Is my newly purchased Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ OC Graphics Card broken?

[baka101]

Hey all, this is my 2nd post in a very long time.

Ok to start off I will give you my pc specs ok

Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit edition
Intel Core2duo E8200 2.66GHz
Kingston HyperX 2gb 800 DDR2 x2
Asrock P45DE P45 FSB 2000 PCI-E 2.0 4xDDR2 1200
Seagate Barracuda IDE and SATA both 7200RPM
Element series ST75EF Silverstone PSU 750Watts

And finally Galaxy Geforce GTX 260+ OC 896MB 448Bit DDR3, Core clock 625MHz, Shader Clock 1350MHz, Stream Processors 216.

Now here's the story ok before I got my Silverstone ST75EF 750Watt I was running on a Silverstone SST-ST50EF PLUS 500Watt PSU, now last week I introduced my new purchased GTX 260+ http://www.galaxytech.com/en/product.aspx?serial=14 into the system yeh with the Silverstone SST-ST50EF Plus http://www.silentpcreview.com/article670-page1.html. Now probably my most stupid think I did was run it on the minimum 500Watt on C16xQ Antialiasing in Supersampling, in games like Streetfighter 4 and Mirrors Edge with 16x anisotropic filtering. At the start this was great on the 500w psu, then my Samsung Syncmaster 2693HM 26" LCD monitor starting turning off then the blue led light would just blink on and off, sometimes the system would still be running sometimes it would pause up and reset itself. Also sometimes the screen would turn dark blue or white then pause up with no text unlike bsod. I put my power plan in balanced and went throught the entire drives with disk checking tools and malwarebytes anti-malware updated and avast antivirus scanner updated and found no nasties. Also my nvidia driver is 190.62, and all direct x 9.0 is updated along with all the windows vista updates. So after this starting happening I quickly got onto ordering the Element series ST75EF Silverstone PSU 750Watts, but I hope it wasnt a little to late cause I still sometimes suffer from the same things that plagued me when I was running with the 500watt PSU with my new Silverstone ST75EF 750Watt. Sometimes I get lucky and the pc will run for hours even when playing Mirrors Edge and SF4 with Multisampling at C16xQ I decided to turn down from Supersampling to Multisampling in hope that wouldn't overdo my card and reset. Now i haven't updated the motherboard bios at all so would any of these updated bios help http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=P45DE&s=775. Also I do run GPU-Z and read the sensors when I start up a game etc

In windows vista no game run
GPU Core Clock [MHZ] 300
GPU Memory Clock [MHz] 300
GPU Temperature [°C] 39
PCB Temperature [°C] 39
GPU Temperature [°C] 31
PCB Temperature [°C] 32.5
Fan Speed [%] 40

In game with multisampling/supersampling with C16xQ
GPU Core Clock [MHZ] 625
GPU Memory Clock [MHz] 1050
GPU Temperature [°C] 41
PCB Temperature [°C] 32
GPU Temperature [°C] 33
PCB Temperature [°C] 33.5
Fan Speed [%] 40

I can't figure out anymore I need to tell you, other that I defrag my drives each day, run malware/virus scans, watch my GPU-Z temps, maybe I should be using a utility to tell you what my voltage load is on my 12volt rails perhaps. Oh also my kingston hyper x ram is in dual mode.

So back to the title of this thread is my Galaxy geforce gtx 260+ broken, if so what the warranty usually on those things I can't find it anywhere on the galaxy website.

Thanks

Mark

 

[diaz]

Can you try another graphic card?

- The silverstone element series have very poor performance levels to begin with - could still be a power supply issue such as pulling all the power from one rail. You might consider balancing your power distribution.
- Whether you max out the settings or decrease settings, your GPU and CPU usually work as hard as they can anyways. Usually, the only difference is the framerate throughput.
- Have you considered motherboard issues?

-D

 

[baka101]

The previous motherboard I had before my current Asrock P45DE P45 FSB 2000 PCI-E 2.0 4xDDR2 1200 was a Foxconn G31MV which had a Intel G31 intergrated graphics chipset and I run that on my samsung lcd in analog. So when I moved to my Asrock P45DE this motherboard came with PCI-Express 2.0 so then I got the Galaxy GTX 260+ my first ever PCI-Express video card. So I would have to ask around my mates if they happen to have a pci express video card I guess.

Also damn on my selection of PSU if what you say is true, its been more money just to get this thing up in running having to purchase a new motherboard to support pci-express 2.0 for gtx 260+, and psu to take the power load of the gtx 260+. So how do I go about balancing my power distribution?

Also I just updated my motherboard bios to latest version hoping that would help, and when I went into safemode with networking and was replying to your reply my screen just went all white even in safemode. Much of the time when I log into vista in normally after like 20 min - 30 min the screen would either change orange,blue,white or just turn off completely and the blue led would blink on and off.

So how do I go about isolating the problem what tests do I need to run

You said balance the power distribution
You said try another pci express graphics card, how long would I wait to see if it acts up.
Also how would I go about testing my motherboard are there test programs I can get to do this, should I run some graphic benchmarking software to see what area my monitor would turn off or turn a different color.

Now I just uninstalled my Nvidia 190.62 windows vista 32 display driver and my pc is holding up so far, so far no screen turnoffs but its early days, so it running on the video cards own would you say bios or display driver I aint sure so under standard VGA Graphics Adapter it says

Adapter Information
Chip Type: NVIDIA
DAC Type: 8 bit
Adapter String: VGA
Bios Information: Chip Rev

Total Available Graphics Memory: 14 MB
Dedicated Video Memory: n/a
System Video Memory: n/a
Shared System Memory: n/a

So I will leave my computer on all night and give you a round down in morning or afternoon and tell you if I can switch on the screen and be presented with the log in screen or if the screen is black and flashing on and off with the blue led. So who knows it could be the Nvidia 190.62 display driver giving me problems, cause for the global setting I set all to maximum performance rather than quality, then in the other tab I set up individual settings for media player classic, streetfighter 4 and mirrors edge which I turn on x16 anisotropic filtering, anti aliasing and high quality rather than using high performance in the global setting. Also my vista is set to performance so it does look ugly but I prefer the extra performance I get from it.

So I will tell you how it goes from there ok if I turn on monitor again in morning or afternoon and its still going well without the nvidia driver installed then at least thats a step closer to knowing what the problem maybe.

Thanks

Mark

No I spoke to soon I was just about to post my reply when the screen turn blackie grey. So had to restart for the 100th time.

 

[jiggerman]

Nvidia 190 drivers are b0rked. Go back to 180's for most stability.

You may also need to use something like driver cleaner pro to remove 190's as they are a pain in arse to completely remove.

 

[baka101]

hey jiggerman, I uninstalled nvidia drivers completely like last night. And for the first time it was going rite then after awhile it reset to the black and grey screen color.

So I was running without the nvidia drivers installed just running purely on the built in display driver on card etc, so after that reset I booted into windows vista as normal last night and so far so good my screen turned on as normal today in the afternoon and was presented with the logon screen and logged in, so far no screen turning off or stupid colors appearing then pause up.

I really want to play sf4,re5 or mirrors edge but I need to of course install the latest driver from nvidia but you mentioned get the 180 flavour of it, so has there been accounts where the 190's series of the nvidia driver causes the same problems I am having like the pause up with white,blue,orange,black screen or screen just turning off and led light blinking on and off.

Thanks

Mark

 

[tweakboy]

I say RMA it immedietaly to the place you bought it from. Get a RMA # and ship it back to them get refund or a exchange,,, what u have is defective perhaps,,gl

 

[baka101]

Ok tweakboy, I am going to try the 182.50 display driver as suggested by hardwarecanucks - NVIDIA GeForce Forceware 190.38 WHQL Drivers
as they said it was robust and doesn't seem to suffer from the 190 series problems. Also been hearing the the vista 64 and windows 7 don't seem to suffer in the 190 series it seems to be winxp and vista 32 that go down.

If after trying 182.50 display driver with the games I run SF4, RE5 and Mirrors edge all on C16xQ @ 1920 x 1200 and I still suffer from these problems I know for sure it aint a driver problem it's definitely the video card itself and will RMA it as you said.

Thanks

Mark

 

[baka101]

Now I went ahead and installed nvidia display driver 182.50 as on many forums they came to the conclusion that it was the most stable driver yet. So after that I wanted to test it to see if my problems would go away so I went to nvidia control panel and set it to high quality everything just for the streetfighter IV.exe in the individual nvidia setting and set antialiasing to be application controlled, anisotropic to x16, clamp, supersampling etc all for high quality gaming.

So I started streetfighter as normal and went to setting and set Antialiasing to C16xQ and resolution 1920 x 1200 and everything on highest. Ok so I ran through some cpu vs cpu matches to see how it would cope, now on the 190.62 when it was on c16xq with supersampling I would get a fluid 60fps no less, but with 182.50 with c16xq with supersampling the framerate dropped to the point where if any did an ultra move it would drop to 20 frames per second which never happened on 190.62 even with c16xq with supersampling also I tabbed out to see the temperate of GPU and it read on outstanding 52c that can't be right because if you go back to my first post it was 42c.

Ok so I run some matches it all lasted for like 40 mins and then my screen went blank and system froze on me, I was hoping the 182.50 would of been the answer but no. So I am doing a RMA back to the online company I purchased it from, now if they test it in anything but say windows vista ultimate or windows vista, it may just work for them because I have heard windows 7 doesnt have issues with 190.62 or any other previous display drivers in the nvidia line.

So I guess I will need to stipulate run windows vista ultimate and run streetfighter 4 etc with supersampling and c16xq for awhile and see if the same things occurs because I simply don't want them to return the card back and say there's nothing wrong with it, even though I know something must be a stray here.

If they do return it saying nothing wrong with it, then what tests would I run for either my PSU or motherboard to find out if they may be the cause instead, I have ordered a 8400gs I know its a crap card but its there for test purposes like you guys same use a different pci express card to test out system and it's a card to run in system while my GTX 260+ is away being tested.

So any thoughts on this matter.

Thanks

Mark