Frustrating eVGA 7600GT Problem

[Stalone207]

I've narrowed a problem I'm having down to two components: My Motherboard or my eVGA 7600GT CO video cards. My computer freezes up whenever I play Oblivion, Prey, WOW, etc. This problems happens continually and randomly, though it seems to happen when I do certain things in the games, mostly that involve a brighter, more graphically active picture, to the point where I can predict whens it happens.

When it feezes, it does exactly the same thing in any game I play: The game stops responding but the sound still plays and sometimes the mouse still moves. This goes for either about 5 seconds or 15 seconds (almostly exactly everytime) and then the mouse stops responding and the sound skips for about 5 seconds, and then the game returns to normal after the picture refreshes the graphic layers in the game (this can be seen). If the sound does not return, eventually my computer will either crash, a runtime error will come up and the game will crash, or an Nvidia driver error will come up and I'll have to reboot.

I have two of these cards to run in SLI, so I tested them each individually to see if was a problem with just one of the cards, but they both do this exact same thing.

Another thing: These cards are PCI-E for the SLI, so to test my motherboard I tried using my old PCI 128mb card and it runs what is capable of running at its low memory perfectly.

Please help...

 

[fracturechris]

hey, your post has swung it for me to join the forum

i have a gigabyte 7600gt and an msi p965 mobo and i have the exact same problems. when it was happening i was monitoring the temperatures of the card and they are fine also

the only way i could get round it was by lowering the resolutions of my games and that got rid of the problems for a while, thats all i can say to help.

anyone else got any ideas?

 

[randomizer]

Well at first I was like "power supply", since that seems to be the root of all problems. But since the error corrects itself, it seems less likely. Make sure you are using the latest drivers etc. How much RAM do you have, both of you lol.

Oh and welcome to the Forumz (again to both of you).

 

[Stalone207]

1Gb RAM, tested each stick individually- no problems
2.2 GHz AMD Single Core

I also tried lowering resolution, didn't helpmuch: slowed occurences of freezing but they occur and irritate.

Also tried several drivers recomended by other forums: 91.28, 91.29, 91.33, etc. Also doesn't help. Like I said, the only thing that has helped is by using my old 128mb PCI card and disabling the two 7600GT's, but I can only play WOW since my other require more memory.

 

[Stalone207]

Oh! And thanks a lot for the quick response!

 

[randomizer]

What settings do you run at in oblivion. I havent played WOW or Prey (except the demo) so I'll work with oblivion as I know its very intensive.

 

[fracturechris]

i got 1 gig memory as well, and my drivers are all up to date

thanks agen

 

[Stalone207]

I've ran it one the lowest setting and it still does this, doesn't seem to matter. WOW is even not tha graphically intensive and my 128 mb does great, but my 7600GT SLI setup freezes at the same low settings.

 

[MowerMannn]

I had a similar problem with me 7900gt.

I worked out it was at fault by underclocking the card.
After that all faults went away and was problem free, for about a month.
If u download coolbits and head into the overclocking features.
Take it back 20% and see what hapens.

 

[randomizer]

The 7900gt is known to have issues tho, well known. When you say "for about a month", you mean the problem came back after?

EDIT: This is a real newbie thread lol, people joining the forumz just for this thread. 3 or 4 so far, most I've ever seen in one thread.

 

[meljor]

try running memtest for an hour and see if it makes errors.
when your mem is fine try a fresh install with drivers that are all 3 monts old or so and see if that works.

when overclocked: lower your cpu and/or cards to their original frequencies and try again. make sure your cpu does not overheat due to dust or bad fan.

sometimes a bios reset can do some magic, so think about that also.

about the msi p965: i have that board and it was a pain to get it stable in the beginning. seemed that this board is VERY picky with ram! i tried 6 brands! trancend and kingston work fine (even together now) but g-skill, geil, jetram and infineon didn`t work well and caused lockups. geil didn`t even boot (2 sticks tested).

good luck and let us now the outcome........

 

[Stalone207]

Thanks a lot, that coolbit file fixed my problems as far as I can tell so far: That 7600GT card is stock overclocked... next time i'll read the "fine print" before buying, lol! Thanks again, I've been fighting this problem for about a year now so your advice has been invaluable to me!

 

[MowerMannn]

LOL, bring on the gimps errrr noobs!!

Yer i had a XFX factory overclocked one.
Came artifacting outa the box the first day i installed it!

I underclocked it a smige and was ok so fit zalman vf900 and ran at defult.
Few months later the screen started tearing and artifacting.
little while later i had the core dropped to 350 just to run (520 default)
Have since sent it back and got a 8800gts

 

[randomizer]

Stock OC cards are shaky at best, especially if it is a high OC. When I said there were known issues with the 7900gt, I was referring to the factory OC ones.

 

[MowerMannn]

Thanks a lot, that coolbit file fixed my problems as far as I can tell so far: That 7600GT card is stock overclocked... next time i'll read the "fine print" before buying, lol! Thanks again, I've been fighting this problem for about a year now so your advice has been invaluable to me!

Sweet as!

 

[randomizer]

LOL, bring on the gimps errrr noobs!!

Yer i had a XFX factory overclocked one.
Came artifacting outa the box the first day i installed it!

I underclocked it a smige and was ok so fit zalman vf900 and ran at defult.
Few months later the screen started tearing and artifacting.
little while later i had the core dropped to 350 just to run (520 default)
Have since sent it back and got a 8800gts

Yep, thats the OC 7900gt issues I was talking about. They seem to enjoy frying.

 

[MowerMannn]

Yer, ime over factory overclocked card hey

Easier to save $50 and overclock em moderatley yourself.
Not screaming off their tits like some brands have em.

 

[fracturechris]

try running memtest for an hour and see if it makes errors.
when your mem is fine try a fresh install with drivers that are all 3 monts old or so and see if that works.

when overclocked: lower your cpu and/or cards to their original frequencies and try again. make sure your cpu does not overheat due to dust or bad fan.

sometimes a bios reset can do some magic, so think about that also.

about the msi p965: i have that board and it was a pain to get it stable in the beginning. seemed that this board is VERY picky with ram! i tried 6 brands! trancend and kingston work fine (even together now) but g-skill, geil, jetram and infineon didn`t work well and caused lockups. geil didn`t even boot (2 sticks tested).

good luck and let us now the outcome........

thanks alot!!
tryed the fresh install and that is working great, as for the p965 board, it has been a trouble for a while now im gonna probably buy an asus or gigabyte board along side an 8600gt when they come out,

thanks alot guys!

 

[PHaBeK]

eVGA Geforce 7600GT 256MB PCI-E is defective. I know 3 people with this exact same problem.

The problem is in the cooling fan on the GPU itself. The fan itself stops operating and causes the card itself to overheat.

I found this while playing WOW, my game would freeze for like 5 seconds, my FPS would drop to 1-2 then the game would be fine again. This would happen constantly. Sometimes the game would lock up completely and give a blue screen of death stating an error with a specific driver DLL file.

I have a window on the side of my box so i just looked in one day and noticed the fan not working at all. It was plugged in and everything. If this isnt handed more damage will occur to the card it self (such as transistors leaking from the top) melting, and cause motherboard issues, not to mention software issues. I have noticed an outrageous increase of PF Usage with the card in.

I (one of 4 different people with this exact same card and exact same issue that I personally know) am in the middle of an RMA with eVGA who also stated that it is a defective cooling fan on their card. They use a completely different fan now and have used a completely different fan for some time now.

Hopefully they will replace my card because its pretty much beyond repair.

Hope this helps,