XFX 8600GTS Video Blacking Out

[TuxthePenguin]

Problem:
Video will go to a solid color (Black, Dark Grey, Light Green, sometimes Light Orange) during game play. Audio then gets stuck in a loop. I usually run games in 1920x1200 resolution, so I know this puts a lot of stress on the video card.

I can press the Windows Key after about 30 seconds and I can hear the game minimize to the desktop (Audio stops looping) from here I usually shutdown the computer using the keyboard. All the while the video is still a solid color. After a reboot all is fine and back to normal.

Things I've Done:
-My first thought was that it was a power issue with the video card, not getting enough juice. So I upgraded my PSU, see below for specs of it. Didn't change anything.

-Next I upgraded my motherboard and memory, did this for other reasons beside video blacking out. See below for specs. Still blacks out.

-Tried different games, World of Warcraft, HL2, Crysis Demo, UT3 Demo, all do the samething. HL2 & Crysis demo seem to make the problem crop up earlier (within an hour) than other games such as World of Warcraft (which can go for several hours before video blacking out, sometimes won't happen for days.) Still blacks out.

-Upgraded video drivers, ran driver cleaners, using ForceWare Release 163.75 as of now. Still blacks out.

-Fresh install of OS. Still blacks out.

-Upgraded Motherboard BIOS. Still blacks out.

-I've tried monitoring temps but, when the video cuts out its kinda hard to see what the temp of the GPU is. Although I do know idle temps are in the upper 50s C.

-One thing I've been trying to do is have control over the speed of the Video Cards fan speed. I never hear the fan spin up faster during game play, seems to be stuck on a low setting. I've tried RivaTuner, ATITools, Speedfan. None will change the fan speed. I've followed several RivaTuner guides but it just won't work. nTune will let me change the fan speed to 100% and the fan does kick up then, but anywhere from 5 seconds to 15 minutes later it gets a mind of its own and decides to bring the fan speed back down.

-I have tried this video card in other computers, however they only run at resolutions like 1280x1024 or lower. But, the video blacking out issue disappears from there.
One thing I'll need to try is running those resolutions on my computer, so I'll update later with that.

-I've contacted XFX and they still seem to think this is a software issue.

My specs are as follows:
-XP Pro SP2
-ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD Athlon X2 6000+
-G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
-Mushkin 550150 ATX12V 650W Power Supply 12V combined output 44A

Any and everything you have to suggest I am open to.
Thanks!

 

[XFXSupport]

Does this happen in all games or just a specific one? Are you using the 256mb or 512mb version? Have you overclocked the RAM and CPU? If so put them back to stock settings. Also if you have contacted the XFX support staff via the ticket system, let me know your ticket number.

 

[TuxthePenguin]

256MB version. I have not done any overclocking to the CPU, GPU or RAM. I have contacted XFX Support, ticket# 105452. I also copied the original post to the ticket. Waiting for reply from them.

 

[TuxthePenguin]

Response from XFX Support:
"Hi Sam; thanks for the detailed info - that pretty much answers alot of the questions I would ask at first - do you see any issues if you back down the resolution from 1920x1200? If the card runs fine through other systems, it will be tough to say exactly where this problem is coming from. We`ll be awaiting further updates if you can try anything at your end. Michael"

I guess I will try running at resolutions lower than 1920x1200 for a while and see what the results from that are. I'll update later on with the results.

 

[TuxthePenguin]

Ok, made some headway in troubleshooting this.
Lowered the resolution down from 1920x1200 but it would still blackout UNTIL I played games at 1280x1024. It has not given me any problems since then. So, I decided to turn it back up to 1920x1200, within 1 day it has done it 3 times. I also noticed that it is writing to the System Log and gives the following Critical Error.

Source: nv
Event ID: 108
Description: The driver nv4_disp for the display device \Device\Video0 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates.

Any thoughts?

 

[dignatary]

My card is doing the same thing and i don't even have the resolution set that high. My resolution is 1680 by 1050 and it brings up the random colors also. This card was replacement card about a year ago.

My rig:
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
Athlon X2 4600
2 gig Mushkin
500 watt PW

I forget what the brands are update when I get home.

 

[rauljimenez]

sounds like your drivers can't handle it, has happened to me in the past while overclocking the card past a certain point and drivers shut down.

The only problem is that you have not overclocked the card and is giving you those problems... you need to contact xfx asap then.

 

[TuxthePenguin]

I've been keeping XFX updated through a support ticket and have just sent them my latest info about it working fine at 1280x1024. I'll post with a response as soon as I hear from them.