serious problem with 3d games

[theMan]

i have a problem when playing 3d games. i open the game, and it works for like, 1 minute, wether im playing, or just at a menu, then, the signal to the monitor shuts off, and eventually, the computer crashes. i boot back up and everything seems fine, untill i go into a 3d game again. i am not overclocking.

only theory: i wanted to start overclocking my card, so i downloaded rivatuner. i decided i didnt want to have it, so i uninstalled. maybe it did something to my registry? would wiping out my card drivers and re installing them do the trick?

this really freaks me out, it just suddenly started happening. i have been playing games for months on here, and i ran stability tests (prime95, loops of 3dmark) when i got my rig. and it was stable.

please help!

 

[Woodisjericho]

I'm a little rusty when it comes to hardware, but I would suggest reinstalling the drivers. Use the nVidia ones but make sure to remove the card from the device manager first.

Then check for overheating issues (doubtfully a bad fan but who knows). And make sure the power connector you're using for the video card doesn't have a big load on it (cd drive, hard drive).

Other than that download Everest http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=3 and post the voltage values. I'm not sure what the values should be but the senior members will know.

 

[theMan]

so, im supposed to disable the card in the device manager? what does that do?

its definately not heat. the gpu is running at 45C. no power problems either. this just started happening all of the sudden. i dont know what the deal is. v

 

[Woodisjericho]

You uninstall the card from the device manager (right click and it's and option). Restart the computer, cancel the Found New Hardware Wizard, and run the nVidia Driver Setup. This will reinstall the driver.

 

[theMan]

ok, so i removed the drivers, and re installed them. still doesnt work. no clue what to do.

 

[theMan]

this is really strange. i can understand if it crashed while playing a game, but it does it just in a menu. this doesnt make sense. it primes ok. the only things ive done recently, which very well be the problem are: upgraded via chipset drivers, updated nvidia drivers to 71.89, and updated my bios, but i flashed back to the older one so that shouldnt be it.

how do i remove my via drivers? is there a program out there? or is there something in windows. if none of these driver things fix it, im going to have to start pulling things out of my computer, so help would be very nice.

 

[mariosoft034]

Can you tell me wich games were you playing?. Try to test several games as well as 3dmark, aquamark and other stuff, just to rule out aplication specific problems. Do you have no problems at all working at windows?

 

[theMan]

it happened with brothers in arms, nfs underground and half life 2. i havent done any benchmarks. everything else is fine as far as i can tell. i did prime for a few hours and it was fine.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: theman
it happened with brothers in arms, nfs underground and half life 2. i havent done any benchmarks. everything else is fine as far as i can tell. i did prime for a few hours and it was fine.

Do you have minidumps with dates that match when you had this problem in c:\windows\minidumps?

Have you done all Windows updates?

Have you done all driver updates for all hardware in your box?

What does your event log say when this is happening?

 

[theMan]

i dont have a minidumps folder, i dont think. im running windows 2000 if that helps. the only things ive done are upgraded my nvidia card drivers, chipset drivers, and installed rivatuner. im teseting these things now. theres nothing in my events list

 

[dclive]

In the SYSTEM portion of the eventlog there should be an entry detailing what happened; if you'd like, run MPSReports (see my .sig) and send me the yourcomputername.cab file and I'll take a look.

Do you have a file in c:\windows called memory.dmp?

 

[theMan]

there is no entry for that day. i have nothing called memory.dmp how can i find "yourcomputername.cab? i dont know where that is. thanks for all the help.

there isnt like a blue screen or anything. i dont think windows has any idea what happens, the monitor goes off, and then about 5 seconds later, the sound goes off. thats it. i have to press the restart button to get it to work

 

[dclive]

If it's hanging (as opposed to crashing), it's probably hardware, but let me take a look at the CAB file you sent and see if I see anything.

 

[theMan]

yeah, it is probably the updated drivers i installed a few weeks ago, but never tested them. i didnt have any time to play games recently. i am going to clean off all my drivers, and install the older ones that i know work, and test the new ones one at a time. hopefully something isnt really broken, maybe its the thing where the card changes frequency when you go into a 3d game, that could be a driver issue.

 

[theMan]

i just noticed that the 71.84 folder was still in the c:\nvidia\win2k folder. could this cause the problem? i really should have deleted that before i installed 71.89. can i just delete this folder?

 

[dclive]

You can delete the folder.
It won't cause any issues; it was just used during installation only, and isn't required once installation is done.

I'd suggest using the latest version of the software available unless you know of a specific problem with that version.

 

[theMan]

ok, i havent had much time to do anything, but i would like to know how to go about deleting my chipset drivers. they arent in add/remove programs.

 

[fishmonger12]

does it do this in any 3d application?

could be vid card overheating. is the room you are in really dusty? i know once i dusted out my pc, my cpu temps went down 15 degrees celcius.

 

[theMan]

yes, but it happens as soon as i open it. not while im playing it. i cant even start playing before it crashes. ive never seen the nvidia temp monitor say anything above 54C. so thats not it. also, ive been gaming on this computer for 3 months without any problem.

 

[fishmonger12]

have you tried memtest? i'm assuming you've tested the computer with prime95 again since the problems started occuring?

 

[theMan]

yeah, tried memtest. no errors. as soon as my brother finshes downloading something, ill begin to test out the drivers. hopefully thats the problem.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: theman
ok, i havent had much time to do anything, but i would like to know how to go about deleting my chipset drivers. they arent in add/remove programs.

Run the installer for the version of the driver you wish to use. Or just use Device Manager's roll-back feature to roll back to a prior driver version for each individiual device.

 

[aGreenAgent]

Maybe directx got screwed or something...

try running dxdiag, go to display, then disable and reenable everything on there.

I've seen weirder things than that.

 

[theMan]

i ran dxdiag, and i got these errors

Direct3D 7 test results: Failure at step 32 (User verification of Direct3D rendering): HRESULT = 0x00000000 (error code)
Direct3D 8 test results: Failure at step 32 (User verification of Direct3D rendering): HRESULT = 0x00000000 (error code)

this is because i could not see a spinning cube, but direct3d 9 was fine. i ran all the other testes without error. what do you mean by disabling and reenabling everything in display?

 

[dclive]

Have you googled on that error message? I did; it appears to be a driver issue, with most posters saying upgrading the driver resolved the issue. In your case, you already have the latest driver, so it may be wise for you to roll back to the prior version (speaking of the video card driver) and let us know how that works for you. Barring that, you can reinstall another version of your chipset drivers as another test. I'd suggest looking closely at those two drivers - and confirm DX9.0c is installed, too.