GeForce 6800 Ultra freezing!! *resolved*

[Laza]

Work in progress:

Heatsink + 60mm fan

 

[AssyrianKing]

lol now it looks like those old 8mb SiS cards hehe

 

[RampantAndroid]

AK, they meant to have those speeds for 2d/3d...they justs didnt test them. As for the heatsing, I'll stick with me 6800U heatsint, it coves the memory, and it is a beast (although I don't much like Squirrel cage fans...oh well) GLad you guys found a fix.

 

[chaonatic]

Nvidia really needs to come out and publicly acknowledge this flaw so that everyone else, not fortunate enough to know of the resource of forums, can have a functional card too.

I just wanted to thank everyone who contributed to this thread and resulting resolution, as I was having the exact same problem until I evened up the 2d/3d OC's on my PNY 6800 Ultra.

Edit: :beer:Cheers!:beer:

 

[Splash Damage]

Yep, I'm with Chaonatic on this one. Good to see fellow comp users helping each out with their ridgy didge expensive video card issues.

Many thanx to AK for starting the thread and devulging some very useful info.

Thanx again to all!!

 

[ngomong]

Thanks for the great thread guys! I've just put together a new system, and have been having freezing problems on my MSI 5900XT. It's driving me nuts! It freezes on the setup page for Far Cry demo.... I haven't even gotten to see any cool graphics.

Ran 3Dmark05... ran at 3 FPS(!)... yes, 3!... and then froze in the middle. Froze when the screen saver came up once. Froze while playing a wmv. Very upsetting.

When I get home, I'm going to try the great suggestions here... change BIOS settings, ensure card has its own dedicated power line, inspect card's 2D/3D settings.

*cross fingers*

 

[2krazy]

does anyone have a link to dl powerstrip + crack?

 

[tortie]

Is there a guide here on how to update the BOIOS?

 

[Laza]

I think I have solved the issue. It seems that the north bridge on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe (nForce2) motherboard gets heavy load when I change from a GF4 to a GF6800GT. It can't sustain the same FSB speeds as it used to. When I downclocked from 200MHz (CPU was at 10x200 and mem at DDR400) to 166 (CPU 11x166 and mem DDR333) everything works like a charm! Newer A7N8X motherboards officially support 200MHz speeds so maybe those would work better. I will try to rise the chipset voltage because I want my 200MHz FSB back

But I'm glad I finally found the problem...previously I tried downclocking both mem and CPU but I didn't touch the FSB speed, silly me.

The heatsink-mod I did helped lower the temps of my card a lot, it now runs at 63-64'C under load and 52'C idle (2D). Before, the card run at 75'C load (peaks at over 80'C)!

 

[Visual]

lowering the fsb solved the problem... does that mean your pci/agp frequency was higher with the higher fsb?
doesn't your card have agp lock, or at least a suitable divider for 200mhz fsb?

 

[Laza]

AGP lock on my card? What do you mean by that?

My nForce2 boards lock AGP and PCI so they don't change together with FSB. There seems to be some kind of a load factor at work, maybe the gf6 card places a heavier load on the northbridge than a gf4. Dunno. I was lucky enough to have it running at 200MHz for 2 years in the first place, since it was unofficially supported at the time.

 

[RampantAndroid]

That is what AGP lock is...the A7N8x Deluxe boards had a problem that only rev 2 could handle the 400 mhz FSB...hence why I didnt get a XP3200 and went with a P4 3 GHz Northwood a year and a half ago...that says a lot, because i dont like intel....AMD all the way....I love Athlons and Opterons

 

[Laza]

Running at 200MHz FSB again. I did a vold mod on my chipset and I was able to ramp up my FSB again. It runs pretty hot but better cooling helped. I'm happy again!

 

[firstimeposter]

FIrst off, I'd like to thank all the posters for their various recommendations to fix this problem. I have an MSI 6800 GT, and except DOOM 3, every other game gives me this problem (HL2, Vampire: Bloodlines, NFS Underground 2). I've tried the following steps:

1. Disabled AGP FW, changed AGP 3.0 speed to "4x8x".
2. Downloaded Powerstrip and set both the 3D and 2D speeds to 350 (they both were already set at 350).
3. Followed the advice on this thread: http://over-clock.co.uk/ivb/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=6994 and changed my computer from "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" to "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC".

However, this problem still persists. My PSU is 400W. Using 67.02 drivers, the BIOS is the one that came with the mobo. Any other suggestions?

 

[firstimeposter]

Well, even with the latest nForce 5.10 drivers and using Detonator R.I.P and reinstalling the display drivers, the freezes still occur. Any other suggestions?

 

[Laza]

firstimeposter have u tried the same thing that helped me? That is lowering the FSB speed from BIOS. I used to run at 200MHz CPU 200MHz mem, and when I dropped it to 166 CPU 166 mem it worked just fine!

 

[botepeople]

after initial install of 6800. i get medium artifacts, mainly polygons, and freezing in any game and benchmarks. After many useless driver replacements to fix it i revamped the computer. it needed it anyway.

i also had another computer with a celery 2.0 & biostar mobo U8866 that i tested the card in, it ran fine in all bemchmarks with no artifacts. So I new it was hardware conflicts in my main system, cuz most my software were same on both puters.

Once i got XP Pro up again with all settings at low or disabled, I worked up enabling and upping features to meet my 24/7 oc settings as b 4 (see sig). I finally found out that the PNY 6800 did not like the 12x200@2.4ghz setting. My old stable 2.4ghz setting is 12x200 and voltage is 2.05. My new STABLE 2.3ghz setting is 11.5x200 and voltage is 1.95. I was able to repeat the freezing by upping voltage to 2.05 and multiplier to 12x. I haven't tested it yet, but perhaps the 6800 draws too much power? ...and cpu needs more juice?

the 2.4ghz setting has been 24/7 for 2 years. strange. So I advise everyone to start from scratch ad work up...not work from a stable oc before u installed the card.

 

[Laza]

Exactly the same experiences as I had botepeople. I guess the card draws more juice from the AGP bus or places more stress on the chipset than other cards, thus lowering clockablity.

 

[firstimeposter]

IT IS FIXED!

@Laza: The minimum FSB speed I have is 200MHz (A64 3000+ Socket 754).

I updated my mobo BIOS to the latest version (v1.4), disabled AGP Fast Write, changed the AGP 3.0 speed from "Auto" to "4x8x", and changed the AGP Aperture size to 512MB (system ram is 1GB). My motherboard is MSI K8N Neo Platinum (BIOS W7030NMS).

 

[Stangs55]

Exact same problems as the first poster. I've flashed to the PNY 6800 Ultra Rev2 bios (I already had it on there) but I changed my 2d to 425. I hope this helps!

I'll let you guys know if it works for me.

 

[Laza]

Oh, you're running an Athlon64

You fixed it firstimeposter? How?

 

[Stangs55]

Well...so far so great!! For the first time ever, I've been able to run the GPU benchmarking section of PCMark04 and make it through the 4th test w/o a crash. B4 I'd flashed the BIOS, I'd NEVER gotten through this section on my brand new rig. I'd say that the 425/425 fix is working!

Thanks guys!

 

[firstimeposter]

@Laza: I upgraded my mobo BIOS from v1.1 to v1.4 (W7030NMS - MSI K8N Neo Platinum), disabled AGP Fast Write, changed the AGP 3.0 speed from "Auto" to "4x8x", and set the Graphic Aperture size to 512MB. My card was already running at 350MHz in both 2D and 3D. I'd kept a separate video card BIOS as a last resort, but I'm glad I didn't have to use it.

 

[Kuch]

I posted something similar to this in another thread, but for those that have BFG cards with lifetime warranties, aren't you worried that using the softmods like Rivatuner to do some of the fixes proposed (ie. setting 2D & 3D speeds the same) would void your warranty? I talked BFG support over the weekend and told them of my problems (artifacts and game freezes) and of some of the fixes that have been discussed in this and many other threads, but first of all they said it was all new to them. Then they suggested using something like Rivatuner would void my warranty so I can't even try the fix of setting the 2D & 3D speeds the same.

Kuch

 

[tapjlb]

I had the same problem with my nforce2 mboard and my pny 6800. the problem was a conflict with my on board nvidia lan adapter driver and the video card driver. I disabled the on board lan adapter and installed a pci lan adapter and it works great now.