6800gs agp doesn't run with forceware v8x.xx

[xxpsychodad]

i've a xfx 6800gs agp (no OC, no extra pipes unlocked) since yesterday and i'm unable to run the card with the current and all others 8x.xx-drivers!
i found out that with forceware v7x.xx on my machine everything works fine, but the card isn't recognized correctly (shows up 6800gt instead of gs due the same nv40-chip).
i've installed the card in my friends machine and it runs perfectly with all 8x.xx driver versions.
what happens:
in that moment when driver installation is over and WinXP updates the screen due the new drivers, something goes wrong and a blinking cursor apears --> welcome to ms-dos (the last thing i'd heard from windows was that "new hardware found".wav-file while screen was black).
so i've to reboot the machine, but windows-restart fails as soon as the drivers are loaded again --> fresh frozen winxp, so i have to reboot hitting "f8"-key and load last working winxp-config.
if i install the drivers while windows is in "secure-mode" (i don't know if that is the right word) everything goes fine till restart --> windows is frozen again at startup (i guess while trying to load the new drivers)!
i've formated my c-partition and installed winxp and only the 8x.xx drivers again and the same problem showed up. after ubgrading mainboard bios and drivers no improvement noticed!
so it must be the new driver generation--> it's not compatible with my hardware!

but this agp-card is only fully supported in driver version 82.12 for the first time!
game-support is improved too in the 8x.xx-versions.

what changes in the 8x.xx drivers could make them incompatible to my machine? what can i do else? I could send my nVidia card back and try my luck with an ATI card!
should i? are ATI's x850 better known for compatibility?


my system:
msi k7d master-l (AMD762 Dual AthlonMP-CPU Board, FSB100MHz, 4xAGP)
2x Athlon XP 2000+
1GB Samsung RAM (Timings: standard)
No-Name IDE RAID-Controller
WinXP SP2
XFX GF6800GS 256MB AGP

 

[Bucksnort]

The only driver right now that recognizes the gs is a nvidia beta driver 81 something i think. Im sure someone will post you the dl link

 

[xxpsychodad]

i have tried all 8x.xx drivers allready. they don't run. but all older drivers (6x.xx and 7x.xx) work fine!
the 8x.xx generation and something installed on my machine (HW) doesn't like each other i think!!!

has someone else this problem too or am i the only one with this problem? has someone heard or read something like that?

 

[Wolfshanze]

Have you tried the BETA 8* drivers? I've heard multiple times that the only NVidia drivers that recognizes the AGP 6800GS is the 82.12 beta drivers!

 

[xxpsychodad]

yes that's right! but i mentioned already that i tried that version!

 

[Wolfshanze]

Have you tried any of the Newer NVidia Beta Drivers? 82.12 is NOT the most recent Beta.

 

[xxpsychodad]

i've tried all from v81.94 till v83.20.

i'm desperated: the card works very good (benchmark results in the game f.e.a.r. with everything turned on and max. details: avg 40 fps, min 20 fps, max 80 fps) but it seems that i have to run it with driver version 79.11 for the next 5 years (i bought my last card 5 years ago and the next one will come in the year 2010!).

if i send it back in change of an x850xt(pe), i would get a much faster card, but never be able to see HDRR till aprox. year 2011 on my pc!

 

[Wolfshanze]

The newest NVidia Beta drivers are 83.40. Also, have you made sure you fully removed any and all old drivers? Try something like Driver Cleaner or Detonator RIP to make sure you get rid of any residual old drivers.

Other folks are running the AGP 6800GS with no problems on the 82.12 and above drivers, so I'm sure it's something specific with your software setup, not a problem you have to live-with forever. Not that I'm recomending it, but I'm sure if you had a clean newly-formated system with 82.12 or better installed, the card would work just fine... so my advice is to make SURE you get rid of any and all old drivers by uninstalling them from the control panel and running a utility like Detonator RIP and getting rid of any vestige of old drivers... then install one of the newer betas like 83.40 and seeing what happens.

I'm sure NVidia didn't make a GPU chipset that runs on everyone's system but yours. Double check those drivers, clean them up, and try again!

 

[SelfishGene]

If all else fails do a system restore to a point before you installed the card.

A lot of hardcore guys diss system restore because it uses up HD space - but, imo, system restore is the greatest driver-conflict resolving tool you have. If something gets FUBARed with your graphics drivers and there just isn't a way to save the situation, a system restore will keep you sane and save your data and not force you into doing a full reformat.

 

[TheRyuu]

Try these.

Latest thing there is.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Try these.

You mean "Ditto what Wolfshanze said".

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: Wolfshanze

Try these.

You mean "Ditto what Wolfshanze said".

But you didn't post linky

 

[xxpsychodad]

i've formated my c-partition 3-times already. I really don't have a problem with deleting windows !

After winxp pro sp2 installation, i've installed only the 82.12 driver. As soon as forceware installation is over and windows updates the screen automaticly, winxp crashes and an ms-dos blinking cursor appears and i have to reboot!
I can avoid this "automatic-crash" by installing the drivers while windows runs in "safe-mode"!

But in both cases it doesn't change the behavior after reboot:
The win-logo (with the black background and the loading blue dots) shows up and normally after that, the login screen should appear, but instead it crashes again into a black screen and everything is frozen.

i've tried following too, but it didn't solve the problem:

formated c:
updated motherboard bios
installed winxp
installed motherboard drivers
installed forceware 82.12
reboot and see frozen black screen
reboot hitting "F8" and select "restore last working winxp-config"
install forceware 79.11
reboot and login (driver works fine)
install the game f.e.a.r. and KILL'EM ALL !!! HA AH HA AH
...
OK now i'm cool and serious again, and i'm looking forward to solve this problem with your help.

i think that my exotic motherboard causes this problem when combined with forceware 8x.xx-generation. there must be something new in it (compared with the 7x.xx-generation) that isn't compatible with my hardware!

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: xxpsychodad
i've formated my c-partition 3-times already. I really don't have a problem with deleting windows !

After winxp pro sp2 installation, i've installed only the 82.12 driver. As soon as forceware installation is over and windows updates the screen automaticly, winxp crashes and an ms-dos blinking cursor appears and i have to reboot!
I can avoid this "automatic-crash" by installing the drivers while windows runs in "safe-mode"!

But in both cases it doesn't change the behavior after reboot:
The win-logo (with the black background and the loading blue dots) shows up and normally after that, the login screen should appear, but instead it crashes again into a black screen and everything is frozen.

i've tried following too, but it didn't solve the problem:

formated c:
updated motherboard bios
installed winxp
installed motherboard drivers
installed forceware 82.12
reboot and see frozen black screen
reboot hitting "F8" and select "restore last working winxp-config"
install forceware 79.11
reboot and login (driver works fine)
install the game f.e.a.r. and KILL'EM ALL !!! HA AH HA AH
...
OK now i'm cool and serious again, and i'm looking forward to solve this problem with your help.

i think that my exotic motherboard causes this problem when combined with forceware 8x.xx-generation. there must be something new in it (compared with the 7x.xx-generation) that isn't compatible with my hardware!

Did you try the 83.40 drivers????? They are the latest that you can get, maby it solves your problems????

 

[Wolfshanze]

But you didn't post linky

Aha... but actually I did... I posted more then one reply!
(look a couple of posts higher!)

 

[xxpsychodad]

thanks for the link.
i installed v83.40 yesterday and it didn't work!

on the MSI homepage is a FAQ regarding my problem (new video card and/or drivers-->blackscreen on reboot). Apparently this happens with psu not producing enough combined power (example on msi page: 3.3V+5V/min160watt with one cpu and geforce2). i checked my psu yesterday.
i disconnected all my periferials, usb devices and hd/optical drives (exept my primary hd) and upgraded my driver from v79.11 to v83.40! After reboot i had my black screen again!
How much combined power do i need for 2x athlon xp cpu and 1x6800gs?
my psu is no name 420 watt with - 3.3V/28A - 5V/46A - 12V/16A - combined power 3.3V+5V/max210watt

 

[spurdy1]

xxpsychodad,

I think we may be in the same boat. I have a dual Athlon board as well. In December I upgraded my GeForce4 4400 to a vanilla 6800 128MB. I found that I had to go back to the 78.01 drivers, otherwise I'd get a freeze on bootup (at the Windows logo, before the desktop is ever displayed).

Then I heard about the 6800GS, and since I had bought eVGA, I took advantage of their "Step-Up" program. I've had the GS for a week now, and though I haven't been able to spend a lot of time on it, I've had the same issues I did with my first 6800-based card. Problem is, the GS is only officially supported in the 8x.xx line of drivers!

I've tried 81.98 WHQL-ed, 82.12 beta, and 83.40 WHQL-ed. None of them worked (either a freeze at windows logo on restart, or refuse to install at all due to "no valid product" found) I've used Driver Cleaner Pro in between each trial as well.

Here are my system specs:

Tyan Tiger MPX S2466N-4M (AMD 760MPX chipset)
BIOS 4.06 (latest)
Dual AthlonXP-M 2400+ CPUs
1.5GB PC2100 ECC Reg.
Enermax 430W PSU (should be plenty of juice for this setup)
1x 80GB Seagate HD
1x NEC DVD+/-RW
Soundblaster Audigy
eVGA 6800GS 256MB AGP
Windows 2000 Pro SP4 (fully patched)

I'm using the latest chipset drivers from AMD (v5.33 dated March 2002, a bit old but they've worked fine with all previous nVidia cards I've used before the 6800s). I'm starting to wonder if nVidia decided to let go of support/compatibility with the AMD 76x hardware or AGP drivers in their 8x.xx generation. Either that or they just made a change that broke compatibility and their QA didn't catch it because these older and less common AMD chipsets aren't on their radar anymore?

I've heard there's a way to hack the nv4_disp.inf file in the driver package to allow it to install with technically unsupported boards. I'd happily do this with the 78.01 package if it'll get my 6800GS working stably and with decent performance.

Really, I don't see what would be that much different than my vanilla 6800 from a driver standpoint. The AGP version of the 6800GS uses the same NV40 core, which has been supported in nVidia's drivers for a while now. I'd think that the new GDDR3 memory would be a transparent change as far as the driver is concerned, so I'm guessing that the 78.01 would work fine.

I'll research the .inf hack and try it this weekend with 78.01. If anyone has any tips/info about it, I'd be much obliged.

Oh, how did you like the 79.11 drivers? Perhaps I should use them instead (might as well get as close to the "cut-off" point as possible, I guess.)

 

[misterzebub]

I have been having the same struggle with my XfX 6800 GS.

My System spcs:

Tyan Tiger MPX S2466N-4M (AMD 760MPX chipset)
Bios 4.06
Dual Athlon MP 2800+ CPUs
2GB PC2100 ECC reg.
Antec TruePower 550
1x 160 GB Maxtor HD
1x 200 GB Maxtor HD
1x SONY DVD+/-RW
Soundblaster Audigy
XFX 6800GS 256MB AGP
Windows XP Pro SP2 (fully patched)

I also have the latest chipset drivers. I emailed XFX tech support and this is their reply

It sounds like your motherboard GART driver may be incompatible with the
newer NVIDIA driver version. Please visit your motherboard manufacturer?s
website, download and install the latest chipset driver for your motherboard
model. Before you install the updated chipset drivers please use the add
remove software control panel to uninstall the NVIDIA display adapter
driver

An since the last chipset driver for this motherboard was done in 2002 I do not think we have much hope of seeing a new one to fix this issue.

It looks like hacking the .inf file might be our only choice. I'll see if I can dig any info up on how to go about it.

 

[spurdy1]

Thankfully, it looks like my guess was correct. With minor modification to the nv4_disp.inf file in the 78.01 driver package, I successfully installed and things seem to be working well.

I ran through 3DMark05 and got 4020. I'm probably being limited by other old/slower elements of my system, and the fact that it's been a good while since I did a fresh OS install.

Below are the two lines I added to the 78.01 .INF file (copied from the 82.12 version, except adding "hacked" to the string to identify that it's not official). I included the section header for each as a reference. Just plug these lines in so that they're in the appropriate order in their respective sections (I'm not sure if order matters, but I decided to play it safe). I'm guessing that it would also work in any older driver that supported the NV40-based AGP boards.

[NVIDIA.Mfg]
%NVIDIA_NV40.DEV_0047.1% = nv4_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0047

[Strings]
NVIDIA_NV40.DEV_0047.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS (hacked)"

I tried using RivaTuner to unlock the masked pixel quad, but had troubles on reboot (froze at the desktop after reboot). Haven't tried enabling the 6th shader. For now I'm just going to use it for a while at 12p5v and see how it goes. I'm just happy to have the card finally working!

But, I really shouldn't have needed to go to these lengths. (COUGH!) betterdrivertesting! (COUGH!)

For the PCIe version, you'd need to add a slightly different pair of lines, as those boards use the NV41 core. Note the extra space on the end of the string (I guess to make sure no two products use the same string?) Or you could just add anything to differentiate it from the NV40 entry, like I did with "hacked" on mine.

[NVIDIA.Mfg]
%NVIDIA_NV41.DEV_00C0.1% = nv4_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00C0

[Strings]
NVIDIA_NV41.DEV_00C0.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS "