GTS 450 - Screen freezes up

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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10,510
Hi,

I have been having problems with getting my Nvidia GTS 450 graphics card functioning properly.

Here are my specs: (If you need more, do ask)

PC Model: HP Minitower DC7800
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz Q6600
RAM: 2GB DDR2
PSU: Alpine 700W - swapped out old PSU because it did not meet the wattage requirement for the new gfx card.
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Graphics card: nVidia GTS 450 by eVGA

When the card arrived I tried to fit it and realised it would not fit in because there was components in the way.
I then purchaced a flexible PCI-e riser from xcase and then the card fit. I connected the card to my monitor (IBM) with a
VGA to DVI adapter. I then booted up and proceeded to install the drivers from the CD that came with my graphics card. I

rebooted and with the drivers I noticed that the screen was less sharp than it should have been and running anything GPU-

intensive for more than 20 seconds causes a "driver stopped responding then recovered successfully" error, so I decided to

grab the "latest" driver from the eVGA website as illustrated by the instruction manual. The 296.10 driver installed

successfully after I fixed another problem where the card displayed nothing (not connected properly). I believe the image was

sharper than the drivers that came on the CD.

I also had another problem that I believe was solved by disabling an audio driver - any game would lockup the PC after ten

seconds of playing it.

The problem is, I realised that when running a game, Minecraft, for more than five minutes, the screen would lock up like the

GPU was sending a static image. It appears that behind the screen everything was still functioning normally, because pressing

the power button once would make the computer switch off after a moment, as it should. It is not just on Minecraft, but it

would freeze after a few minutes of watching videos on YouTube too, and sometimes when browsing the internet and sometimes on

the Windows loading screen.

I have researched the problem and discovered that one of the reasons for this happening could be insufficient power being

delivered to the gfx card or insufficient RAM. I do not think power is a problem as I have a 700W, known-to-be-reliable power

supply and the graphics card I believe only requires 400W at peak. I also do not think that RAM is a problem because when

running FurMark, a GPU-stressing benchmarker, it still freezes up - why would a simple floating circle require that much RAM

as to freeze the screen?

I am new to all this so please bear with me and do not refrain from asking more questions.

Thanks, Jishaxe.
 

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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10,510
UPDATE: I also almost tried again with the beta 301 drivers but it actually froze up during installation - leading me to believe that it is not a graphics card driver problem.
 

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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UPDATE 2:
Sorry for repeatedly bumping, I can't seem to edit my post.
I don't think that it can be a temperature problem because the highest I have seen the GPU get up to is 40 C, and I've left the case open sometimes while testing, with the windows open, leaving the room cool.

I've also noticed that sometimes when switching on the computer I would get no output and the fans for the GPU would start running at 100%, which is very noisy. I would then reboot and it would be fine.

Another strange occurence I have found (writing these as I go along) is that sometimes the screen will show the BIOS, and then start booting into Windows, and then show be a blank screen. According to the manual this is caused by the onboard video card trying to work with the graphics card - but I have disabled the onboard device through Windows. After I rebooted a couple of types it started working again. What is going on?

IMPORTANT - I have just discovered that the computer does not freeze up just while playing games - it freezes on the desktop, too. I have recorded how long it took to freeze a couple of times from the time that it took to show the desktop and to the time it it freezes up, with task manager opened but the cursor untouched. The time it took three minutes and 26 seconds to freeze, and the second eleven minutes and 44 seconds to freeze. There was nothing obvious changed in between.

Also, the power button doesn't always switch off the computer leaving me with the suspicion that the OS does indeed hang and stop responding when the display is frozen.

I really do not know what is going on here - I just want my graphics card to work! Thanks in advance.

PS. I also read that it might be insufficient amperage going to the card, and that it required at least 30A for +12v, but the PSU delivers 38A for +12v, so that shouldn't be a problem?
 
I looked at hp web page for your pc.
http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01155679/c01155679.pdf
check that the pci irq for the system are set to auto. you could be having an irq issue.
there also a setting in the bios to turn of the on board video card and also a setting of which vga video card you want to use.
check to see if you have that setting and if you do set it to the nvidia card. if the desktop is still hanging try going to intel web page and run there chipset updater. the one on hp web page is from 2009. if it not the chipset hanging but an irq issue. try to free one up. (Turn the printer port or the two comm ports off or all three if you dont use them). if it still freezes see if a friend has a ant card to see if it issue with the mb chipsets. over the years there have been issues with both ati and nvidia and a handfull of mb controler chipset not working together.
 

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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10,510


smorizio,
thanks for your fast reply!
I took a look at the BIOS and discovered there is no choice on which bus to display video from or to disable the onboard graphics, and there is also no choice to set the IRQ for nVidia VGA controller to Auto, only Disable, IRQ 5, 10 and 11. It is IRQ 5 at default which according to the document you linked me to, is "free for PCI". But the ethernet controller and a couple of USB controllers are assigned to IRQ 5, is that okay? Should I reassign them or the card to something else?

I believe my chipset has already been updated, I did so a while back, but I will check again.
Thanks again, Jishaxe.
 

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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10,510
Rushed post here:
The problem appears to be fixed, it was something extremely simple, and I'm not even sure how it fixed it. I disabled all the audio drivers for my computer and it no longer freezes.

Now I need to find away to get audio back with nvidia's audio drivers :)

thanks for your help,
Jishaxe
 

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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10,510
I think I may need to disregard my previous post. My computer froze again today - if anyone still has any potential solutions please post them.
 

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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BUMP.
This is frustrating me. The freezes are still occurring, randomly it seems. It's frozen up during the POST screen and while entering the BIOS. It freezes when Windows is loading. It freezes after half an hour of using the computer. I am at mercy of this.
I am also encountering other problems where sometimes the video card would simply not load and nothing would get displayed on screen and I get timeout errors sometimes, and also I get six beeps followed by a two second pause - according to my PC manual it means the card is seated properly - rebooting stops this problem, and I have looked how it is seated on the riser, it seems fine. I am starting to think that maybe the riser is defective.

I have given the VGA controller an IRQ of its own, IRQ 5, nothing else uses it. I have disabled all audio, the printer port and the one COM I have.

Everything is just so dodgy and switching on the computer is a gamble. What could the problem be? A defective graphics card or riser? Or maybe an incompatibility? I really do not have the money to replace anything so if anyone knows what is going on, PLEASE post it! I really need help!
Thank you.
 

Jishaxe

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Apr 28, 2012
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smorizio, I do not have an ATI card at my disposal, sadly.

I bought and installed a new PSU, 520w, a good, certified one from Antec. Upon installation the freezing stopped! And it worked great. But today the same freezing has started again. I'm thinking it might be a faulty card.