Old ones, new ones, beta ones.. everything. None of them helped. (although the latest one allowed the card to get further in one other game which crashes too).

So I ranted about it on some forum, and then out of the blue, some lad sends me a PM and says that he has the exact same problem too, but he is so fed up of it, he is thinking about just going to buy a new card. There are LOTS of people on the net who have the same problem, so that wasn't a surprise, but this fella says he will buy a new one and then sell his existing one on Ebay. (He wasn't entitled to an RMA for some reason... I don't know why). Anyway, I told him I had already done that and it didn't work for me, but he can give it a shot anyway if he is desperate. So he does. And then last week he gets back to me and says he bought a new one, and had to sell his existing 8800GTX at a much reduced price on Ebay, so he has lost a huge chunk of cash. The good news though, is that his new card works perfectly and he has been playing troublesome games like Company of Heroes for an entire day without crashes etc. So his problem has gone, and his PC is exactly the same with the exact same drivers, and the only difference is the actual card itself. So it suggests there are a ton (or more) of faulty 8800GTX's out there in the world, and whats worse.... is that most of the people who have them with a fault, are being told that its a fault of the driver and it will be solved eventually. I shudder to think about some of these poor feckers realising the actual card is faulty and they waited so long for a working driver, they went beyond their warrenty.

So there you go. There are countless people out there with a card that cost them a small fortune. They paid "top dollar" as the Americans say, for something you would assume would be top quality, when actually.... its broken. Some people are doing fine, but many aren't.

Heres some extra random facts I will post in a list, just because I'm thorough and hope this thread may help somebody out there:

1) The crash has nothing to do with the "resistor" fiasco when the cards where first released. The cards with faulty resistors where recalled, and I double checked mine wasn't a faulty resistor one, by using a magnifying glass and following a guide on the internet. It has the correct resistor. So this is ANOTHER problem with the hardware.

2) Some people have 8800GTX that work perfectly, but many people do not.

3) There is a "Class Action Lawsuit" being brought against Nvidia, because of this. The actual law suit is for something more specific though. On the box of these cards, it says, "Vista Ready". (It actually says its XP ready too but....). Anyway, many people (Americans mostly) are buying expensive new computers, with these expensive new graphics cards, and the expensive new Operating System - Windows Vista, only to have their entire PC crash regularly. Unlike us poor Brits who get shafted left and right and can do very little about it, the Americans band together, started a website, and are teaming up to bring this class action lawsuit against Nvidia. I am really interested to see what will happen, although, I suspect it will not help me. One thing I did find interesting, is that on my box (the 8800GTX's box), there is a sticky white label on the side, and under it, I can faintly see the "Vista Ready" label.... So at some point (either when I bought it, or maybe when I returned it), somebody has put a sticky label over the Vista ready logo, perhaps to prevent me coming back to them to argue that its not Vista ready.

4) I did not buy from Scan.co.uk. They are always reliable and great for me. I bought this card from somewhere else, and I'm not sure I should mention the name. Although, they have annoyed me due to this, but to be fair, its not really their fault. They supply the stock they buy in from the various manufacturers and if something doesn't work, its the fault of the manufacturer not the place its bought from.

5) Brands have nothing to do with this at all. When researching about the crash, I've seen threads with dozens of people talking about the exact same crash. Some people have Asus, some people have BFG, some people have EVGA etc.... None of them are free from crashes. Also, all cards are identical, made to exact Nvidia specifications. The only difference from manufacturer to manufacturer, is the label they put on the card. Although, in recent months they have been allowed to change the clock speeds and stuff. But the point is that all brands suffer from the crash.

6) The crash brings down the entire PC. The screen displays strange colours in strange patterns, then the sound starts to stutter, and then the PC either hangs, or restarts itself. If it hangs, it needs to be restarted with either the power button or the reset switch. Sometimes, when its booting up again, the display is all messed up, even when it is booting and displaying the bios information etc... its all messed up. To fix it, the PC needs to be turned off and left for a moment and then turned back on again.

7) The crash occurs in different situations. For me, its only in a few specific games. Many other games (even demanding ones like Oblivion), can be played all day and night. Some people get a crash in the menu of games though. And some people get the crash when they are just browsing the internet...

8) There is a movie of the crash on YouTube that somebody made. They are using Vista, and by the looks of it, they are just browsing or watching a movie or something, and then it crashes. Its the exact same crash I have (in Windows XP) and its the same as the crashes described by the countless other people on various forums. The movie link is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPNRLdGk8Mo

9) It is not a PSU issue. There are people with $200 PSU's and 1000W PSU's who experience the crashes. I have a Corsair HX 620W which is a great PSU, and I have the crash. Some people have also tried using different PSU's to see if it helped, and it didn't.

10) Its definitely not a temperature issue.

11) The Nvidia class action lawsuit website can be found here:
http://www.nvidiaclassaction.info/ad...tolawsuit.html

12) The crashes occur on Vista AND Windows XP. Although some people have reported having the crashes on XP and then when they upgraded to Vista, the crashes went away.

13) Company of Heroes is the most crashy of all the games I've played. Sometimes I can play it for an hour before it crashes. Sometimes it crashes after 30 seconds. Nearly all other games I have played have crashed though. One of them "Rainbow Six: Vegas" would crash in the exact same place. Although the very latest driver that was released a couple of weeks ago, allowed me to get past that place, only to crash later in the game. Other games crash too, but its much less common. But Company of Heroes is basically completely unplayable anyway because of this.

14) I've got a second RMA arranged for this card, but the place I bought from is out of stock. In a couple of weeks though, I should get a new one. Its several months since my first two cards, so this one will be from a new batch, and I am assuming the problem will be gone.

15) As far as I can tell, none of the 8800 Ultra's have this problem.

16) The 8800GTS does have this problem - like the GTX.

17) I've seen some people mention that they have the exact same problem with older Nvidia cards. (The 7800 or 7900 cards).

18) This is my second Nvidia card. My first was a Ti4200 which I was so happy with, I used it for over 7 years straight in my last PC. So I have nothing against Nvidia. Atleast... I didn't until I spent close to £400 on this card which is basically semi-broken.

19) Its definitely not a monitor issue too by the way. I've tried 4 different monitors, one of them was a CRT. The crash remained reguardless.

20) Its a fantastic card when its working.

21) This isn't my only complaint with this card. It also has a noise issue, which I won't go into here.





p.s. If anyone knows anything about this, please feel free to talk about it, because I'm quite interested. If anyone thinks they can help me, please do! And this helps anyone, great! Although, I once would have warned against buying an 8800GTX, but now I would suggest you get one anyway. From what I can tell, the new batches of cards that you would buy today, are working. Unless you happened to buy one that was distributed at the start of the year, you should be ok.

[shaithis]

It's the drivers

[acrobat]

It's the drivers

How are you so sure? I was glad to believe that because it suited me to think that one day I could just download something to fix the problem. But this person I've been talking to, bought a new card and everything now works perfectly for him. He is using the exact same drivers, which suggests that its the hardware. But if you know otherwise, then I would be able to cancel my RMA.

[dogie]

Oh my God! Nvidia's drivers don't work with one card range with one game and you rant on about it like it spawned the devil or something. Don't see you complaining about the ATI driver which left your system defenceless?

[acrobat]

Oh my God! Nvidia's drivers don't work with one card range with one game and you rant on about it like it spawned the devil or something. Don't see you complaining about the ATI driver which left your system defenceless?

Eh?

First off, what "range" it is, doesn't matter to me. What matters is that I've spent a huge chunk of cash for something that doesn't work as advertised.

Secondly, its not one game. Almost every game I have (about 20 games) all experience the crash at some point. But only a few of them are unplayable because of it. Company of Heroes just happens to be the worst.

Lastly, what are you talking about ATI for? I don't own anything made by ATI, and never have.

p.s. If you had spent about £400 on a video card that doesn't work properly, and then about £40 on a game that you can't play, (not to mention dozens of other games), I think you would feel the same way. When everything you own is bought by your mum though, I can see why it might seem like a pointless rant. Also, if I just wanted to rant, I would type "NVIDA SUX!" somewhere. I type more and am thorough for the benefit of other people. You can find pages like this when searching on google. I searched on google and find some useful pages, and some useless pages. So I am keen to make this a useful one.

[Hottentot]

Have you tried the card in another machine. It may be some hardware conflict on your system. THG reported that WD raptors and the 8800 series conflicted in vista. It may even be some software that you are running.
Company of heroes gave me a lot of problems with my old ATI X1800XT, the screen went black but the sound carried on. Eventually the game patches and driver updates sorted it out. Since the GTX8800 has gone in I have had no probs at all (using XP).

[acrobat]

Don't have another to try it in unfortunately :/ Thanks for the good suggestion though by the way. The only people I know with gaming PC's are a couple of friends but one is an AGP system, and the other one isn't really.. suitable =P

I was sure when I got the card replaced the first time, that it was a driver issue and the replacement card would work, but it didn't. But the cards where likely both from the same batch so its possible its a hardware issue and that I really need one from a more recent batch.

I suppose I will know for sure in a week or so though anyway, when I get the replacement.

[GSte]

Oh my God! Nvidia's drivers don't work with one card range with one game and you rant on about it like it spawned the devil or something. Don't see you complaining about the ATI driver which left your system defenceless?

The drivers don't work with my 8800GTS properly either, and not just with one game. You don't think that acrobat has a right to complain about this when the cards have been out for almost 10 months now, and they are Nvidia's top of the range cards and cost an absolute fortune? How can you possibly think this is a non-issue?

[Clunk]

I also think its the drivers.

Mine did exactly the same as that youtube vid, and worse, on XP and Vista. The entire screen would flash black and the flashing would get faster until it crashed, and I was about to RMA the card when some beta drivers emerged, so i installed them, and it got rid of it in XP, but not in vista.

About 5 driver releases after that, and the Vista error has gone for me.

I did a post a while back about this, and how I think that manufacturers should hold off releasing hardware for a few months while they get the drivers sorted for the current lot.

Already we are seeing stories about the 8900 series cards comeing in november/december, but they still havent sorted out a lot of the issues with the 8800 series yet.

Its just one thing that makes my blood boil a bit

[StoX]

I agree that it's really not on, at all. The consumers have a right to be upset

[amdavies]

Unfortunately, there's a very good reason why it's called Bleeding Edge....

For the people who want the newest and fastest they will often end up paying more than just an inflated monetary cost. A lot of the time you're a beta tester for the hardware and any associated drivers.

[Mutley]

Unfortunately, there's a very good reason why it's called Bleeding Edge....

For the people who want the newest and fastest they will often end up paying more than just an inflated monetary cost. A lot of the time you're a beta tester for the hardware and any associated drivers.

Perhaps, but is it right to call these cards "bleeding edge" after they've been out for so long? Surely they are now just "leading edge" in which case you would expect them to work as advertised.

[Tetras]

It doesn't really matter how new it is, the primary purpose of a high end graphics card is (shock horror) to play games. The absolute basic level of testing should be to make sure it works with the games most people are playing, Company of Heroes would easily be on that list.

Whether a driver update may or may not fix the problem is again besides the point, the card should not be released if it is unfit for purpose. Too often this happens with hardware but there are exceptions, CPUs for example (I'd bet 99% of self-builders can't ever recall having a faulty CPU) so it isn't impossible to do.

[acrobat]

Errr thanks everyone!!! (Should I be clicking the thanks button for everyone? ) I appreciate the moral support. This forum never lets me down.

Also, I've actually been quietly putting up with this for almost 9 months now, and it doesn't actually annoy me especially. I have lots of games so the fact that a few of them are unplayable, doesn't cause me much grief. The others may crash, but the crashing in the other games is quite uncommon, so they are perfectly playable. So, my post may look ranty but that is purely because: I'm quite geeky, have a lot of free time, and I can type about 20 million words per minute... (and I use too many words anyway). I also like to be thorough. If I wasn't going to be thorough I wouldn't bother posting something in the first place. And if you aren't thorough, you only end up having to come back every 2 minutes to respond to the replies like, "Its your PSU", "Its overheating", "did you forget to plug in all the leads", etc. So yeah, I can type something like that in no time, and I think I've been cool about this.

BUT, my layed back-ness is turning to annoyance today, because I installed the Bioshock demo last night and I tried playing it tonight. I tried to play it 6 times, and all 6 times it produced this crash within 15 seconds of the game starting and locked up my PC. Semi-exciting in a way... because atleast I have a sure way of reproducing the problem quickly and easily. But its annoying, because this is one of the few games I actually bought this card for... Grrr.

But I'm still putting up with it anyway, because I have this RMA planned. So I'll get a new card next week (maybe the week after). So I'll know for sure then, if its hardware or driver related. Cant wait.

Mine did exactly the same as that youtube vid, and worse, on XP and Vista. The entire screen would flash black and the flashing would get faster until it crashed, and I was about to RMA the card when some beta drivers emerged, so i installed them, and it got rid of it in XP, but not in vista.

About 5 driver releases after that, and the Vista error has gone for me.

Wow! Thats promising! What driver version are you using now? I am using, "162.18_forceware_winxp_international_whql.exe" which is the latest I think. (or it was a week or so ago, but I can check again anyway). What concerns me though, is that I have tried every single driver I can find. Old ones from last year, new ones, beta drivers, none beta etc. Even a bunch of drivers from the Guru3d site. So I haven't had any luck yet. I am still hoping one may come along and fix this though. Either that or the replacement card will

Its just one thing that makes my blood boil a bit

its just not righteous Its just a classic example of "the little guy" being screwed by "the big faceless corporations". And thats just... silly.... and sad. Not to mention a big cliche.

Unfortunately, there's a very good reason why it's called Bleeding Edge....

For the people who want the newest and fastest they will often end up paying more than just an inflated monetary cost. A lot of the time you're a beta tester for the hardware and any associated drivers.

Thats true, but that doesn't mean its acceptable. The fact is, what they are doing is basically illegal, and would not be allowed in any other industry. I work for a really small company, and we are all stressed by how strict the rules and regulations are in this country... We struggle to survive because everyone demands perfection and we have to supply it or we get in lots of trouble. We have debtors who don't pay us on time. We all have families to support. Its hard work... Meanwhile, a big company does something like this and they get away with it. Thats just not right.

But anyway, a product has to be fit for its purpose, and this one isn't. The fact that its cutting edge doesn't really matter. They wouldn't be able to use that argument in a court. If they release it, it needs to work. If it doesn't work, they should hold on to it longer. A few bugs are acceptable to most reasonable people, but not actually working and crashing the entire PC, is more than a bug.

And yeah, like Mutley said, I've owned the card for almost 9 months now, and it was released months before I even bought it. Infact, there is a newer card available now (the Ultra), so its not even a top end card anymore.



p.s. thanks again everyone. Also, I'll post back when I get the replacement card. 3 time lucky I hope!

[DratUK]

I can agree with you albeit based on limited experience and info.

I originally had an XpertVision (yes I know brands dont make a diff), this lasted 4 months then I got corruption in game then a crash. Rebooted and it was corrupting in bios post screen.
So did the usual reseated etc. Still the same.
Back to the shop and low and behold booted no problem. Shop stress tested still no crash.
Got home put a BFG 8800GTX in and no issue.
Tried the XpertVision and corruption.

Long story but there will be a point to this.

Upgraded my sons PC, and unbeknown to me he swapped his ATI 1950 to the "faulty" Xpert. It worked
Wellit did for three weeks then showed the same problems. Got it swapped for a new one under warranty. Since then, 1 month, its working fine.

The point of this is that there are faulty cards out there. I think in this instance it is a bad batch. Hopefully your next replacement works fine.

I have COH running on both systems and have used certified drivers as well as beta with no issues in any games. BF2 COH Prey C&c3 the list goes on.

Playing the demo Bioshock which needs beta 164.44 Vista and still no issues with any games yet.

There is light at the end of the tunnel its just a painful journey for some.

[acrobat]

I can agree with you albeit based on limited experience and info.

I originally had an XpertVision (yes I know brands dont make a diff), this lasted 4 months then I got corruption in game then a crash. Rebooted and it was corrupting in bios post screen.
So did the usual reseated etc. Still the same.
Back to the shop and low and behold booted no problem. Shop stress tested still no crash.
Got home put a BFG 8800GTX in and no issue.
Tried the XpertVision and corruption.

Long story but there will be a point to this.

Upgraded my sons PC, and unbeknown to me he swapped his ATI 1950 to the "faulty" Xpert. It worked
Wellit did for three weeks then showed the same problems. Got it swapped for a new one under warranty. Since then, 1 month, its working fine.

The point of this is that there are faulty cards out there. I think in this instance it is a bad batch. Hopefully your next replacement works fine.

I have COH running on both systems and have used certified drivers as well as beta with no issues in any games. BF2 COH Prey C&c3 the list goes on.

Playing the demo Bioshock which needs beta 164.44 Vista and still no issues with any games yet.

There is light at the end of the tunnel its just a painful journey for some.

Thank you! That is a really helpful post!!!

I would bet it is a bad batch too. Although, I am still open to the fact that it could just be a driver issue too.

Also, you reminded me of one more thing I forgot in my big first post. I actually ran a "graphics card stress test" on my card. I left it running overnight and I checked it the next day. It had been running for over 13 hours and it was still going strong. Which is odd.... Because it seems the card getting stressed, is not a problem. But rather its something specific which triggers the crash. Which is backed up by the fact that I can play things like "Oblivion" all day without a single crash. But I load up Company of Heroes and crashes within 30 seconds.

Very strange.

But yes, I will get my new replacement next week and it will be from a newer batch, so hopefully that will solve it.