8800 GTS issue

[Dark Comet]

Hi, just a few hours ago I was playing world of warcraft on my PC (specs below) and it crashed.

PC specs;
Q9450 @ stock
Asus maximus formula
8800 GTS 512
Cosair 620 watt PSU

The screen would turn black, then flicker with loads of random colours. So anyway in the end I got the BSOD. I did a quick check at GPU temps and they were about 60 - 70C on the GPU which is normal for me. When I tired to boot back up I would have exclamation marks all over the screen.

If I went into the BIOS settings the exclamation marks all over the screen disappeared. If I boot up in safe mode it would boot up fine. A normal boot would result in a BSOD. So I changed out my graphics card for my old 7100GS and computer booted fine, no issues at all.

I'm not sure if its the hardware or another issue as it worked fine in safe mode. The screen did look like the GPU was overheating though. Any thoughts?

 

[nfail]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/283019-15-nvidia-driver-hell

READ THAT OMG nVidia has f**ked up so bad!

 

[Dark Comet]

The problem is I'm using an old driver from months and months ago and have not updated at all

 

[EXT64]

Can you try uninstalling the drivers in safe mode and rebooting? The card may have just randomly died. Is it still under warranty?

 

[Dark Comet]

Am I right in thinking that installing new drivers in safe mode is a bad idea? I'll try the roll back idea later. My card has 1 year on it (Had it about 1.5 years I think) but if you register it you get 10 years, I can't remember if I registered it. I don't think I did, stupid mistake to be honest I bet I forgot about it.

 

[EXT64]

Well, uninstalling drivers in safe mode is fine, but I'd try rebooting normally before trying new ones. Not a lot of hope that this will work, but worth a try.

 

[Dark Comet]

Thanks for the replys. Thats so annoying, I've only had the card for 1.5 to 2 years and I paid £200 for it. I wasn't planning on updating my card untill later this year. I'll try putting my 8800 in tomorrow and uninstalling the drivers.

The reason I didn't do that was because the exclamation marks are on the screen before the windows loading bar so I thought that the drivers are not loaded till after that screen so it can't be them.

 

[EXT64]

Unfortunately, you are most likely right, just thought it was worth trying.

 

[Dark Comet]

Ok thanks for your help. I'll report back in a day or two if I have anything to say. Strange that it works in safe mode though, thats what gave me hope it had not died.

 

[Dark Comet]

Ok heres an update:

I booted up in safe mode and uninstalled the video drivers. Rebooted my PC and still had the exclamation marks all over the screen but this time it did boot. Temps were at 47C, but as soon as another nvidia driver is installed and the computer is restarted I get the BSOD again.

 

[soundefx]

Try updating the chipset drivers and then try updating the video card drivers again.