*PLEASE, read everything before answering, it took my time to write this huge thread

My XFX 8800gt XT is experiencing random crashes with Quake 3. I need to fix this ASAP in case I have to RMA it.

First, my rig:

OS: WinXP SP2, up-to-date patched.

CPU:
Q6600 Revision G0

GPU:
XFX 8800GT XT

MB:
Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 Socket 775 DDR2

CPUFAN:
Asus Silent Square PRO

HD1: Samsung Spinpoint-T HD501LJ 500GB
HD2: Seagate Barracuda 250GB

RAM:
GeiL BackDragon DDR 800Mhz 1GBx2

PSU:
Thermaltake Toughpower 750W Modular

NOTHING was never overclocked.

I checked EVERYTHING, including:

-Its not overheating. (Idle 54º, running Quake 3 55º, yeah) Also, I can play Crysis with high settings for hours without a single crash.

-CPU temps are also ok: CoreTemp says 42º, 36º, 33º, 31º

-Its not a sound issue. (Tried with bios sound off, even tried with my SB 5.1 disabled.)

-Its not a hard drive issue (tried with different brand ones)

-Its not a bad driver installation issue: I used Driver Cleaner everytime, even I formated and installed 169.21 directly, and it still crashes.

-Tried older drivers, still crashes. (I even tried the Quadro drivers, and the Omega ones)

-Tried with RivaTuner OpenGL stuff, like overriding the version to 1.1 or disabling enhanced CPU instruction sets.

-Tried disabling multithreaded optimization in the nv control panel.

-Tried setting the process affinity to one core.

-I have latest BIOS on MOBO. Also latest XFX8800GTXT BIOS: 62.92.16.00.91

-Tried optimized Quake 3 clients such as ioQuake3 or ChallengeQuake3 executables.

Now, thats my history with the issue:

The problem consists in the game freezing, the sound getting stuck and repeating the last second you heard in an annoying infinite loop, and finally, after about 20 - 30 secs (and some random crtl+alt+supr and alt+enter), you are able to see everything black with the cursor stuck in the middle, then, it goes to Window's desktop at the awesome resolution of 640x480 and 4 freaking colours. Two error messages are displayed:

"The driver nv4_disp is not functioning properly and has been shut down. Please restart your computer, and a log of this error will be generated to be sent to Microsoft"

The other one is apparently comming from Q3, as you can see the Q3 logo with "Low Desktop Color Depth" at the windows status bar.

It says: "Low Desktop Color Depth. It is higly unlikely that a correct windowed display can be initialized with the current desktop display depth. Select 'OK' to try anyway. Press 'Cancel' if you have a 3Dfx Voodoo, Voodoo-2 or Voodoo Rush 3D accelerator insalled, or otherwise wish to quit." Options are "ok or cancel".
Both will make the screen go black with a blinking _ . The solution for that was pressing the restart button on my PC case.

Here is how it looks like:



A couple of days after this, instead of restarting or alt+entering, I waited just to see if something happens. After 2 minutes aprox of waiting with Q3 freezed, Windows closed Q3 and the typical "an error ocured with quake3.exe" window appeared. I clicked on details and it says something about nvoglnt.dll. I searched for that on my hard drive, clicked on details and it says: NVIDIA Compatible OpenGL ICD

Some shoots of the error messages:









And here's the content of 080105_2247_01.wdl.txt

//
// Watchdog Event Log File
//

LogType: Watchdog
Created: 2008-01-05 22:47:44
TimeZone: -60 - Hora estándar romance
WindowsVersion: XP
EventType: 0xEA - Thread Stuck in Device Driver

//
// The driver for the display device got stuck in an infinite loop. This
// usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device
// driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your
// display device vendor for any driver updates.
//

ShutdownCount: 20
Shutdown: 0
EventFlag: 1
EventCount: 1
BreakCount: 1
BugcheckTriggered: 1
DebuggerNotPresent: 1
DriverName: nv4_disp
DeviceClass: Display
DeviceDescription: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
HardwareID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0611&SUBSYS_23301682&REV_A2
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
DriverFixedFileInfo: FEEF04BD 00010000 0006000E 000B1B09 0006000E 000B1B09 0000003F 00000008 00040004 00000003 00000004 00000000 00000000
DriverCompanyName: NVIDIA Corporation
DriverFileDescription: NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 169.21
DriverFileVersion: 6.14.11.6921
DriverInternalName: nv4_disp.dll
DriverLegalCopyright: © NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.
DriverOriginalFilename: nv4_disp.dll
DriverProductName: NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 169.21
DriverProductVersion: 6.14.11.6921

So, that demonstrates its a driver issue.

The amount of times this happen is totally random: It can happen in two hours, or it can happen in 15 minutes. Curiously, if the game is windowed, it will freeze only for about 2 seconds, then it will continue going normally.

Im really TIRED and extremly pissed off with this issue and I will not support never again NVidia if they keep ruining the drivers because of Windows Vista support. What's up with people that want to run old OpenGL based games? Do you want all of those to switch to another brand? (specially that one that begins with an "A".) I paid to play more games besides Crysis.

Anyway, I asked in lots of places and noone finds whats going on. To whoever finds WTF is going on there, a million thanks to that user.

Thank you for your attention.

Forgot to add:

-Not RAM (memtested it)
-Tried using older nvoglnt.dll files (the 88xx series doesn't work with older forcewares) but when executing the game, it detects the nvoglnt.dll is from another version, and will not work.

What I would do is re-install Windows and see if that fixes the problems. Even before that I would test the card on another computer. Since you are possibly running a non English based release of Windows that could also be a problem (seen that happen before).

If you read my post, you can see how I said I already formated. I can't test the card on another computer since the only person I know with a PCI-E mobo has this PSU http://www.alternate.es/html/produ [...] hData=true 400W is very little W for this card. Also, I can't accept that because im using Windows in spanish is crashing the nvlognt.dll module.

Sounds like a faulty memory module like I had and later RMA'd it check out this link sound familiar?
http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20724
long story short, a lot of these card have these identical problems and I bought another one during my RMA and it runs perfectly :-)

O ****, so I have to RMA it. I hope these **** now give me a proper working one.

I RMA'd the card. Recieved it this morning. Played for an hour and the same **** freeze happened.

NOW WHAT THE **** IS GOING ON WITH THIS **** NVIDIA CARDS.

I will buy an ATi if I don't fix it before a week.

i really dont know. if an rma didnt fix it. it seems there is something else going on.

does that happen only with quake3?

Apparently only with Quake 3, but its not a problem with the game itself. Also, I experienced weird **** in Oblivion sometimes also.

This is just ANNOYING.

Hey Red,
I don't know if you solved already your problem, I know this is an old thread, but I've had similar problems with Q3: every 20 sec, it was as if the image stopped for one milisecond and then continued, as if there was lag somehow.
I found out that the issue was lying within the Dual core cpu I was using...
It seems that some "old" games do not like multiple cores....that's why you need to assign only one core to your game... How?
1. Open Quake
2. Press Ctrl+alt+Del -> Task manager
3. Search for Quake3.exe in Processes
4. Right click it -> Set Affinity & Leave only CPU 0 checked

You also may try Run First on http://www.activeplus.com/us/freeware/runfirst/, see also this thread here:
http://www.runegame.com/vbf/showthread.php?t=28223

Wish you good luck!
Best regards,
Hokuto