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Video driver crashing continuosly and recovering

SamuriHL said:
The 8800 GT has a fan?! :D Weird! I've never hard mine. ;) Actually, it comes on at startup for about 3 seconds. After that, I can run the case with the top off and I still can't hear it. Best video card I've ever owned IMO.
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Agreed. Unless I intentionally increased the fan speed my 8800 GT (G92) was very quiet.
 
I've never had a reason to do that. It works fine for everything I've tried without increasing the fan speed. Heat is nominal even in my cramped HTPC case. Power consumption is ridiculously low for that kind of card. All in all, I can't ask for more.
 
SamuriHL said:
I've never had a reason to do that. It works fine for everything I've tried without increasing the fan speed. Heat is nominal even in my cramped HTPC case. Power consumption is ridiculously low for that kind of card. All in all, I can't ask for more.
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I generally only did it when gaming. For normal use and watching HD/BD/SD DVD I never needed to. Yeah, it's definitely a great card when comparing power consumption vs heat vs results.
 
SamuriHL said:
I've never had a reason to do that. It works fine for everything I've tried without increasing the fan speed. Heat is nominal even in my cramped HTPC case. Power consumption is ridiculously low for that kind of card. All in all, I can't ask for more.
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What brand of 8800GT are you using?
 
gnollo said:
What brand of 8800GT are you using?
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I believe SamuriHL has an XFX 8800 GT 512 MB card. I have the EVGA 8800 GT SC 512 MB card but it's currently in a box since I replaced it with a newer ATI card.
 
Yup, an XFX that I got the very week they hit the market last year. Awesome rig.
 
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The 9600GT is *probably* fast enough but I have no experience with it. It's got purevideo 2 so it should offload stuff from the cpu. I don't know what the hell they're complaining about with fan noise! As I said, I take the top of my HTPC case off and stand right next to it and I can't hear the fan at full load playing a game with the sound muted. But, anyway, either of those should do fine.
 
SamuriHL said:
The 9600GT is *probably* fast enough but I have no experience with it. It's got purevideo 2 so it should offload stuff from the cpu. I don't know what the hell they're complaining about with fan noise! As I said, I take the top of my HTPC case off and stand right next to it and I can't hear the fan at full load playing a game with the sound muted. But, anyway, either of those should do fine.
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I don't doubt you, as a matter of fact the 6600 GT card I used was very quiet, until suddenly it developed a whirring noise, which would go away (sometimes) upon reboot.
I really won't use it for gaming, only for blueray playback. According to their website, the card completely takes over hardware acceleration of blueray playback, with no CPU useage for that purpose.
http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1404&maincat_no=130
 
Just bit the bullet and ordered it. We will soon know it it works... should arrive tomorrow.
 
That whirring noise is caused most of the time by dust building up in the fan and unbalancing it. It starts to rotate slightly off center causing the noise. Take the thing out once every month or two and blow some compressed air into it. That'll take care of that problem.
 
Performed another test this evening. Tried to play an HD-DVD from the hard disk (using Virtual Clone Drive).
Result: initial playback, but when the crash came, it brought a BLUE SCREEN!
Upon reboot Vista announces that the crash is due to the .... video drivers.
 
Tried playing an HD-DVD from the drive this time, and it stutters and crashes more than from the hard disk. This time only video driver crashes, not full blown blue screen.
 
gnollo said:
Performed another test this evening. Tried to play an HD-DVD from the hard disk (using Virtual Clone Drive).
Result: initial playback, but when the crash came, it brought a BLUE SCREEN!
Upon reboot Vista announces that the crash is due to the .... video drivers.
Click to expand...

gnollo said:
Tried playing an HD-DVD from the drive this time, and it stutters and crashes more than from the hard disk. This time only video driver crashes, not full blown blue screen.
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I can't help but think that the video driver problem and the BSOD are only a symptom of a deeper problem. The hard part is finding it. :(
 
Well, should get my videocard today, and have a spare mobo sitting on a shelf, so I can do some testing. Basically once I change mobo and videocard, the only thing I will have left in my HTPC that I had when I experienced problems will be the processor.
I changed
- memory sticks
- power supply
- videocard
- audiocard
- reinstalled vista
I really don't think that there is an issue with the blueray drive, as I have been able to rip to iso and play from hard disk showing exactly the same problems (if not worse, this time with blue screens).
 
Card is in, quite noisy when it starts up, but it goes virtually inaudible when vista is up and running. The installation cd in the blue ray drive sounded like the drive wanted to take off, in comparison!

Well, I am watching pirates of the caribbean, and I am 20 minutes in, with no drivers crashes so far... will report after more testing but it looks good so far.
The video card is SO LONG! It also take over two slots... I will have to upgrade in the future to a full size mboard to accomodate a tv card. Not really bothered right now as I use SKY HD for my PVR. I will continue to do that until Vista MediaCenter will be able to record UK OTA HD.

Thanks for all your help guys, so far so good.
 
gnollo said:
Card is in, quite noisy when it starts up, but it goes virtually inaudible when vista is up and running. The installation cd in the blue ray drive sounded like the drive wanted to take off, in comparison!

Well, I am watching pirates of the caribbean, and I am 20 minutes in, with no drivers crashes so far... will report after more testing but it looks good so far.
The video card is SO LONG! It also take over two slots... I will have to upgrade in the future to a full size mboard to accomodate a tv card. Not really bothered right now as I use SKY HD for my PVR. I will continue to do that until Vista MediaCenter will be able to record UK OTA HD.

Thanks for all your help guys, so far so good.
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I don't know if they sell any single-slot 9xxx cards. My 8800 was a single-slot solution so I didn't make one of my PCI slots a dead zone however I also didn't want to put a card right next to it, anyway, because of the heat generated by it.

Sadly, yes, all the newer cards are long.

Anyway, I hope things keep running stable!
 
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