NF3 + 6800 + 7x.xx drivers = game freezing issue

[misterE]

by the way, if you run nview monitor in the background and load up a game that locks, monitor cpu, mobo, and gpu temps...you'll see that it peaks exactly when it freezes, but that the peak temp is not critical (between 78-84 from my tests). My guess is there's something in the driver that incorrectly reports critical temps on agp systems with the nf3 chipset, somewhere a temp is getting confused with something else.

 

[reub2000]

If you wait a long time and they don't go away, it's probably instability with something. This is more like some little part of something gets stuck in a loop that goes out of control for a while than a system actually locking up.

Apparently 100% cpu is being used by a high priority process (probably the video drivers/helper because it'd have to be realtime priority to freeze up so completely most likely) because nothing responds at all, not mouse or ctrl+alt+del or anything, until it's done with it's little freezing session.

Look at this thread. It's happening one 2 diffrent OSes. Unreal Turnament 2004 (GNU/Linux), Half-Life 2 (Windows), Halo (Windows), are all freezing. The problem is obviously hardware.

 

[Nazo]

You mean linux doesn't use drivers?

d-: Seriously though, I wouldn't go that far. Firstly, who is using non-nvidia drivers in linux? Last I heard progress still hasn't been very good on any non-proprietary driver for linux (ironic that ATI has more progress here -- or perhaps not considering how insanely slow they are...)

Anyway, misreporting GPU critical sounds like a lead to me. That could definitely cause it to try to throttle the GPU or something, and explain why changing frequencies in the BIOS could have some minor effect on it. That's not to say that the problem can't be hardware related, but, remember all those problems didn't start until the 7x.xx series, possibly more specifically even just the 77.xx series... Could be coincidence, could be a link. Just don't assume until we have more to go on than what we currently do, which, unfortunately, is only 6800 series with 7x.xx drivers in windows, possibly same drivers in linux (someone know the versions better?)

 

[reub2000]

You mean linux doesn't use drivers?

d-: Seriously though, I wouldn't go that far. Firstly, who is using non-nvidia drivers in linux? Last I heard progress still hasn't been very good on any non-proprietary driver for linux (ironic that ATI has more progress here -- or perhaps not considering how insanely slow they are...)

ATI linux drivers absolutly suck. So I'm using nvidia propriatary linux drivers. And last I checked, ati's drivers are also propriatary.

 

[reduced_silver]

Thankyou for posting this thread. I joined [H] just so I could join in.

Drumroll...... I have this stutter issue too. I also think it is a recent phenomenon. Again, I have no issue in D3, but in HL2, FarCry etc, I get the issue so repeatedly described.

I have the 6800 UEE, and although disabling fast writes toned the problem down, so that I could actually start a game, only when I underclock to stock Ultra speeds (400, 1100), does the problem all but go away.

I am pissed too. I thought it was an issue with the card, because I owned two 6800GTs (one an OC BFG) previous to this (no problems), but the fact it works fine in D3 and the older drivers used with the other cards means that's not true.

AMD FX-53 (stock speed)
S939 MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
1Gb Crucial Ballistix
Antec NeoPower 480W power supply
Creative Audigy
EVGA 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition (450, 1200)
Twin WD 80Gb IDE, no RAID.
Zalman Cu7000 air cooled.

 

[Eliminator]

ive had this issue since i got my a64+neo2 back in december..... worked fine on the old nforce2 tho... i also tried 66.93s and still had stuttering altho the pauses seemed to last 1 second opposed to the typical 5-10 sec with the 77.77s.... opengl games work fine... using 1.8 bios on the neo2... there are no bios updates for the asus 6800gt... the nibitor program is incompatible with my bios so i cant volt mod it..... also happens at stock speeds, fastwrites off, etc etc.... 80.40s also stutter but lasted longer without freezing... also usually after it freezes my performance drops a ton which gets incredibly annoying

 

[oldfartjc]

You mean linux doesn't use drivers?

d-: Seriously though, I wouldn't go that far. Firstly, who is using non-nvidia drivers in linux? Last I heard progress still hasn't been very good on any non-proprietary driver for linux (ironic that ATI has more progress here -- or perhaps not considering how insanely slow they are...)
Anyway, misreporting GPU critical sounds like a lead to me. That could definitely cause it to try to throttle the GPU or something, and explain why changing frequencies in the BIOS could have some minor effect on it. That's not to say that the problem can't be hardware related, but, remember all those problems didn't start until the 7x.xx series, possibly more specifically even just the 77.xx series... Could be coincidence, could be a link. Just don't assume until we have more to go on than what we currently do, which, unfortunately, is only 6800 series with 7x.xx drivers in windows, possibly same drivers in linux (someone know the versions better?)

What do you mean the problem didn't start till the 77.xx series. I run 66.93's which are the only ones that work half assed at best. Anything 7x.xx run like crap and Far Cry won't even work at all. The temp. being reported incorrectly sounds like it could cause this but if it's that simple a problem then why hasn't nVidia fixed it already. And I have tried everything as stated in my previous posts in this and a ton of other forums. I'm just getting ready to install Brothers in Arms to see how badly that runs. I only wish it were an OpenGL game. This is a hardware or driver problem. I will probably be ordering an ASUS AV8 Deluxe to put in next weekend if my recently purchased D3D games don't run. I'm trying to figure out OldPueblo why a new install of XP Pro SP2 is working for you as that is how I started when I built this system over 2 1/2 months ago.

 

[oldpablo]

That's why I'm trying to be extremely methodical, I feel part of the reason this issue has gone on so long is that there are far too many variables that can be out of alignment. This could in fact be three seperate issues all having the same symptoms in the 77.xx drivers, and maybe in earlier drivers just less frequently. It could be specifically in your case your machine is a little hotter then mine, you have a differing BIOS settings for AGP (including the hidden ones MSI has), who knows. Since I have a working system at 71.89 drivers now, I'm going to do every different thing I can to bring the issue back now. I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up doing several different things to bring it back instead of just one. Part of the reason I wanted to stay at one nForce driver level through all this is that its possible they play a part as well (GART driver, etc.). I don't know if anyone here has used the newer beta nforce drivers which seem perfectly fine (until this issue). All I know is that I made a million changes and couldnt get rid of the issue, but a clean install might have bypassed a stuck file/setting that no amount of driver changing could get rid of before. I should be able to do more this evening.

 

[oldfartjc]

by the way, if you run nview monitor in the background and load up a game that locks, monitor cpu, mobo, and gpu temps...you'll see that it peaks exactly when it freezes, but that the peak temp is not critical (between 78-84 from my tests). My guess is there's something in the driver that incorrectly reports critical temps on agp systems with the nf3 chipset, somewhere a temp is getting confused with something else.

What is nview monitor? I can't find anything that will run in the backgroud and report those items. Please tell us where you got this program from. I can't find reference to it anywhere, either that or I am so frustrated by this problem that I am losing my mind and don't know if I have ever seen this before or not.

 

[oldfartjc]

That's why I'm trying to be extremely methodical, I feel part of the reason this issue has gone on so long is that there are far too many variables that can be out of alignment. This could in fact be three seperate issues all having the same symptoms in the 77.xx drivers, and maybe in earlier drivers just less frequently. It could be specifically in your case your machine is a little hotter then mine, you have a differing BIOS settings for AGP (including the hidden ones MSI has), who knows. Since I have a working system at 71.89 drivers now, I'm going to do every different thing I can to bring the issue back now. I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up doing several different things to bring it back instead of just one. Part of the reason I wanted to stay at one nForce driver level through all this is that its possible they play a part as well (GART driver, etc.). I don't know if anyone here has used the newer beta nforce drivers which seem perfectly fine (until this issue). All I know is that I made a million changes and couldnt get rid of the issue, but a clean install might have bypassed a stuck file/setting that no amount of driver changing could get rid of before. I should be able to do more this evening.

I understand what your saying. I have gone into the hidden MSI bios settings and disabled NV/ATI Speedup option. Well, I am getting ready to install Brothers in Arms so we will see what happens. I will be looking forward to your testing results. You are right, there are a lot of variables but I still believe this is a nVidia problem which shouldn't even be showing up on so many different machines. Take care.

 

[shaggymcp]

I just did a fresh re-install of Windows XP service pack 2, and I can play Half Life 2 or Counter Strike Source with no probs. If I try to play Battle Field 2 freeze with in 5 mins and I have to restart my comp. Were as before it would just lock up in CSS and HL2 and BF2 for about 10-15 seconds and then come back I tried to re-install BF2 and I am having the same problems. Also guild wars will lock up with in about 5-8 mins as well.

I will never buy a nvidia product again..... this is so retarded its not even funny.

 

[oldpablo]

Update. I stepped up to 77.72, changing nothing else about my configuration (keep in mind this install is completely clean, not even AV, and dedicated to this issue) and the stuttering appeared in all four of my test games. Happens about 10 seconds apart and lasts for about three seconds. I uninstalled 77.72 and went back to 71.89 and the stuttering went away. This in my mind in some ways debunks these current solutions (or at least means if they have worked for others there may have been other variables involved):

Uninstalling GART driver
Tone down your graphics options in game
nForce drivers have something to do with this

These in MY scenario would have nothing to do with getting rid of the stuttering. All my game settings remained the same (high detail, etc) throughout nonstuttering and stuttering, I didnt change a thing in my BIOS or change anything about my nForce drivers. The only thing that brought the stuttering in this scenario was moving to the 77.72 driver. I'll step up to different 77.xx drivers one at a time and see if there are any differences. I'll go back to 71.89 each time I find stuttering and verify that the stuttering is definitely gone before I move to another 77.xx driver. Eventually, when I isolate which drivers definitely do it, I'll move to trying other fixes WITH those drivers installed.

 

[Nazo]

I will never buy a nvidia product again..... this is so retarded its not even funny.

Based on one rare problem with one product that's so hard to pin down that it's maybe just maybe theoretically possible nVidia hasn't tracked it down yet either? Frankly, if you're so quick to judge a company based on so little, well, it's your money if you insist on screwing yourself over by being stuck with always buying what the other has rather than buying from whichever one offers the best for your pricerange which is what people are supposed to do. Especially considering that right now ATI seems to only care about the upper priceranges and you can definitely do better with many of these from nVidia at the mid-range market. Don't know about the low end one way or the other.

That said, reinstalling the game itself isn't the solution. The problem doesn't lie in the game, that much we're all in agreement on. You need to try changing your drivers, settings, etc, something to get it to suddenly stop doing the weirdness.


Anyway, why don't you linux people experiment with different drivers? At least, to the extent that you can, I know some older ones won't work without a real fight in newer things. Anyone running something that could actually go all the way back to the 69.xx equivalent drivers?

BTW, on temperatures, my GPU rarely ever hits the 50C range, and when it does it sticks to the lower range. Perhaps the fact that it starts from lower than usual means it's harder for it to hit whatever point that when it gets misreported causes a GPU critical if that is what is occuring. It occurs to me that if it were directly tied into temperatures, since my temperature range is very limited, my GPU hitting whatever temperature this randomly decides to trigger at will end up staying at that particular temperature for a longer period of time when usually they are going to vary more. Well, that's my little theory on why my freezeups last for much much longer. And they may be more in the area of minutes than seconds, I don't remember exactly, I just remember being frustrated and just driven insane by it. Lately the only unusual thing I've had was a complete crash (as in just simply reboots without warning, so one moment I'm running to avoid a bunch of soldiers shooting at me, the next I'm staring at the memory quickscan in the bios bootup.) This I blame on either problems with EAX (I remember running into all sorts of problems when I tried EAX 3.0 with Far Cry,) something to do with the latest patch which I'm using, or, instability thanks to my messed up memory (most likely the latter.) I've gone back and forth so much on the drivers and changed so many things that I've lost track, but, currently I am using 77.72. I think out of sheer desperation for any stability I could get, and to verify that those other four pipelines aren't just suddenly acting up out of the blue even though they passed 3dmark05 and doom3 at as high as 433MHz (@1.3V, doom 3 only stable at 425 @ 1.4V,) I've just disabled all overclocking altogether. It's currently set so that 3d and 2d are both the same as I recall.

 

[oldfartjc]

Update. I stepped up to 77.72, changing nothing else about my configuration (keep in mind this install is completely clean, not even AV, and dedicated to this issue) and the stuttering appeared in all four of my test games. Happens about 10 seconds apart and lasts for about three seconds. I uninstalled 77.72 and went back to 71.89 and the stuttering went away. This in my mind in some ways debunks these current solutions (or at least means if they have worked for others there may have been other variables involved):

Uninstalling GART driver
Tone down your graphics options in game
nForce drivers have something to do with this

These in MY scenario would have nothing to do with getting rid of the stuttering. All my game settings remained the same (high detail, etc) throughout nonstuttering and stuttering, I didnt change a thing in my BIOS or change anything about my nForce drivers. The only thing that brought the stuttering in this scenario was moving to the 77.72 driver. I'll step up to different 77.xx drivers one at a time and see if there are any differences. I'll go back to 71.89 each time I find stuttering and verify that the stuttering is definitely gone before I move to another 77.xx driver. Eventually, when I isolate which drivers definitely do it, I'll move to trying other fixes WITH those drivers installed.

Well I loaded Brothers in Arms and never had a problem with 66.93 drivers while playing the game, but would get a BSOD most of the time when exiting the game which I found out on their forums that it was caused by the 66.93 drivers. So I unistalled 66.93's and used Driver Cleaner and installed 71.89 drivers. Well guess what, pausing and stuttering all the time and my 3DMark 2001SE locked up and I had to reboot. But I didn't get a BSOD when I exited the game. Yippee frickin Skippee. This is a total bunch of B.S. and I will probably order an ASUS AV8 Deluxe next week. I am going to uninstall the 4.40 Gart and try a different GART driver. This is sure fun.

 

[YmkFX]

Most of my games run fine, although I do get strange fits of skipping in BF2 from time to time.

Although for some reason my card is no longer capable of running any 3Dmark program, I get 0 to 1 fps on all tests. I've run these programs fine before, so I'm assuming it's updated drivers that cause it since I've made no hardware changes.

Could just be a less intense case of this issue?

 

[misterE]

What is nview monitor? I can't find anything that will run in the backgroud and report those items. Please tell us where you got this program from. I can't find reference to it anywhere, either that or I am so frustrated by this problem that I am losing my mind and don't know if I have ever seen this before or not.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_2.05.09.html

set the log to 100k, no prompt, monitor all temps and then fire up a game for a while

 

[shaggymcp]

Based on one rare problem with one product that's so hard to pin down that it's maybe just maybe theoretically possible nVidia hasn't tracked it down yet either? Frankly, if you're so quick to judge a company based on so little, well, it's your money if you insist on screwing yourself over by being stuck with always buying what the other has rather than buying from whichever one offers the best for your pricerange which is what people are supposed to do. Especially considering that right now ATI seems to only care about the upper priceranges and you can definitely do better with many of these from nVidia at the mid-range market. Don't know about the low end one way or the other..

I understand what your saying, but I would rather spend more money on a product that is going to work when I want it to. I have had a ATI 8500, never had any probs and then went to a ATI 9700 Pro and never had any probs, and now I go and try nvidia because everyone rates it has the fastest at the time when I got my card, and it turns out that 3/4 the time there is a issue with the card, and I can't use my PC for what I upgraded it for. And for how long people have been having these probs, and they still have not done anything about the issue ? sry but there is no excuse. I have no company loyalty I go for the fastest vs the price at the time period, but I can't see spending money on a company that can't take care of its own customers, I mean if they would just acknowledge the problem, and let everyone know that a fix is in the works or somthing that would be better, but no one knows if that is even the case ? as far as we know we are just assed out & either have to buy a new mobo or new vid card

 

[Nazo]

Do they even know about it? Has anyone actually sent an e-mail to nVidia's tech support?

The fact is, unless they can duplicate it, it would be insanely hard for them to track it down. It would mean digging through all of the new code from whichever one first causes it (and the number here seems to differ sometimes, so they probably have to check quite a number of different versions) and try to find anything that could even theoretically cause such things. It's not easy. I don't blame them for not having caught it yet. The fact is, it's still rare enough that it may not even be a priority and with good reason.

And I'm not saying you can't consider selling that 6800 and getting a X800 or something, I'm just saying that don't assume other products will be the same. I have never had this problem with any of the MANY other nVidia cards I've had, and as you'll see by my signature, that number goes pretty far back... I have, also had many ATI cards, including my favorite, the 9600 Pro (wonderful bang for the buck kind of product back when I got it) and did have occasional issues, plus the fact that OGL games such as NWN ran like crap and crashed a lot, but, D3D games never crash for me on this 6800 and run quite smoothly... Don't get me wrong, ATI will probably be the best when their next thing comes out considering that the 7800 isn't exactly radically new technology here (mostly just a lot more pipes, double that of the 6800 nu, making for some serious processing of shaders and such, which is where games are going, so it's not a bad thing by any means at all.) I'm just saying that you shouldn't judge all products by one issue with one and get whatever is best at the time you are getting it for the money you have.


Anyway, I think I'll install nView monitor myself. I had not known about this tool. Unfortunately, my problems have been more rare lately, so I don't know if I'll have any info for you.


BTW, one other thing started cropping up in the same sort of timeframe. I keep getting this weird thing where certain things such as Media Player Classic (mind you, I have pixel shader code enabled, so that may be related) will sort of screw up the display. It's as if it's showing two resolutions at once. One I see is the ordinary resolution of 1440x1080 and the mouse cursor moves across this, yet, the other I see must be 640x480 or so because when I run a program (in this case being the display configuration for obvious reason) it doesn't actually fit and gets stretched off the screen. Since the mouse is moving on a larger plane than the actual program and since it's stretched off where I can't see it, I pretty well have to use the keyboard to navigate. The problem is solved simply by changing resolution (which is a tad more tricky since I can't see the bar, but, I've gotten the hang of it) and then I can simply change back to normal after that. This issue started around the same sort of timeframe and I originally thought it was the 7x.xx drivers, but, it may just as easily be related more to something such as maybe my GPU is finally starting to not like those opened pipelines or the memory issues come out, or maybe even just related to a really rare bug in the PS code in MPC that only shows up 1/20th or so of the times I run it (used to be more common, I installed different drivers a few times and now am back to where I was before, and it's less common now after all that.) It may or may not have any relation and I only mention because this just happened to start occuring around the same sort of timeframe as those drivers.

 

[reub2000]

Using an ATI card is just not an option for me because I use linux.

 

[oldfartjc]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_2.05.09.html

set the log to 100k, no prompt, monitor all temps and then fire up a game for a while

Well nview monitor doesn't work with the MSI Neo 2 Plat. with the 1.9 bios. But that really doesn't matter anymore since early this morning I ordered the fix for my problem, an ASUS AV8 Deluxe (Rev. 2) motherboard. I wish I had ordered this one almost 3 months ago instead of trying an NForce 3 chipset MB. I hope it overclocks as good as my MSI. I will find out in a couple of days. I like many others have wasted too much time on a nVidia problem which they will probably never fix. Besides I want to play my games not screw around with this crap.

 

[oldpablo]

I'm almost there.

 

[oldfartjc]

I'm almost there.

Your almost where. Well it will be to late for me, I should have my Asus AV8 Deluxe by Thursday, besides if one can't run newer drivers without problems then we ain't there yet. I'm beginning to wonder if nVidia will ever fix this. Like I said in another post, as soon as my son wants to invest in an Athlon 64 Proc. and a ATI video card then we will use this board in his system. One thing for sure, I'm through screwing around with the NF3 \ 68xx problem which I don't think will ever be trouble free unless nVidia fixes it if that's at all possible. I only hope it overclocks as good as my MSI NEO 2 Plat, we will see. I hope you have figured something out OldPueblo. I will be watching these forums to see what happens. It's too bad this problem exists as this board runs great otherwise.

 

[oldpablo]

Heh, I'm almost there as in ready to sell the card. But I'm going to try to complete my isolation testing.

 

[Yashu]

I have had this problem with a 6800nu and now a 6800gt...

my ATI card was very stable but I cannot deal with certain driver quirks and process cooperitive incompatabilities.

my 6800GT runs fine with 66.96 x64 drivers... so I leave it with those... They aren't very fast in DX games... but I don't care so much about d3d...

WoW is the only d3d game I play and it is fast enough.

OpenGL works fine with those drivers... that is mostly what I use anyway for 3d work/play

 

[notTHEike]

I built a new computer on monday with these specs:

AMD 64 3000+ (939)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (nForce3)
256Mb eVGA 6800gt
1Gig Corsair XMS(2x512)
2x80Gig WD (Raid-0)

I was getting the stuttering problem in BF2 reeaaal bad. Like it would lock up for almost 20 seconds.

Thank goodness I got it fixed.

What i did was uninstalled ALL nVidia drivers. All the display and all the chipset, GART, and all that stuff.


Then I reinstalled the latest nvidia display (77.77) and chipset drivers (5.10 I think) available from there website, and turned fast write OFF in the bios.

Now everything is golden. BF2 works great, but I haven't tested anything else yet though...

 

[Xaim0]

i got the stuttering issue when upgrading to 77.77 drivers. had 66.93 before and they worked fine. with 77.77 dx games freeze randomly for a few seconds about twice every minute ..very annyoing!

but so.. yesterday i upgraded the bios of my 6800gt (gainward brand) and the freezing seems to have disappeard. i played everquest2 and f.e.a.r demo for few hours without any problems (with 77.77 drivers).

My friend has the exact same rig as me and the bios update fixed his stuttering issues also. he's using 77.77 atm

here's link to gainward 6800gt bios (version 5.40.02.38.00): gainward_6800gt_bios.zip

i dont know if this helps anyone.. just wanted to share my experince on this.

 

[oldpablo]

This would make sense on why some cards have it and some don't. If all with the issue have cards with an older BIOS (or just a different one) then that might be it.

 

[Nazo]

I think someone said earlier they flashed didn't they? Maybe in a different forum? Might just be my imagination though.

What I'm wondering, though, is if it might be some sort of communication issue between the card and the system, perhaps directly related specifically to AGP. That could explain why certain things such as a newer bios and turning off flash writes helps. Considering the whole timing issue on the nForce 2 chipset when you desynch memory, I'm wondering if it could maybe have some vague relation to this same sort of idea, only, just a latency showing up with respect to AGP. Well, it's just a thought anyway.

That's the problem with this whole issue. It's too random seeming and in some cases is solved if the person simply sneezes at it while in others they throw everything in the world they can think of and nothing happens. Finding a common link is no easy task, that's for sure...

Thing that gets me is the fact that I have yet to see one person say that nVidia contacted them about this with even so much as an automated useless message.

 

[oldpablo]

My buddy just picked up a BFG 6800GT at BB, slapped it into his Neo2 NF3 board, installed latest drivers, and it runs like a champ. And he has fastwrites and side band addressing turned ON. The bastard! I wrote down his card bios and chip rev and am curious to compare it with mine. I think I'll even swap the card with my system just to see if I get different results, but I'll wait till I finish my testing. As well, his card has the BFG two fan heatsink whereas mine is the BFG single fan heatsink layout. Wonder if that has anything to do with this in relation to the BFG cards. I'm going to go a few more drivers levels tonight. Someone did say earlier in another thread that flashing it helped them, but it was one fix alongside many other one-time one scenario fixes. It might be it for everyone, or just him. I wanted to reserve that test for last in case I jack the card up. Wouldn't that be poetic, I fry the card trying to fix an issue that exists because of the manufacturer.

 

[misterE]

to be fair, i'm not sure anyone here contacted nvidia directly.

 

[oldpablo]

I've seen various posts from others in other forums (remember its been a year now) where they have contacted Nvidia, but who knows if it was lost at the lower levels of the company or whatever. Thats why I think someone like Kyle or Anand or whoever else that has serious web clout needs to do it. My vote would be Kyle to stir the pot appropriately.

 

[oldfartjc]

My buddy just picked up a BFG 6800GT at BB, slapped it into his Neo2 NF3 board, installed latest drivers, and it runs like a champ. And he has fastwrites and side band addressing turned ON. The bastard! I wrote down his card bios and chip rev and am curious to compare it with mine. I think I'll even swap the card with my system just to see if I get different results, but I'll wait till I finish my testing. As well, his card has the BFG two fan heatsink whereas mine is the BFG single fan heatsink layout. Wonder if that has anything to do with this in relation to the BFG cards. I'm going to go a few more drivers levels tonight. Someone did say earlier in another thread that flashing it helped them, but it was one fix alongside many other one-time one scenario fixes. It might be it for everyone, or just him. I wanted to reserve that test for last in case I jack the card up. Wouldn't that be poetic, I fry the card trying to fix an issue that exists because of the manufacturer.

I have the 2 fan HSF assembly on my BFG 6800 GT OC and mine has constant pauses and stuttering except in the Brother in Arms game where it rarely does it. My Bios Version is 5.40.02.15.05 on my BFG. Mine won't even run the 3DMark benchmarks with Fast Writes turned on. It looks like a slideshow and it did this the first time I tried to run them after building my system over 10 weeks ago with a fresh XP Pro SP2 load. And you are right NAZO, someone on this forum or another (there are so many) did flash the card bios and it made no difference. You would think OldPueblo that BFG would be able to fix the bios if that was the cause since other people have mentioned that BFG has talked to nVidia about this. Like you said it could be a one time fix for some or I think it could start occuring again at any time since this problem is evasive. My ASUS AV8 Deluxe will be here tomorrow so I hope my troubles will be over. I would rather spend $113.99 then screw with this anymore.

 

[Nospheratu]

Has anyone thought of asking Alexey (Rivatuner creator) to take a look into the problem? If there is anyone out there that can discover the root of the problem its him.

I know he's inundated with BS posts all the time, and I hate to bother him, but this is a REAL problem and he's the only person I can think of that clued up on nVidia hardware.

 

[oldpablo]

My Bios Version is 5.40.02.15.05 on my BFG...

Same BIOS on both my "stutter" card and my buddies "perfectly fine" card. I think its a great idea to try the RivaTuner guy. Anyone know him at all?

 

[oldfartjc]

Same BIOS on both my "stutter" card and my buddies "perfectly fine" card. I think its a great idea to try the RivaTuner guy. Anyone know him at all?

Well my stutter card don't stutter no more. I replaced my MSI Neo 2 Platinum with a ASUS A8V Deluxe last night and all the games now run perfect just like they did when I had this BFG 6800 GT OC installed in my P4 2.8Ghz. I haven't even reloaded Win. XP PRO SP2 yet. I just let it boot into windows and detect the motherboard hardware and then loaded the VIA drivers and away it went. I'm still running the same 71.89 video drivers, but now will try the newer ones to see what happens. I OC'd it with no problem to 2.6 Ghz just like with the MSI Neo 2. The AMI Bios on this board is a little different than the AWARD Bios on the MSI so it took a little getting used to when I was OC'ing and changing other settings. My 3700+ is now running about 5 degrees cooler at idle (35 C) then when it was on the MSI board. Of course that could be because AsusProbe is monitoring the temps and possibly because I used Arctic Silver 5 when I switched the processor over. Well I'll let you know how the other nVidia drivers work or if I have any problems. I have played Far Cry, HL2 and Brothers in Arms with no 8 sec. pauses or stuttering at all. I wish I had purchased this board 3 months ago. Oh well.

 

[taintedhobbit]

I had this same problem, where mine would freeze. I contacted BFG Tech and right away he knew what I was talking about and gave me a fix. I had to install the 66.93 drivers and not install the Nvidia GART drivers for the Nforce board. I have not noticed the problem as of yet since doing this. Funny thing was that when my PC would freeze, during the reboot, the chkdsk automatically fixed errors on the hard drive, no bad sectors found though.

I too have the BFG 6800 GT OC AGP and MSI Neo2 Platinum board, although with this, I may end up going to PCI express, or picking up one of those Asus A8V Deluxe boards. I have a buddy who might buy my card so I can get the PCI Express version of it. He has an Intel board that used to be mine that this card worked on.

I hope to hear how good that Asus board works. Right now, I am looking for stability over anything else.

Thanks,

Chuck

 

[Yashu]

not installing the GART means you are not running your card in AGP mode... without the GART the slot is basically a 66mhz PCI slot.

 

[misterE]

so it just occurred to me, every time i installed my drivers, i did the nforce drivers, THEN the dets. I don't have the hardware to try it anymore, but mebbe installing video drivers first, then nforce could produce a different result. if anyone has tried this already, feel free to shoot my theory down.

 

[oldfartjc]

I had this same problem, where mine would freeze. I contacted BFG Tech and right away he knew what I was talking about and gave me a fix. I had to install the 66.93 drivers and not install the Nvidia GART drivers for the Nforce board. I have not noticed the problem as of yet since doing this. Funny thing was that when my PC would freeze, during the reboot, the chkdsk automatically fixed errors on the hard drive, no bad sectors found though.

I too have the BFG 6800 GT OC AGP and MSI Neo2 Platinum board, although with this, I may end up going to PCI express, or picking up one of those Asus A8V Deluxe boards. I have a buddy who might buy my card so I can get the PCI Express version of it. He has an Intel board that used to be mine that this card worked on.

I hope to hear how good that Asus board works. Right now, I am looking for stability over anything else.

Thanks,

Chuck

The ASUS A8V Deluxe seems to be working great. I have the 3700+ San Diego OC'd the same as I had it on my MSI NEO 2, a 400MHZ OC. I had to fool around with memory settings a little bit to run Prime 95 good but that now runs great. I found that the 66.93 drivers also worked the best for me when I was using the MSI board except when I started playing Brothers in Arms which caused a BSOD on exiting the game. So I had to load 71.89 drivers so I could play that game and not BSOD on exiting, after going to their forum I found out the 66.93's caused it. Then HL2 and Far Cry played worse then ever but I didn't get a BSOD on exiting BIA. Talk about a catch 22. I tried everything including uninstalling the GART drivers which helped but slowed down the AGP performance as stated in past posts and nothing ever got rid of it completely until now with the ASUS A8V Deluxe. I going to try some newer drivers to see how they work but so far with quite a bit of game playing, not one pause or stutter in D3D games and it runs very stable.I am also going to try a little bit higher OC soon but not right now. I finally decided just to spend the $113 and stop all the fooling around with so called fixes. I will probably use the MSI in my sons system with an ATI card as soon as he decides he wants to upgrade. Well I will post my results with newer nVidia drivers and how far I can OC with this board with the retail HSF.

 

[Archer1212]

I just managed to fix mine by uninstalling the gart drivers. but for somereason im hearing some weird clicking/chirping noises.

I dont hear them when I put the card in my friends NF2 sytems so I dont know if it is caused by NF3 and the card or if its something weird im getting. The sound only happens when im in a game or if I were to scroll through an email with lots of pic, hell I go over my buddy list in trillian with my mouse and I hear it. I might need to reformat becuase for some reason the card is also OC'ing itself so I have to manually set the clock speed down. its really stumping me and my friends.