Nothing OC'ed, everything stock hardware (including cooling)
EVGA GTX 550Ti
i5-2500k
MSI P67S-C43
It started from almost day 1 with this PC. Was getting black screens and Nvidia Display Drivers stopped working messages. At the time, it would only happen once a day or so, and I assumed it was just a driver bug that Nvidia would patch. Over half a year later, happens more frequently (depends on the load). Crashes are always Nvidia driver only. Not getting any sudden system shutdowns, restarts, or blue screens.
I have re-seated the card and CPU multiple times. Never had another problem with this machine. It will crash faster without fan control software running (fan just stays running at 30% without software control). With fan control software running (PrecisionX), it does better, but still crashes drivers.
I read some info that says the crash is from the GPU reaching unsafe temps. This doesn't seem to be the case, as it crashes at varying temps, not a constant temp. Crashes have happened anywhere from 81C down to 66C (using CPUID HWM to catch max temps reached), with almost all of them happening in the 72-77C range with temps to either side outside that range being rare occurrences.
I read some other info that says it is the card reaching 100% load, which triggers a drivers crash to protect itself, and that it was designed that way. This is a foreign concept since I have always experienced cards under load, in the past, causing frame rate drops when they reach their limits, not running nice and smooth and suddenly crashing drivers. The logic doesn't make sense to me, that a card would be designed to stop at 100% load to protect itself, rather than stopping at an unsafe temp. Temps are the danger to cards, AFAIK, and should be the trigger. If the card truly is stopping at 100% load, it comes off as one lazy card, and has a design that I do not understand and, without a decent explanation for that design, it makes me feel quite unhappy.
Card maintains steady voltage readings, running between 0.950 at desktop and 1.062 on the top end.
I did mess around with different driver versions and no matter what versions I use (clean installs, not just installing over older/newer), symptoms stay the same. Simply put, bad drivers shouldn't be a concern (unless they are all bad). I just really want to know if the card is designed this way, if I have a bad card, or if something else is going on. I don't want to run out and spend money on something without a fairly good idea first of what my problem is.
Well that is my story. Been frustrated by this for quite a while now, but the impact was a small enough disruption that I haven't bothered until now to finally try and figure it out once and for all. Appreciate some enlightenment on what I have going on, or some direction on things I can test to better nail down the specific problem. Thanks for taking a look.
EVGA GTX 550Ti
i5-2500k
MSI P67S-C43
It started from almost day 1 with this PC. Was getting black screens and Nvidia Display Drivers stopped working messages. At the time, it would only happen once a day or so, and I assumed it was just a driver bug that Nvidia would patch. Over half a year later, happens more frequently (depends on the load). Crashes are always Nvidia driver only. Not getting any sudden system shutdowns, restarts, or blue screens.
I have re-seated the card and CPU multiple times. Never had another problem with this machine. It will crash faster without fan control software running (fan just stays running at 30% without software control). With fan control software running (PrecisionX), it does better, but still crashes drivers.
I read some info that says the crash is from the GPU reaching unsafe temps. This doesn't seem to be the case, as it crashes at varying temps, not a constant temp. Crashes have happened anywhere from 81C down to 66C (using CPUID HWM to catch max temps reached), with almost all of them happening in the 72-77C range with temps to either side outside that range being rare occurrences.
I read some other info that says it is the card reaching 100% load, which triggers a drivers crash to protect itself, and that it was designed that way. This is a foreign concept since I have always experienced cards under load, in the past, causing frame rate drops when they reach their limits, not running nice and smooth and suddenly crashing drivers. The logic doesn't make sense to me, that a card would be designed to stop at 100% load to protect itself, rather than stopping at an unsafe temp. Temps are the danger to cards, AFAIK, and should be the trigger. If the card truly is stopping at 100% load, it comes off as one lazy card, and has a design that I do not understand and, without a decent explanation for that design, it makes me feel quite unhappy.
Card maintains steady voltage readings, running between 0.950 at desktop and 1.062 on the top end.
I did mess around with different driver versions and no matter what versions I use (clean installs, not just installing over older/newer), symptoms stay the same. Simply put, bad drivers shouldn't be a concern (unless they are all bad). I just really want to know if the card is designed this way, if I have a bad card, or if something else is going on. I don't want to run out and spend money on something without a fairly good idea first of what my problem is.
Well that is my story. Been frustrated by this for quite a while now, but the impact was a small enough disruption that I haven't bothered until now to finally try and figure it out once and for all. Appreciate some enlightenment on what I have going on, or some direction on things I can test to better nail down the specific problem. Thanks for taking a look.
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