Graphics Driver advice for a GTX 260

[caaront]

To clear up any confusion, my CPU is what I'm referring to being over clocked in this post, my GPU is at stock speeds as far as this thread is concerned.


First my specs:

I7-920 CPU @ 4.0GHz
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Mobo
6GB OCZ DDR3 RAM @ 8,8,8,24
XFX GTX 260 GPU
OCZ 700w PSU
1TB HD
Vista Home Premium 64 bit

That covers the main parts.

My problem:

I used to have an NVIDIA 195.something driver for my GPU and was OC'd to 4.2 with the highest load temp reached in testing being about 68C, and I was able to keep my fan on the XFX GTX 260 (from here on I'll just call it the "GPU) on 50% with the OC and it stayed down to about 50C or so.

I am a big fan of FSX, it's about the only game I play, and even with the OC and tweaks I was getting stutters.

A friend told me to download the NVIDIA driver 182.50 for Vista 64 bit, it did fine with no OC but it screwed me on my OC's couldn't get stable, the temps were way too high.

So I removed it and all remnants with Guru 3D and downloaded the NVIDIA 197.45 driver, I am at 4.2GHz stable but I am having to run my GPU fan at 60% at idle to keep it down to 55C.

I need to find a driver that lets me run my GPU at cooler temps like I was getting.

Has anyone tried the new NVIDIA 257.15 BETA driver?

Does running a GPU fan at 60% all the time and raising it to 70% while gaming rough on the GPU fan/card?

And is between 50-60C too hot for a GPU to be at all the time?

I know that the XFX GTX 260's run a little hot.

Another thing that worries me though is that I went back to Optimized Defauklt for a little while, it is @ 2.80.

The default fan setting for the GPU is 40% and when back at 2.80GHz I went ahead and ran the fan at 50% just to keep it really cool, when I first built this rig I didn't monitor my GPU tems so I don't know how it ran temp wise when new or for the first 6 months.

It is a year old now.

I may need to blow the case out again, I did about a month ago, so it doesn't look very dusty at all.

Thanks for any advice/help/recommendations.

Aaron

 

[caaront]

I'm sorry, my CPU is at $.0 GHz, I'll edit the OP, Thanks.

In 30 minutes of hard play in FSX with my best scenery I only reached 64C, I guess thats not too bad.

I wish I could have it be cooler at idle, but I did some reading and I don't guess 55C is all that bad.

The card is good for 100C I think, so if I can keep it under 70C I think it will be fine.

 

[wa1]

Yes, 70'C under heavy load is cool, just make sure it doesn't exceed 95'C.
Your temps are good.

 

[caaront]

Thanks.

 

[number13]

some thing that mat help your apps and gaming a little, try this, Start, Accessories, Run(right click, run as admin), fsutil behavior query memoryusage, should return a =0, type fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2, reboot the computer let us know if it helps

 

[caaront]

some thing that mat help your apps and gaming a little, try this, Start, Accessories, Run(right click, run as admin), fsutil behavior query memoryusage, should return a =0, type fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2, reboot the computer let us know if it helps

I did it but when I'd type it in and hit enter it would close and it looked like the Command Prompt box would flash above it and disappear.

So I don't know what happened or if I missed something.

 

[number13]

It won't run on your machine? even if you typed this missing a letter or space or whatever you'd get a display box with all the fsutil commands, what happens if you open the command prompt and type help?

 

[caaront]

Let me try that.

I have 6GB of DDR3 RAM.

A window flashes and disappears.

 

[number13]

OOPS, you have a problem, restart the machine and hold the F8 key down, see if you can start in Safe Mode, if you can try this, open an command prompt (All Programs, Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator" ), in the cmd prompt type sfc /scannow see what happens

 

[caaront]

I ran the scan in safe mode and it found no violations or problems.

 

[caaront]

When I type help in command prompt it gives me ASSOC through WMIC

 

[caaront]

I can open my video folder in run by typing videos, I don't know what happened, maybe I can search for the fsutil, is it a file?

 

[caaront]

I was able to do it in command prompt.

When I entered in like you said but in cmd some text saying it could be set 1 or 2 and a reboot was needed to make the change.

Thank you.

Edited to add:

With it set to two I had no instruments in the planes, so I set it back to one and it is fine.

I have darn good performance so I am happy with what I have until I get a GTX 480 someday, LOL.

 

[number13]

fsutil is a File System Utility, basically it changes the page file swap size, 2 being the largest and 0 being default(whatever that is, because it's not "0" when it's default)so all is well then, good glad to hear it