GeForce 6800 Ultra freezing!! *resolved*

[Laza]

I do doubt it's my vid card, before I had a Gf4 Ti4400 which worked like a charm. All I did to my comp. was to change that to this new PNY. And a lot of other people with 6800 cards seem to have similar problems, so I'm not alone with this.

As for the tems, they're about 54'C (idle) 74'C (load) which don't seem to high to me. But maybe the heatsink isn't fastened properly (even if I've re-seated it twice)....gotta try anyway.

 

[AssyrianKing]

cool nice to see my thread growing.

those of you who are getting freezes still, have use all tried the bios editing and reflashing? not using powerstrip or 3rd party programs, but actually editing the exact same bios currently on your card to same 3d/2d clocks and reflashing it?

 

[Laza]

It seems that the GT BIOSes don't have an option to set separate 3D/2D speeds. At least I tried serveral GT bioses from mkvtech.net but all except 3D frequency options are greyed out. If I take an ULTRA bios those settings become available.

Anyway, the clock freq. thingy didn't do anything for me :/

 

[AssyrianKing]

yeh using an ultra bios should be OK as long as you change the clocks to be those of GT spec before flashing it and keeping identical 3d/2d clocks.

Beats me....all i can think of is if the bios doesnt work and you have done it correctly then it must lie somewhere else, ie, Power Supply etc.

 

[Laza]

Well I don't know anymore. I downlocked the card (100MHz) and my computer by 500MHz but that didn't help either. It's definitely not a heat issue, I kept the heat monitor active while playing and the card crashed sometimes at 64'C and sometimes at 75'C. I also put a 80mm fan blowing directly on the GPU.

ALso tried the newest forcewares (67.20).

I'm going to get rid of this piece of crap, back to my trusty GF Ti4400. Waste of money and 4 weeks of pain in the arse. >:R

 

[Rage187]

I'd say it sounds like a PSU problem, although it looks like you covered that.

maybe try updating your mobo drivers and bios.

 

[Splash Damage]

Man, am I glad I found this tech discussion.

I too am having all sorts of dramas with my ASUS V9999 Ultra as well. Mainly the freezing and Infinite Loop errors. I am on my second Geforce 6 card now as I took my first one back due to screen corruption etc during gameplay. Not sure it could handle the 425Mhz clock.

And now, this replacement card is doing pretty much the same thing except for the screen corruption. Doesn't really matter what I play, it will eventually freeze, sometimes causing the loop error or it may only freeze for a few seconds and then unfreeze. Annoying.

I am quite keen to try your method of resolve AK as it seems to have worked for you. I found a copy of OmniExtremeEditFX and a copy of NVFlash v5.1. Only prob is I can't find the courage to modify this $1100 video cards bios in fear it will go pffftttt.

So much for warranty then ey!

I haven't tried soft modding the clocks with the other proggys listed in this thread. I might give some of them a go first before taking any risks.

Perhaps you could give me some advice on flashing the card like the do's and don'ts. I am not all that familar with flashing video card BIOSes. I am not new to comps, in fact, I'm far from it. But when you outlay that much dosh on something, and do something to it you ain't never done before, it takes a bit to wind up to the idea. Well for me anyway.

Here are my sys spec for those interested:

Intel P4 3.0Ghz 800FSB (Northwood)
MSI i875P Neo Ver2 (MS6758)
2x512Mb Kingmax DDR500 (TinyBGA)
ASUS v9999 Ultra 256MB
120GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA
SB Audigy DE
D-Link G520 WiFi
Enermax 470W Silent Series

Thanx to all that have provided some useful info in this thread.
It's sure taken some load of my shoulders.

 

[RampantAndroid]

I try to stay away from altering BIOS....I prefer using softmods (I switches to Rivatuner, b/c with that you can "permanetly" set it into windows registry to be overclocked at bootup.)

Try them first, then go for the BIOS...

$1100 where the hell did you buy it...my PNY cost me $500 (USD)

 

[AssyrianKing]

i payed $1199 AUD for my ultra, but i was getting it for like $900 AUD from another place but they didnt have any in yet. i bought mine like 3 months ago.

Rampant ur card for 500 usd = 645 aud , thats reallly cheapp! i wish i could find an ultra that price. but i like the asus one coz its single slot.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Well, in the US, the MSRP is 500....I did see many cards in AUD go for 1000+.....most cards in the US still sell for over 500, www.newegg.com for example...oh well, sucks to pay in anything but USD I suppose.

 

[Splash Damage]

Yea, sorry 'bout that. That's $1100 AUD. This is where I live you see.

It sucks actually coz I didn't even get the Deluxe version for that price. For whatever reason, you don't seem to be able to buy the ASUS Deluxe anymore. At least not local to me anyway. The ASUS v9999 Ultra now is a 2 slot design instead of the deluxe 1 slot design.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think this card even came from ASUS. The card looks no different to the reference design cards we saw leading up to the release of these cards.

AK, your card has a single slot design with a genuine ASUS heatsink/fan combo that lights up blue, right?

Well, mine is a 2 slot design with a picture of Nalu on it and it has written on the plastic shroud, nVidia Geforce 6 Series and no blue led fan.

Apart from a few very small stickers that say v9999ultra, this card could be made by absolutely anyone. It even has Nvidia logo's stamped on the PCB.

Very strange indeed. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[RampantAndroid]

looks to be the same as mine....I went on Asus' site and looked at their stuff....looks identical to my PNY, except my card has Nalu on it with PNY on the picture....yeah, I dont know who makes them, but if you look hard enough, they are all prob made in the same place. Oh well, all the companies do is brand them then. Pitiful, huh?

 

[Laza]

Looks like both of you have a nvidia reference design. Yeah PNY cards are known to be reference designs and no harm in that, but AFAIK ASUS cards should be different, at least the heatsink design looks different in all pictures I've seen. But maybe the first batch or something was still with the standard HS.

It's sad to hear that ASUS cards have the freezing prob. as well, what I can't figure out is why some people have no problems though. We have to find out the cause for this. It's not easy though, people seem to have completely different operating systems, CPUs and motherboards/systems and still have the same freezing problems.

 

[Splash Damage]

I just backed up my original bios using nvflash v5.1. I have just opened the .rom file using OmniExtremeEdit FX 1.5 and for some reason, it has the 2D and 3D clock speeds around the wrong way.

i.e. It's saying that the card is running @ 400Mhz in 3D and 425Mhz in 2D. It's showing the Device as an nVidia 6800 Ultra and the Vendor as ASUS.

The VGPU values seem OK:

3D @ 1.4v
Thrtl @ 1.3v
2D @ 1.1v

It isn't showing anything under the Memory Timings. If I select either "<empty>" or "Nvidia" under the Vendor drop down box, the clock frequencies revert back to their correct values.

i.e. 3D @ 425Mhz and 2D @ 400Mhz.

Did you have this same problem AK? Looks a bit dodgy to me.

 

[RampantAndroid]

As PNY Tech addressed it to me ( the tech guy had the same problems with his 6800 gt I think...maybe it was a n ultra) He solved it by playing around with his power setup...OCing the 2d is the same thing essentially...all it does it make it so it doesnt draw power when it jumps to 3d mode....the problem is in the power it draws, and I imagine this would be fixed in PCI-E verisons....I'm gonna write into Max PC tomorrow

 

[Splash Damage]

Figured out what the prob was with the clock frequencies being back to front.

I needed to use a more up to date version of OmniExtremeEdit. It's no longer called this as it's name has now changed to "NiBiTor".

Version 1.8 appears to be the latest and fixed the incorrect readouts. I changed the clocks to the same value of 420Mhz and saved the new .rom file. I reopened this file and everything seems to have saved correctly.

All I have to do now is find some inner courage and bite that bullet.

 

[AssyrianKing]

yeh the Asus Ultra Deluxe is a single slot design with just a silver textured cover over the heatsink and the logo ASUS stamped into it , also has the blu led fan. although the heatsink and card design is still nvidia reference design, but just not as tall because its single slot.
Splash Damage you said you couldnt find the Deluxe version anymore. Where i bought mine from i initially was buying a albatron version but they were out of stock and he only had 2 of the asus deluxe left, he said theres not going to be anymore manufactured until after christmas....something about nvidia has broken there dies on the chip or something i did not understand or hear correctly.

 

[Splash Damage]

Sorry to be a nusense AK, but I need to ask you some info about nvflash.

First and foremost, what version did you end up using to flash your ASUS card correctly?

And secondly, what command line switches did you use to flash.

The reason I ask is I have downloaded v5.1 of nvflash but cannot find any info relating to this version. I made a backup of my original bios using this version with the -b command successfully. However, everybody else seems to be using earlier version like 4.42 or 4.46 or 5.08. And then the command switches some people are using to flash with are different too and seem to differ depending on what version of nvflash your using. Some use -f -p -u and -2. Others say to only to use -f. I'm a bit confused on which switches to use. There are others saying that you need to use v5.xx as a minimum for flashing 6800 series cards.

Seeming as you have successfully flashed yours, I thought you might be able to share this info.

Thanx.

 

[HITechJeff]

I'm having almost the exact same problem.

I have found that two games, Far Cry and Half Life 2 seem to have the same issue with my system. BOTH video and audio freezes for a few seconds (anywhere from 3-30 seconds), then everything returns to normal and repeats. What is strage is that Doom 3 and Sims 2 run VERY SMOOTH with NO freezing.

I've gone through all the usual checks, all drivers are up to date, hard drive defraged to be sure, checked BIOS, etc. It would lead me to think it was the card or something else, but Doom 3 runs like crazy and is so smooth it looks like a movie. I can take it up to HIGH settings for everything and be just fine with room to spare. Also, I have patched Far Cry with 1.3 and even called their support. All they said was my video card wasn't out then so they couldn't test the game with it (BFG Gforce 6800 Ultra OC ). So, I'm wondering what the deal is here? My system BIOS and motherboard chip set drivers are all current as well. I'm not overclocking anything either.

While the BFG video card ships FACTORY overclocked and checked, I've heard others have issues like this that didn't have this card so I don't think it's at fault. Especially given Doom 3 is OK.

Any thoughts on this? Does anyone have a rig with specs like mine that may be able to help? It would be helpful to hear from someone that's built a PC like this or maybe an Alienware/Falcon PC like it. I could sure use some input on this because I've just about exhausted all the usual.

Thanks,

Jeff

Specs:

Case: Coolermaster - Model ATC110
Custom Artwork: American flag, Liberity Bell and other done by Smooth Creations (VERY NICE and HIGHLY recommended).
Power: PC Power and Cooling 510 Watt Turbo.
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-53.
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo2 nForce3.
Video Card: BFG nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra OC.
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro with external breakout box.
Memory: 2 GIG of Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPRO.
Primary Storage: 2 Western Digital Raptor 74GIG.
Optical: Pioneer Model DVR108 - Dual Layer DVD+/-RW.
Mouse: Logitech Laser - Model MX1000.
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural.

 

[Laza]

I guess PNY support sort of "acknowledges" that there is a problem. I have been in contact with them but the replies haven't been that helpful really, just something like check your bios version and try other drivers...

The latest e-mail said:

"Hi,

Have you tried them the 65.62 some say that has solved problem:
http://download.guru3d.com/detonator"

So I'll give it one more shot.

 

[AssyrianKing]

Originally posted by: Splash Damage
Sorry to be a nusense AK, but I need to ask you some info about nvflash.

First and foremost, what version did you end up using to flash your ASUS card correctly?

And secondly, what command line switches did you use to flash.

The reason I ask is I have downloaded v5.1 of nvflash but cannot find any info relating to this version. I made a backup of my original bios using this version with the -b command successfully. However, everybody else seems to be using earlier version like 4.42 or 4.46 or 5.08. And then the command switches some people are using to flash with are different too and seem to differ depending on what version of nvflash your using. Some use -f -p -u and -2. Others say to only to use -f. I'm a bit confused on which switches to use. There are others saying that you need to use v5.xx as a minimum for flashing 6800 series cards.

Seeming as you have successfully flashed yours, I thought you might be able to share this info.

Thanx.

I used nvFlash v5.08, and the command i use if i remember correctly was:

nvflash -5 -6 xxxx.rom

xxxx = Name of the bios you saved it as
-5 = Allow firmware and adapter PCI device ID mismatch
-6 = Allow firmware and adapter PCI subsystem ID

- also if your flash process stuffed up you can always fix it using any pci graphics card, but your process shouldnt stuff up your flash, only way it can is if you lost your power, your pc got a surge, spilt water on it... lol

- also HL2 owns! i love this game runs absoutley smooth as butter running 1280*960 everything maxed and 4xaa 8xaf. If you havent played this yet get it! its worth it!....

 

[RampantAndroid]

Jeff,

What powersupply do you have?

I have a Thermaltake 560, and although I would think that wouldn't cause problems, tht may be it for me...

 

[HITechJeff]

RampantAndroid:

My power supply is listed in my sig, it's the best there is.

SOLUTION TO PROBLEM FOUND!

I have found and 100% FIXED the problem I was getting with the video and audio freezing. Please note that I would HIGHLY advise anyone BEFORE flashing their BIOS on any video card to try this first. For me and some others, the solution IS NOT the drivers, video card problem, etc. Here's the solution:

Go into main system BIOS.

Turn "Fast AGP Write" to OFF/Disabled

Make sure "AGP Speed" reads "4X8X" and NOT "Auto" (seems to be issue with "Auto" detect here)

Turn "AGP Apature" up as high as possible. Mine was set at 256MB, but changed it to "512MB" the highest setting possible.

Save and exit BIOS.

Well, that did it for me. Now, ALL games run SILK SMOOTH on MAXED out settings and 4XAA! Weeeee!!! I have frame rates up to 71.8 on Far Cry at 1600X1200. Half Life 2 ROCKS also with MAX settings. Everything now is great so it seems like it was just some BIOS tweaks that was needed. Too bad tech support doesn't go over them in more detail or else I could've solved this long ago. At least I know what to check now when this happens and maybe it can help others too. I also think it would be helpful if people would start posting their detail BIOS settings AND their system specs together. Otherwise the solution may be right under their nose (like me) and just not realize it.

Thanks for the replies,

Jeff

 

[HITechJeff]

RandomX:

It seems as though great minds come up with great solutions.

I just wish more tech support and people would post their BIOS details, it sure would help get things fixed maybe a bit more quickly instead going through all the software issues first.

Thanks for posting your results as well, this confirms the fix isn't just mine alone and could help many others with the same system spec or perhaps more.

Happy gaming!

Jeff

 

[AssyrianKing]

well there we go, we can safely say the problem to the majority of 6800 cards freezing is due to bad bios settings or the cards bios clock speeds incorrectly set by the manufacturer, i think the 2d/3d clock feature wasn't tested and implemented very well....

It proves that the nVidia didn't test these cards hardly at all! because the rate of people getting problems is way over the normal percentage of error and problems that come with most hardware (graphics cards precisely).