ForceWare 81.85 WHQL Certified Released

These solved my graphical problems with Guild Wars (over the .84s) but I'm still getting blue-screens every once in a while. I'm currently running everything in my system at stock speeds (all latest drivers, BIOS, etc.) I don't see what else could cause this. (Fresh copy of Windows as well (2 days old.)) CPU temp is 31C at idle, no GPU heat problems either. Other than the blue screen these drivers are excellent. They perform extremely well.
 
That's probably due to your AMD+Asus+X-Fi combo...I hear many people are blue-screening with that particular configuration... :(
 
That could be, and I wouldn't doubt it due to Creative's history with drivers, but it happened with the .84s before I put the X-Fi in. I'll experiment with it, and see if I can get it to stop by taking out the X-Fi, or moving it around. Interesting.
 
are the WHQL's any different than the 81.85's they released a few days earlier?
same version = no changes, just certified?
 
J3RK said:
These solved my graphical problems with Guild Wars (over the .84s) but I'm still getting blue-screens every once in a while. I'm currently running everything in my system at stock speeds (all latest drivers, BIOS, etc.) I don't see what else could cause this. (Fresh copy of Windows as well (2 days old.)) CPU temp is 31C at idle, no GPU heat problems either. Other than the blue screen these drivers are excellent. They perform extremely well.
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Make sure in the Bios you have one of the nic's disabled (preferably disable the nvidia nic and use the marvell). Having both installed is a common cause of BSOD's on these boards (irq conflicts).
 
Excellent idea. I generally only use my wireless nic anyway. I'll give that a try. Thanks.
 
I wasn't able to connect to the Asus forums for a few days. (their site seemed to be acting strange) So, I got another bluescreen last night, but just one. (same error) I was getting them fairly consistently with certain apps and games, but since I disabled the nic, I've just had the one. Going to see if I can get it to show up again.
 
It's almost certainly the system driver that is the culprit...and not to be an ass or anything, but this is why I stick to Intel. Ignoring the massive nuclear heat output of the Prescott for a minute, usually Intel has proven, reliable CPU's + chipsets that don't seem to clash with each other randomly...something which to this day still haunts AMD, IMHO. :(

Anyway, I hope you'll find a solution to your problem. :)
 
Thanks. Well, I had zero problems with my NF3 when I was running that. I also had zero problems with my current setup until I did a few things:

1.) Updated my BIOS to version 1012
2.) Added an X-Fi card.
3.) Updated to the 81.85 Forceware drivers.
4.) Added an X2 3800+

I did all of this on the same day. Previously I was running a Venice 3200+ (at 2500) on the 1011 BIOS running 78.XX drivers, with onboard audio for games. When I was still running the older setup, I tried out the 81.84 drivers and started getting the bluescreens, so I'm leaning toward that. (I like the performance increase though, so I'm trying to stick it out and figure out what's going on.) I know the proc switch had no effect. The X-Fi card didn't really have a negative impact either. The BIOS update however, seemed to destabilize my system somewhat. I updated this before I did any of my hardware upgrades, and my system got to be somewhat unstable (using the Venice, 78.XX drivers, and onboard audio) I proceded with my upgrades hoping that in the process I could weed out the problems. Well, I ended up zapping my boot sector/MBR or something by OCing too high, so I wiped and reinstalled the OS clean. Everything is working great except this occasional bluescreen/BS :D Disabling the onboard NIC helped slightly as I have gotten the bluescreen less frequently. Still happens though. I could probably drop the drivers back to 78.XX and make it go away, but I'd prefer not to. I still have a feeling that the BIOS update was at least a small part of the problem, with the 81.XX being the other part. If it comes down to it, I'll try dropping back, just to make sure, but I have some other ideas in the meantime.
 
I loaded these drivers on Sunday and didn't really use them on any graphics intensive programs. Ran BF2 yesterday and after about 5 minutes of play my system hard crashed right to the boot up screen! No BSOD, just a restart of the PC. minidump indicated a driver problem. Loaded 78.01 and BF2 ran with no problems. Will try 81.84 again as it didn't seem to cause this problem.

O/C Specs follow:
2 x XFX 6800 GT O/Ced to 401/1100
Temps were 73c on #1 card and 66c on the #2 card, slightly higher than normal.
CPU temp was 51c O/Ced from 2.2 to 2.4
No power fluctuations on Asus probe trace

System specs:
Lian-Li PC-V1000A+
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
AMD 3500+ (Newcastle) w/ Zalman 7700CU Cooler
2 x XFX 6800 GT PCIe (in SLI) w/ NV 5
2 GB Corsair Twinx (2048-3200C2PT) DDR-400 RAM
2 x 80gb Caviar Western Digital in RAID 0
PC-P&C 510W Turbo Cool

Anyone else seeing an issue comparable to this with the 81.85 driver?
 
You can set Windows to not reboot automatically when it encounters an error like this. Right click on "My Computer" click properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery, and uncheck the box that says restart automatically. If you've already done this, I don't know why you're not getting a bluescreen in this situation.

I decided to forget about the bluescreens I was having and bump up my speeds last night. (I've been running everything at stock speeds while I've been trying to narrow this down.) I played Quake IV for about 4 hours non-stop without any problems at all. It seems to only happen with very specific games and apps. Guild Wars occasionally causes the blue screen. F.E.A.R. doesn't cause any problems, in fact I played this for about an hour or two before I played Q4 for 4. I have a few demo-scene demos that will cause it to happen. ( www.scene.org / www.pouet.net ) if you're curious. Anyway, it's VERY intermittent now. (happened frequently before) It may be because of reduced interrupt traffic (after I disabled the NIC)
 
Didn't even think about it as I was in a hurry and knew what the problem was.
 
Merc said:
I loaded these drivers on Sunday and didn't really use them on any graphics intensive programs. Ran BF2 yesterday and after about 5 minutes of play my system hard crashed right to the boot up screen! No BSOD, just a restart of the PC. minidump indicated a driver problem. Loaded 78.01 and BF2 ran with no problems. Will try 81.84 again as it didn't seem to cause this problem.

O/C Specs follow:
2 x XFX 6800 GT O/Ced to 401/1100
Temps were 73c on #1 card and 66c on the #2 card, slightly higher than normal.
CPU temp was 51c O/Ced from 2.2 to 2.4
No power fluctuations on Asus probe trace

System specs:
Lian-Li PC-V1000A+
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
AMD 3500+ (Newcastle) w/ Zalman 7700CU Cooler
2 x XFX 6800 GT PCIe (in SLI) w/ NV 5
2 GB Corsair Twinx (2048-3200C2PT) DDR-400 RAM
2 x 80gb Caviar Western Digital in RAID 0
PC-P&C 510W Turbo Cool

Anyone else seeing an issue comparable to this with the 81.85 driver?
Click to expand...

See an earlier post of mine 81.85 - could not even log in without a complete 'reset' crash - back on the 81.84 and everything fine.
 
Merc said:
Didn't even think about it as I was in a hurry and knew what the problem was.
Click to expand...
Are you using Windows XP Pro w/ SP2?

So far, I haven't had any problems w/ driver ver. 81.85 (knock on wood)! Then again, I haven't done any intensive gaming.

BTW, I assume every time you upgraded/downgraded the NVidia driver, you did the full uninstall old driver > run Driver Cleaner > install new driver cycle.
 
These mofo's improved my 3dmark05 score by over 1000 points. Pretty crazy, probably due to the added support for dual core proc's. Bout time !!
 
beowulf7 said:
BTW, I assume every time you upgraded/downgraded the NVidia driver, you did the full uninstall old driver > run Driver Cleaner > install new driver cycle.
Click to expand...

I only use drivercleaner when something goes wrong.
In all my time it has only done so once, and it was one file...wich didn't cause any probs but I decided to get it fixed never the less..

Terra - Normal install works 99.999% of the time...
 
Anyone have issues with the 85's and HL2 with HDR? DOD:Source keeps crashing if I use HDR, but is fine if I don't. Haven't tried Lost Coast yet to see if that's the same way.
 
kirbyrj said:
Anyone have issues with the 85's and HL2 with HDR? DOD:Source keeps crashing if I use HDR, but is fine if I don't. Haven't tried Lost Coast yet to see if that's the same way.
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It worked for me with the 87's, maybe try that?
 
J3RK what blue screen are you getting? I am not sure yet but I think 81.85 might have been causing some problems with my system. I have to test some more before I'm sure, because it's intermittent, but after going back to 78.03 it seems ok so far.

Basically CS:S would lock up hard with sound stuck in a loop. This happened on a fresh OS install and everything. Used the latest chipset package that just came out last week as well. Also, FarCry would produce BSOD - "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA" and specifically mentioned "NV4_DISP.DLL".

I have a dual core system but no Soundblaster. Just ALC850 right now.

The hard locks in CS:S would come up randomly, sometimes in just 10 minutes other times it'd take 2 hours or so. FarCry was worse, usually blue screened within 45 minutes or less.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
J3RK what blue screen are you getting? I am not sure yet but I think 81.85 might have been causing some problems with my system. I have to test some more before I'm sure, because it's intermittent, but after going back to 78.03 it seems ok so far.

Basically CS:S would lock up hard with sound stuck in a loop. This happened on a fresh OS install and everything. Used the latest chipset package that just came out last week as well. Also, FarCry would produce BSOD - "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA" and specifically mentioned "NV4_DISP.DLL".

I have a dual core system but no Soundblaster. Just ALC850 right now.

The hard locks in CS:S would come up randomly, sometimes in just 10 minutes other times it'd take 2 hours or so. FarCry was worse, usually blue screened within 45 minutes or less.
Click to expand...

have the same problem on everygame i play (CS:S, DOD:S, and Quake4). i really like to fix this problem, but i did everything possible fix that was posted here, but non of them made a difference.
 
What's the verdict? Use the 81.84's over the 81.85's if you have a dual-core X2 system? Also, what about the 81.87 beta's on nzone?
 
I just did a FRESH OS install with my new mobo and my new 7800GTX (see sig). Anyway, I am getting BSOD's all over the place, in FEAR, Doom, and Half Life 2. Anyone recommend which driver set I should swap to? this is SOOO frustrating. I got all this new gear and I can't use it....ARGH!!!
 
Riptide_NVN said:
J3RK what blue screen are you getting? I am not sure yet but I think 81.85 might have been causing some problems with my system. I have to test some more before I'm sure, because it's intermittent, but after going back to 78.03 it seems ok so far.

Basically CS:S would lock up hard with sound stuck in a loop. This happened on a fresh OS install and everything. Used the latest chipset package that just came out last week as well. Also, FarCry would produce BSOD - "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA" and specifically mentioned "NV4_DISP.DLL".

I have a dual core system but no Soundblaster. Just ALC850 right now.

The hard locks in CS:S would come up randomly, sometimes in just 10 minutes other times it'd take 2 hours or so. FarCry was worse, usually blue screened within 45 minutes or less.
Click to expand...

I get a similar bluescreen every once in a while. It is actually a little bit less frequent right now. I get it when running Guild Wars for a while, and in a few other programs. I can't say for sure (without being at home) whether it's the exact same BS. I seem to remember it mentioning IRQs somewhere in the blue-screen error message. I've got a couple of programs that will BS every time at the same spot though. This one for instance: http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=18766 you can download this and see if you get the blue-screen toward the end. (It's a demo, just run the exe file. It will ask what screen mode you want, and such, and then run.) This is one of the ones that consistently causes the blue-screen on my system.

I started seeing this with the .84 drivers, and am still seeing it with the .87 drivers. It never happened on the 78.XX drivers.

I've tried lower all my speeds to stock levels/defaults, with no effect. I've tried disabling/removing any alleged problem devices (X-Fi, NF4 NIC, etc.) Since I never saw it happen until I installed the 81.XX drivers, I'm going to go with them as the cause. There are too many reasons to stay with these drivers though. I don't really want to revert back to 78.XX because I'll lose some performance, and fixes. I don't see this blue-screen at all when running Quake IV, F.E.A.R. Riddick, etc. Only occasionally in Guild Wars or the above mentioned demos...
 
Well I did some more testing over the last couple days and I'm 99% sure it's 81.xx that was causing all that instability on my system. Right now I play mainly CS:S and soon SS2. 78.xx is working fine and I'm going to stay with them until these problems are sorted out. It is good to know that I'm not alone on this though, so hopefully Nvidia will notice there is a problem with these and take care of it.
 
I've come to the same conclusion. It's definitely the 81.XX drivers.
 
I have been using the 81.85 drivers since the day when they were released with my 6800Ultra and have yet to get any bosd's or any other problems yet!!!, maybe I am one of the lucky ones.
:p :D :cool:
 
Doesn't appear to be happening for everyone. Happened for me before and after upgrading several things in my system, stock and OC, etc. etc. The only constant is those drivers. I'm running the 78.01s now again, and they work fine, but I've lost some performance. Hopefully they'll fix it.
 
Yeah it's definitely the drivers. I'm 100% sure of it now. Going back to 78.03 was the cure for me - no lockups or BSOD since then. Since the problem inexplicably shows up on only some systems we might be stuck with 78.xx for a while. Could take a while for them to track this problem down. :(
 
Ok, I just fixed the problem I was having. No more blue screens using the 81.XX drivers. First thing, was reinstall the AMD X2 driver. (Go to www.amd.com and do a search for "dual core patch xp") I had installed it before, but I think I forgot the last time I installed Windows. I also went into the BIOS, and changed one setting. (I can't reboot right now to get the exact option, but it had to do with speed or latency of the PCI Express slots. It was set to auto, and I changed it to normal. (I thought maybe the auto setting was picking the wrong mode.) Now everything works with zero problems. Next time I reboot, I'll grab the exact name of the setting.
 
Hmm... Installing the AMD processor driver didn't help my situation out. I'm curious to see what setting in the BIOS you think has to do with this.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
Hmm... Installing the AMD processor driver didn't help my situation out. I'm curious to see what setting in the BIOS you think has to do with this.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Yeah, that's all I did, just change one option, and install that driver. Before I did that, a lot of things would have jumpy, glitchy graphics, so if I switched the processor affinity for the app/game/etc. to a single processor, it would go away. That's what made me think to install that driver. That solved the glitch, so I installed the new drivers. I took one look around the BIOS after I reset, just in case anything caught my eye. Changed the one option, then tried out the drivers again. So, it's guaranteed to be either the driver or the BIOS setting. I'll post the setting tomorrow.
 
How do you go about setting affinity? And won't that remove any performance increase you may get in the game due to the dual core support of the driver itself?
 
Most games don't directly support SMP, so they only run on one CPU at a time anyway. You still get a slight performance boost because other system processes can be running on both cores (though that's not a huge increase.) You also get a little bit from drivers that support SMP. Basically, you start up your game or app, go into the task manager, go to the processes tab, right click on the process for the app, select processor affinity, and from there, you pick which CPU you want it to run on. This has to be done every time. After I installed that dual core cpu driver, I didn't need to do this anymore though. I don't know if running a game on one core would help with the blue-screen problem or not, but it helped with the weird glitches and hitches I was getting. No I'm not seeing any of the problems I had before.
 
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