GTX 580 : Unable to Watch Video

[Mistwalker]

So, I pulled the trigger on a new 580 about three weeks ago. Folded on it for a couple weeks, played some games, watched videos of various types--all was fine.

Then today my Nvidia display driver crashed and recovered watching a flash video in Firefox. From there, my system is suddenly unable to play back any kind of video without screen corruption and massive green screens that result in the display driver crashing and recovering. Flash, .mpg, .mp4, .mkv, regardless of the media player including VLC.

I've tried both 262 and 263 driver revisions (Driver Sweeper between each), changed settings, tried installing Adobe Flash 10.1 (with Hardware Acceleration turned on and off), 10.2, 10 Square (the 64-bit version), and it makes no difference.

Once in a while the driver crashes just as the Windows desktop loads or before I even load a video. Trying to open a video file guarantees a crash, windows or fullscreen. Either way, display corruption remains behind in the form of random green pixels all over the screen even after the driver recovers.

Again, the card ran fine for weeks and played video fine. Today it is suddenly unable to play back any video at all. I haven't installed anything new or changed any settings. No overclock on the card, and temperatures are 35 degrees C. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium.

At my wit's end. I've spent several hours today trying different settings and software suites, codecs, driver revisions (only two are out supporting the 580).

Bad hardware seems suspect as the card is only a month old and was fine until now. Searching online reveals problems almost identical to this dating over the past three years, with a myriad of solutions that have worked for others; none of those has worked for me.

Anyone out there with a miracle fix, or is the card toast?

 

[nitromullet]

I have an almost identical setup as you in terms of primary components, and I have no issues.

It sounds like you've already tried a number of things, perhaps as a last ditch effort do a clean install on another HD (if you have an old one lying around). That would eliminate software as the source of the problem.

If it persists, I'd RMA the card. I had a GTX 470 in my setup a few months ago that exhibited some weird intermittent behavior with locking at the Win 7 start up screen and the occasional driver crash/lock up. I tried a whole bunch of stuff - using different rails on the PSU, clean install, bunch of different drivers, power settings, etc... Nothing helped. I ended up RMA'ing the card, and the system was rock solid after that.

 

[shangshang]

I'd say Windows is toast.

1. try a Windows rollback to the point when you think the system was stable. This may not fix the crash as rollback does not actually rollback all files. Hit or miss here.

2. try a Windows repair

3. then try a clean install of Windows (no need to format your partition if you can't afford to)

A month is a long time for Windows to get corrupted.

 

[dualsmp]

If a fresh install doesn't cure it, maybe try to install the 580 in another machine to test it. Otherwise folding might have killed it. I know some have folded for years, but I'm sure it accelerates any defect present.

 

[Mistwalker]

Thanks guys, I was thinking along the lines that Windows or a Windows Update was causing the problem, but I threw in my 4870x2 and the problems are all gone.

So now I'm thinking it's definitely the card itself. Guess it's RMA time, just surprised at the timing (I've had hardware dead or arrival or die during stress testing but never after a month with no OC, no high temps, and just video playback causing the problems). Bizarre.

Shangshang: Rolling back a restore point or two would have been my first move, but I've disabled system restore due to using a SSD as my OS drive. Guess that's not the best idea...

 

[MentalIlness]

but I threw in my 4870x2 and the problems are all gone.

Problem solved.

 

[Mistwalker]

Problem solved.

I suppose so. Went back to the shop and got a replacement 580 which is now installed and seems to be running OK, videos are back to normal.

Fingers crossed it was a fluke hardware failure, thank you kindly all who replied!

 

[tweakboy]

This problem will always remain, I know trust me, my cousin has same issue.

The driver fails or doesnt respond, Has to do with video card or PSU, and in your case its video card since your PSU is good. To fix it you must reboot once after that and it will work. That is the work around, or RMA it which I suggest.

 

[Seero]

This problem will always remain, I know trust me, my cousin has same issue.

The driver fails or doesnt respond, Has to do with video card or PSU, and in your case its video card since your PSU is good. To fix it you must reboot once after that and it will work. That is the work around, or RMA it which I suggest.

I agree with tweakboy except the PSU comment. Make sure the PSU is good enough to push the new video card. If video card draws a bit more than the PSU can produce, the PSU will degrades quickly, and PSU will degrade even under normal use. My PC was fine and one day I starts to get BSoD and random shutdown during gaming. It passes all types of tests I throw at it. Once I replaced the PSU, everything is back to normal.

Note that I am not saying for sure it is the PSU, I am saying that it, as well as the video card may be defective. Even a faulty hard drive may cause what you are experiencing. However, since the problem goes away by swapping video card, it is likely to be either the PSU or the 580 and the chance of a faulty 580 > the chance of a faulty PSU.

 

[Jacky60]

It's Nvidia Drivers they are awful-try AMD if you want reliability.

 

[Mistwalker]

Unbelievable--the replacement Gigabyte GTX 580 worked fine (games, videos) for almost a week, and tonight it suddenly started exhibiting the same problem. No video playback without green screens followed by "Nvidia Driver has crashed and recovered."

Worse, this time games do the same thing--Mass Effect 2's title screen is a garbled mess followed by crash to desktop with the same driver recovery message. Worked perfectly fine yesterday. Worked perfectly fine this morning. Come home from a Christmas party and screen garbage every time I do anything.

Again: temps are fine. GPU-Z pegs the card at 25C (I'm not doing anything with it but browsing and watching the occasional video file). Two bad cards? If it was the PSU the problem should manifest when the system is stressed, right? The crazy part is both 580s worked fine for a length of time (first card a month, second card a few days) before they just self-destruct.

What. The. Hell.

 

[dust]

Can you try a different PSU?

 

[HendrixFan]

It is a problem with all Nvidia GPU's. If you google the problem you will see people having the exact same issue since at least 2008. I just had to fix the problem with my mother's older Nvidia card.

The problem is hardware acceleration for video seems to crash some cards. Untick that option and you should be fine.

 

[Mistwalker]

It is a problem with all Nvidia GPU's. If you google the problem you will see people having the exact same issue since at least 2008. I just had to fix the problem with my mother's older Nvidia card.

The problem is hardware acceleration for video seems to crash some cards. Untick that option and you should be fine.

Where is the option to disable hardware acceleration? Would LOVE to give that a try.

Safe mode: videos work fine (with no sound). Uninstall Nvidia drivers, boot into Windows normally, videos work fine (with sound). So hardware acceleration definitely seems to be a problem.

However, simply opening the Nvidia Control Panel to the "3D settings with Preview" causes garbage in the little spinning preview window followed by system crash. Seems like anything requiring the GPU at all gives it fits (Aero runs alright though).

Unfortunately I don't have another PSU handy, but supposing that was the cause, wouldn't it have started breaking down at load? Swapping cards made everything suddenly work for a week...

 

[Will Robinson]

While it maybe just another case of a high end NVDA card failing early I suggest you reset your CPU to stock and try again.
An overclocked CPU can sometimes exhibit symptoms such as you are experiencing.





You are trolling the NVidia threads again

You could have helped with just the "reset the CPU" portion

Was that really necessary to say:

"While it maybe just another case of a high end NVDA card failing early "

It's probably best you stay out of NVidia threads altogether unless you are just reading.




esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[RaistlinZ]

Return the 580 for 2x6950 CrossFire? :awe:

 

[HendrixFan]

Where is the option to disable hardware acceleration? Would LOVE to give that a try.

Safe mode: videos work fine (with no sound). Uninstall Nvidia drivers, boot into Windows normally, videos work fine (with sound). So hardware acceleration definitely seems to be a problem.

However, simply opening the Nvidia Control Panel to the "3D settings with Preview" causes garbage in the little spinning preview window followed by system crash. Seems like anything requiring the GPU at all gives it fits (Aero runs alright though).

Unfortunately I don't have another PSU handy, but supposing that was the cause, wouldn't it have started breaking down at load? Swapping cards made everything suddenly work for a week...

I always run ATI cards, and when I fixed my mother's machine it was a few months back so I don't recall exactly where I went to fit it. I think the newer drivers have an option to disable it system wide.

Are you able to run games that don't run a video at the start?

 

[Mistwalker]

While it maybe just another case of a high end NVDA card failing early I suggest you reset your CPU to stock and try again.
An overclocked CPU can sometimes exhibit symptoms such as you are experiencing.

Well, the CPU has been at 3.3 since Nehalem launched and has run cool ever since. Add the fact that things only go wrong when graphics drivers are installed, and I'm pretty confident it's not the CPU...plus things ran fine for a week, but once the problem manifests nothing seems to fix it, even temporarily.

Return the 580 for 2x6950 CrossFire? :awe:

Was tempted to do this after the first card destructed, but the shop had no 69xx cards in stock, and they wanted me to try a replacement 580 first (which I was fine with).

This time I'll be walking out of there with either a pair of ATI cards or my money back...

I always run ATI cards, and when I fixed my mother's machine it was a few months back so I don't recall exactly where I went to fit it. I think the newer drivers have an option to disable it system wide.

Are you able to run games that don't run a video at the start?

Apparently there is no option in Windows 7 to disable it. I even switched to Win7 Classic as Aero finally started corrupting my desktop with every dragged window. Change to a "Basic" theme and suddenly all is well. <sigh>

I've disabled all intro movies for Mass Effect 2, it opens directly to the title screen which was instantly garbled and crashed. Then the Nvidia Control Panel did the same thing. This isn't just a video playback problem now, it's anything requiring Hardware Acceleration at all.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

Where is the option to disable hardware acceleration? Would LOVE to give that a try.

Safe mode: videos work fine (with no sound). Uninstall Nvidia drivers, boot into Windows normally, videos work fine (with sound). So hardware acceleration definitely seems to be a problem.

However, simply opening the Nvidia Control Panel to the "3D settings with Preview" causes garbage in the little spinning preview window followed by system crash. Seems like anything requiring the GPU at all gives it fits (Aero runs alright though).

Unfortunately I don't have another PSU handy, but supposing that was the cause, wouldn't it have started breaking down at load? Swapping cards made everything suddenly work for a week...

For "flash" video, the "enable hardware acceleration" setting is embedded in the web page video itself. Right mouse click on the video on the web page, choose settings, and click the tab with a tiny monitor on it.

For VLC, the hardware assitance settings are under "tools", then "preferences", then "video"

Some other things to check/do:
-Turn off any overclocking of the system (CPU, video, RAM, anything).
-Re-install DirectX. This is a biggie because if Directx is corrupted/bad, it affects how 3d is interfaced to the hardware for most all Windows programs (including games). http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displayLang=en
-Clean out any oddball video codecs that might be lurking on your system from software installs. Here's a tool: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displayLang=en
-Remove sound drivers and re-install new downloaded driver copy. I doubt that this would be the culpret as video and sound are generally completely seperate in functions, but you never know..
-Completely clean out all nvidia files using Driver Sweeper, or manually. Download a "fresh" install copy from Nvidia and re-install. (think you probably did this already, but it doesn't hurt to do again).
-Try a different PCIe slot if you have another available. It shouldn't make a difference, but you never know.

Just some ideas, but I would try the directx re-install before anything further..

 

[Mistwalker]

For "flash" video, the "enable hardware acceleration" setting is embedded in the web page video itself. Right mouse click on the video on the web page, choose settings, and click the tab with a tiny monitor on it.

For VLC, the hardware assitance settings are under "tools", then "preferences", then "video"

Thanks for the heads up, these two I was able to disable. Unfortunately it made no difference, any video playback = screen corruption followed by driver crash and recovery.

Tried to reinstall DirectX, but the Web Installer just says "You have a current or newer version already installed, no installation necessary" and quits. Swapping the physical card worked for a few days so don't think it's Windows or DirectX, but...who knows.

Rebooted once with CPU at stock (nothing else is overclocked) just to confirm: error still occurs.

I'd removed all codec files after the first card died, problems still there so I reinstalled them. Just for kicks I repeated the process this time as well, same results.

All driver uninstall/reinstall cycles are done with a Safe Mode Driver Sweeper run in between. Tried the modded 265 drivers, they install fine but still can't play games, videos, or even look at the 3D preview in the control panel.

 

[solofly]

It's Nvidia Drivers they are awful-try AMD if you want reliability.

Here, enjoy...

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1568949

PS
Too bad I don't have enough room to put AMD'S DRIVERS SUCK in my sig, otherwise I would.



If you can't help the OP with suggestions, stay out of the thread

Your post has zero to do with the topic and it's a threadcrap.

esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[Mistwalker]

Here, enjoy...

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1568949

PS
Too bad I don't have enough room to put AMD'S DRIVERS SUCK in my sig, otherwise I would.

If you derail this thread...

Neither of you are helping here. I didn't expect to have so many problems switching to Nvidia, but it's obvious this issue is not widespread enough for there to be a well-documented fix, and finger pointing is hardly constructive in any case.

If you have a troubleshooting related suggestion, fix, personal experience, link, anything like that, by all means...

 

[shangshang]

While it maybe just another case of a high end NVDA card failing early I suggest you reset your CPU to stock and try again.
An overclocked CPU can sometimes exhibit symptoms such as you are experiencing.

another case of high end NV card failing huh?
I love it how you're waving your AMD jock around while thowing the OP a bone with your reset CPU comment. Anything for an opportunity to be an AMD whore huh?



You have a problem with another member?

Use the report button.

We can take care of him. Insulting him doesn't help your cause and hurt him any further than he does to himself.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[notty22]

A user had a similar problem with gtx 480's I believe, he went through 2 of them. It was a older power strip. It was effecting power to the computer. Which manifested itself, with some kind of drop to the gpu memory.
The video card has 2 power circuits 1 for the gpu, memory.
You have a quality psu, do you have the computer plugged in to a ups, or old power strip , extension cord.
This is not normal behavior.

 

[shangshang]

OP,
do yourself a favor and repair Windows. Seriously, it takes about 1 hr to repair Windows. And how long has it taken you to try all the things you have tried in here? You do know that Windows corruption is a frequent fact of the Microsoft world right? In fact, forget Windows corruption, just conflicting apps (codecs?) is a fact of life in the Windows world.

It seems to me Windows is your issue or at least a strong candidate to be the issue.

When things run fine in Safe Mode and not fine in regular mode, then it's Windows related (or apps in Windows related). When Aero breaks in Windows and "classic" works, then it points to Windows. Sometimes it may be just easier to repair Windows (or better yet reinstall it) as one of your first diagnostic steps.

I don't know why or some of the people in here keep giving you advice and going on and on about switching to AMD as the solution. But it's clear to me that those who are trying to help you are also trying to convince you of switching hardware, a rather disingenuous attempt at helping a person. I really hate those type of "salesman" helpers in life.

(And for the record, I own an AMD card.)