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Some kind of video card issue

Springheel

By Springheel
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Springheel

Springheel

Posted
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Just wondering if anyone has any advice about this.

 

About a month ago I started getting strange error message from time to time:

 

The NVIDIA OpenGL driver detected a problem with the display driver and is unable to continue. The application must close.

 

Error Code 3

 

Over time I've narrowed down when it happens...whenever I have DR or Lightwave open, and my computer goes into sleep mode, the error appears when I bring the computer out of sleep mode. DR and Lightwave crash at that point.

 

I've rolled back my drivers and tried a few other things I found online, but it's still happening.

 

I can't think of anything significant I did around the time it started happening, other than possibly installing Avira anti-virus. Shutting that down doesn't stop the problem though.

 

I have an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS and run Win7.

 

I know there are a lot of computer-savy folks on the forum; just wondering if anyone had any ideas about what this might be.

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

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nbohr1more

nbohr1more

Posted
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I'll need to do some searching but I recall at least one nvidia driver having ramp-up or fan control issues.

 

What's your motherboard chipset?

 

Some of the power features on motherboards cause these behaviors too. You might be able to disable all power saving features in the BIOS.

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Bikerdude

Bikerdude

Posted
Posted

@Springs, whats the exact make/model of the card you have. I ask because I wondering how old it is and when was the last time you cleaned the cooler and replaced the heatsink paste between it and the gpu.

 

Also when you have removed the driver to re-install it, how have you removed it.? the recommended method is

 

1. uninstall via the nvidia installer, but don't reboot.

2. then run driver cleaner to remove any remnants of the driver.

3. reboot and then reinstall the latest driver.

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Springheel

Springheel

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Might be a bigger problem than the video card. I've started getting worse and worse crashes while testing TDM. Started with just CTDs, but a few days ago I got a BSOD and now I've been getting lock-ups. Bad memory, maybe?

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

Video Series:   Springheel's Modules  *  Speedbuild Challenge  *  New Mappers Workshop  *  Building Traps

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New Horizon

New Horizon

Posted
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Might be a bigger problem than the video card. I've started getting worse and worse crashes while testing TDM. Started with just CTDs, but a few days ago I got a BSOD and now I've been getting lock-ups. Bad memory, maybe?

 

Bad memory, power supply on the way out, or perhaps even some bad capacitors on your motherboard or in the power supply itself.

 

I had to replace a bad capacitor inside my power supply a few years back. Cost 1.00 to do it myself and it fixed my freezes, crashes and lockups.

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Springheel

Springheel

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Ah, so the "could be anything" problem. Gotta love those. <_<

 

Everything in my rig besides the video card is new as of four months ago, but I guess that doesn't mean anything.

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

Video Series:   Springheel's Modules  *  Speedbuild Challenge  *  New Mappers Workshop  *  Building Traps

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Bikerdude

Bikerdude

Posted
Posted
  • Ah, so the "could be anything" problem. Gotta love those.
  • Everything in my rig besides the video card is new as of four months ago, but I guess that doesn't mean anything.

  • Its lickly either the PSU or the ram, but a very very remote possibility its the motherboard or the gfx card.
  • Can you give me a a full system spec with makes/models..?

In the mean time do you have a PSU tester? and have you run Memtest_x86 yet..?

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Springheel

Springheel

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have you run Memtest_x86 yet..?

 

No, I'm desperately trying to avoid putting much time into this. 95% of all my time is still going into getting TDM standalone, and as long as I'm only dealing with an average of a crash a day, I can still move forward. I'm hoping I can wait for a few more weeks before having to switch my focus to sorting out the problem, as I have a feeling it will drain my motivation considerably. :wacko:

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

Video Series:   Springheel's Modules  *  Speedbuild Challenge  *  New Mappers Workshop  *  Building Traps

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STiFU

STiFU

Posted
Posted

The issue you described in the original post sounds like a software problem. You said it happens when returning from hibernate, so my guess is that Open GL tries to access functionality that has not yet been reinitialized or has been killed completely. I guess you will have to live with that problem or try different hibernation modes.

 

Aside from that, I've had the issue with random crashes in TDM for years. However, my problems disappeared in the last releases. I switched gfx card from 8800gts to a 560 Ti, so it is not clear whether the updated software or hardware solved the problem for me.

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Lux

Lux

Posted
Posted (edited)

Ah, so the "could be anything" problem. Gotta love those. <_<

 

Everything in my rig besides the video card is new as of four months ago, but I guess that doesn't mean anything.

 

It does mean one thing, that you're not having overheating issues because of dirty HSFs because of accumulation in 4 mo.

 

That being said, with the age of the 8800, can't hurt to yank the HSF and smooge on some new thermal compound as Bikerdude suggested. Would at least help eliminate that from the "possibles" list.

 

After reading the first post I would tend to agree with STiFU on this. It is somewhat time consuming but you could try WHQL driver releases for that card and just keep going backward in releases till you find one that may not cause the crash.

 

I've had some wonky Nvidia driver power state issues as well even with WHQL drivers and we all are aware some things slip through thee cracks.

 

I've also had mixed results running newer or 'latest' drivers on older cards.

Edited by Lux
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someTaff

someTaff

Posted
Posted (edited)

I got that message for an old ATI and that was overheating. Ended up with new cooler, with tubes and such. Heating was gone, fan noise was gone. And alerts were gone. Cooler was cheap. Thermo grease even cheeper. New grease and removing dust balls from cooler ribs should drop temperature by 10-15 C°

What temperature now on idle and under load? Does videocard fan starts to noise under load?

Edited by someTaff

What excuse do we have not to sculpt, and sculpt, and sculpt, until the job is done?

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Springheel

Springheel

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The fan isn't loud at all, and the problems don't happen under load, they generally happen after coming out of sleep mode.

TDM Missions:   A Score to Settle  *  A Reputation to Uphold  *  A New Job  *  A Matter of Hours

Video Series:   Springheel's Modules  *  Speedbuild Challenge  *  New Mappers Workshop  *  Building Traps

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Xarg

Xarg

Posted
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If the BSOD's start becoming more frequent, try Googling for and downloading NirSoft Bluescreenview, it's my go-to tool for quick analysis of the dump files a bsod generates, and since the crashing files are generally well named or a quick google away, the source of the problem will be easier to diagnose.

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Jinix

Jinix

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I cannot help BUT...

I can solve all my own issues very quickly by disconnecting c: drive and reconnecting another c: drive that has the essentials on it.

If the same problem shows up on both drives then I have a hardware problem. If not then it's a software problem.

 

That makes it much easier to trouble shoot. All that about overheating has never affected my computer and it has no sides on the case and only a 'mickey mouse' case fan that hangs from a wire blowing on my video card (that I had previously disconnected the fan from because it was too noisy).

 

I have used computers for 40+ years including programming and repairing thousands of them.

I have RARELY found hardware to blame for the issues.

 

It is almost always a software issue that causes errors. Look to DirectX/registry problems and windows in general, plus auto updating from numerous callhome programs that can cause annoying errors.

 

HOWEVER many times during my working career it was always easier to fix software issues by reformatting the hard drive and starting again than to spend endless hours troubleshooting.

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simplen00b

simplen00b

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HOWEVER many times during my working career it was always easier to fix software issues by reformatting the hard drive and starting again than to spend endless hours troubleshooting.

I used to do this constantly with dear old Win 98. Once I finally upgraded to XP I learned about (i) putting your OS & programmes on one partition, and your documents on another, and (ii) making regular image backups of your OS partition. I've only had to use it a couple of times in the last five years, but when I did, it took 30-40 minutes to reinstall the OS & all my programmes instead of all day.
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Lux

Lux

Posted
Posted (edited)

The fan isn't loud at all, and the problems don't happen under load, they generally happen after coming out of sleep mode.

 

I agree with someTaff and Bikerdude.

 

Completely disable any sleep modes and hibernate. Set your Monitors to turn off after so long and screen saver whenever you want but disable sleep and hibernate. See if the issue goes away. It could also be the driver revision you're using has issues with this as many Nvidia drivers have over the years. I also turn off any USB sleep state power modes because they cause my mouse to do really wierd stuff after resume.

Edited by Lux
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