New gigabyte gtx 670 - dead?

[angrydolphin]

just slotted in a brand-new gtx 670 after clearing away the old drivers.

on first boot, seemed fine. then the mouse started to 'lock up' making a dragbox, 'lagging' every few seconds. then the comp freezes and display drivers fail.

restarted, this time it froze at the windows 'loading' animated logo thing.

booted into safe mode, everything is perfectly fine.

figured it was the latest nvidia drivers, tried reverting to a previous version off gigabyte's website..

..normal boot, computer frozen again after i made a drag box with the mouse. screen went blank, notification that the nividia drivers stopped responding and 'recovered'.

restarted, made some drag boxes, was fine. started furmark, went for a few seconds, froze, went blank and then 'recovered' again.

i fear my card may be 'dead'- should i try and RMA this asap?

specs in case it helps:

ASRock Z77 extreme4 (bios/mobo updated to latest)
i5-3550k (temps are fine)
8gb ram
gigabyte gtx 670
corsair gs800
windows 7 64-bit

 

[mauller07]

Try installing just the display driver without the nvidia tray tool etc, do a driver clean first before reinstalling.

 

[angrydolphin]

Try installing just the display driver without the nvidia tray tool etc, do a driver clean first before reinstalling.

thanks for replying.

just gave it a go - same thing happens. tried with both the new and previous drivers.

swapped out ram, figured that was bad..nope, nothing.

anything 3d makes the drivers fail. can't even get past the '3d' windows loading thing because of this.

so is the card dead?

 

[monsta]

Try another Slot in your mobo and see if it still does it.

 

[angrydolphin]

nope, didn't do anything.

ruled out every other component but the graphics card - onboard vga works fine, runs anything 3d. so that just leaves the gtx 670.

any other advice etc. guys? i'm so stressed out over this..!

 

[monsta]

Hit up the gigabyte website and see if there is a bios update for the card.

 

[angrydolphin]

thanks for the suggestion but there's nothing helpful on there. tried their hosted (older) drivers too and same results......

the comp only has problems when the card is introduced, hence it's gotta be the 670 right?!

 

[monsta]

Yeah its gotta be the card , your psu is awesome so the best thing to do is to try it in another pc , can you hit up a friend to see if you can test it in their pc?

That way you can send it back if its faulty and know its definately the card.

 

[angrydolphin]

decided to try one last time....did another clean install of the latest drivers, suddenly it works.

i can actually run furmark and some games without instantly failing now?

all i did differently was remove these weird caps on the sli connector thingys and swap the monitor connection from dvi to hdmi, so i'm still paranoid it's a bad card..

 

[monsta]

Hmmm could of just been a driver issue, maybe there was fragments left behind from the old drivers?
I'm glad its working now , try DVI again just to check?

 

[Sonny73N]

Download & install DriverSweeper
Uninstall all NV features but the driver
Boot in safe mode & uninstall NV driver
Don't restart just yet
Open DriverSweeper
Check any box related to the driver & click clean
Restart & custom install the driver (only the driver) from NV web site

If it still won't work, try clean install your Windows because Windows Update may have updated your graphic with their own version which may cause conflict. Remember to install your graphic driver before Windows Update if you decide to do a clean install.

If it still won't work (shoot me!), time to RMA.

 

[monsta]

I agree those damn Windows updates do cause problems when they overide your latest driver with their version.

I manually go through my Nvidia folders and remove all the old driver folders.

 

[angrydolphin]

Download & install DriverSweeper
Uninstall all NV features but the driver
Boot in safe mode & uninstall NV driver
Don't restart just yet
Open DriverSweeper
Check any box related to the driver & click clean
Restart & custom install the driver (only the driver) from NV web site

If it still won't work, try clean install your Windows because Windows Update may have updated your graphic with their own version which may cause conflict. Remember to install your graphic driver before Windows Update if you decide to do a clean install.

If it still won't work (shoot me!), time to RMA.

thanks for this, but i actually did those steps every time i was uninstalling etc..

furmark scores came back and it was a terrible 650, on par with a gtx 260 so something is obviously very wrong........

edit: not sure why , restarted and it was back to crashing and freezing. #%@^

 

[angrydolphin]

took it to the store for an exchange.

they tested it on a similar spec'd system with a fresh install of 64bit windows 7, and....it worked fine. passed benchmark tests without a problem.

so i did the same and everything goes fine until i install the nvidia drivers. then the system freezes at the stupid 3d window squares on the loading screen, which i can get by if i'm lucky with a restart.

getting some of the symptoms from this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/307905-33-nvidia-driver-stops-responding

only in my case i can't even launch anything 3d......

 

[cooldudesubho]

i think you should format your OS.If your card works in there PC then your PC is the culprit.Did you see with your own eyes when they were benchmarking your card?

 

[angrydolphin]

i think you should format your OS.If your card works in there PC then your PC is the culprit.Did you see with your own eyes when they were benchmarking your card?

thanks for replying! i'm dying here..

i did, we all sat there and watched it go through just fine.

reluctantly did a full clean wipe just now, only installed factory disc nvidia drivers and...

..i open up nvidia control panel, it freezes, then the screen goes blank, then the monitor power is glowing orange meaning the input's gone somehow? then the screen comes back with a 'nvidia drivers stopped responding and recovered' error thing. tried to do 'adjust image settings preview', comp freezes every few seconds trying to render. very buggy.

thanks for all the help so far guys..if it's not the card, i'm starting to wonder if it's the motherboard or cpu (both brand new also)..worst part is it's very hard to prove to the store guys unless i take the whole rig i guess.

 

[cooldudesubho]

Format your pc.Since your pc is fine without the gpu then cpu is fine.Maybe pci express slot is buggy.If clean format still causes the issue then take pc to shop and let them check anothe gpu in ur pc.

 

[angrydolphin]

yeah, i did do a format in my post above. everything works fine, onboard vga can run lowest setting games with terrible lag..no 3d rendering problems..

i have another graphics card that i was using before, HD 5850, but that one would do GSODs and have vertical line bugs so i determined it dead, hence why i got this gtx 670.

also just got a completely bright red screen of death, that's new. restarted, booted normally..what?!..

 

[cooldudesubho]

Hmm really strange.You can rule out software bugs then.Take your pc to the shop and ask them to test it other gpu.

 

[einterlan]

Warranty!

 

[angrydolphin]

i tried. like i said earlier, i took it back to the shop and the card was apparently fine. benchmarked even.

everything else seems to function fine minus the GPU. even ran Memtest on the RAM, no errors. tried the 'one stick only' approach, no difference.

still wondering if software bugs can entirely be ruled out, so far the signs point to a hardware problem but how and where......?

 

[cooldudesubho]

is that a asrock mobo?

 

[angrydolphin]

is that a asrock mobo?

it is, yeah.

i'll get charged just for them to look at the pc, and i'd have to take a cab so i'd rather not..all this has cost me quite a lot already.

maybe i'll just take the motherboard and cpu? not really seeing other options now..

 

[monsta]

Have you updated your mobo drivers?

 

[angrydolphin]

yep. tried with and without, even cleared mobo + format but as soon as i install any sort of nvidia/amd driver the whole 'freeze/temporary monitor shutdown/driver failed but recovered' thing happens, or the system just hangs outright and needs a reformat because it won't boot back into windows.

quick update: ran memtest again, no errors.

did eight runs of IntelBurn Test at MAXIMUM, went perfect. all timings within 130.xxx, speeds 42.7xxx-42.9xxx, results exactly the same.

so if it's not cpu, ram, or the card, then it must be the motherboard somehow..?..