Hey all - just wanted to see if you could help me with input on this:

I've just bought a new Inno3D 8800 GTS 512 video card (G92) - not the best and most trusted brand, I know - but living in Hong Kong (Inno3D is a Hong Kong brand) I thought it safe enough to buy it. Partly because only 'no-name' brands were available in the shops here, partly because it was reasonably cheap (about USD 335) and partly because all 'vanilla cards' seem to be identical apart from the stickers that are attached to them.

The card was easy to install and I can see huge improvement from my last card - an Asus 7950GT - but it does tend to crash the computer from time to time during game play on highest setting with both COD 2 and 3 (at least occasionally), Far Cry and when running AquaMark3 and Futuremark. The only remedy from these crashes is to reboot the computer.

I'm using the new beta driver from Nvidia (169.21), which supposedly is only in beta because it has not yet been WHQL certified (Nvidia's site has not been working for 'normal' drivers for this card for the last couple of days).

The exhaust from my video card does not seem hot during game-play, my overclocked CPU is running at around 52 degrees Celsius and seems stable during stress.

What do you think? Are my crashes due to a driver problem? Or could the card be faulty?

Thanks!
Bo

E6600 @ 3GHz (using Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme)
2GB Corsair DDR-800
Inno3D 8800 GTS 512 MB (G92)
Dell 2407WFP UltraSharp
Asus P5B-E Plus
150 GB Raptor HDD
320 GB WD (storage)
500W Coolermaster PSU

OK, I had similar issues when I first built my new rig, with the 8800 GT. Apparently, the driver or bios of the card isn't functioning properly at this time. The fan on the 8800 GT is small and loud, so they set it up to scale fan speed with GPU core temperature. This feature doesn't work properly (for me at least). I am running Vista x64 and couldn't install RivaTuner without disabling driver signing. If you are running XP, you should be fine to install RivaTuner and set up your fan speed profiles. I had to use NTune, and even that isn't working properly. I had to set the fan speed to direct control and jack it to 60% to keep the GPU from overheating. The only problem I'm having is that everytime I reboot the machine, the fan settings go back to default 29%. So, I leave the machine up 24/7 Problem solved.

I don't know if this is the problem you are experiencing, but next time you are gaming/benchmarking, listen to hear if your GPU fan is spinning up faster and faster, as it was designed. If not, then you will have to manually adjust your fanspeeds as well. If you are using XP, get RivaTuner and you will only have to do it once. If Vista, get NTune, and make sure you set it to 60% at least before every gaming session, or leave the machine up 24/7 and only set it once