Problem with my graphics card!

[sm0k3]

Now, this is a problem I've had forever, and gave up about a year ago when I realized nothing I did made anything better.

So, the deal is this: When I have no graphics card drivers installed at all, and go into Device Manager, it has my graphics cards names along with the "WDDM 1.1" next to it. But then, when I install drivers, the "WDDM 1.1 disappears, and only the name of the graphics card is displayed. Along with this change, I get much worse performance in video games and Aquamark (yes, I'm old fashioned). What's strange is that I get a better game performance and Aquamark performance when I have no drivers installed at all. (well, the standard windows graphics drivers are installed, you know the ones that automatically install on windows start up and then asks you yo reboot).

In case anyone thinks it's Aquamark is the problem, it's not. Because I've had high results on it with this very same setup a year ago or so.

Does anyone know what the problem might be? I really want to fix this problem, as I'm a poor student and cannot afford to upgrade!

 

[willard]

What video card do you have, and what version of the drivers are you installing? Also, what version of Windows are you using?

 

[sm0k3]

It's an old card. Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX 512mb DDR3. Windows is Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.

Noteworthy is that I have the Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H which has a built in Nvidia onboard graphics card. And it's enabled. When I disable it in the BIOS (from what I remember), it either gets worse, or makes no difference at all).

 

[willard]

Is there a beta version of Nvidia's drivers you can try? This just screams driver problem to me. There's also the off chance it's a hardware issue. If you've got a friend who has a card you can borrow to see if the problem crops up there too, then that would be helpful.

 

[sm0k3]

Oh yeah. Something I forgot to mention:

I did a complete reinstall of Windows, I even completely cleaned out my harddrive. And the problem was still there. I started by installing motherboard drivers, then graphics drivers last of all. Horrible performance.

Oh, and I even tried the drivers I had before when there was no problem. Heck, I've tried 3-4 different drivers, and they all give me a very bad result.

Without drivers installed, I have about 50% the performance I had when my computer was working like it should.

I guess my only choice is to put my graphics card in another computer, or borrowing someone else's graphics card in mine.

 

[sm0k3]

Oh, and thanks for your input willard! My comment was a reply to you.

If anyone has ANYTHING to input, please do. Anything is appreciated at this point

 

[willard]

I guess my only choice is to put my graphics card in another computer, or borrowing someone else's graphics card in mine.

That's a good place to start. Another possibility is overheating. If the card has built up a lot of dust, then it's going to be cooling inefficiently. If cards get too hot, they automatically throttle back to reduce the heat. Try monitoring your GPU temps while running a benchmark or game, and post the temps you got back here.

 

[sm0k3]

I did earlier today actually playing Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. I got about 70-72 degrees celcius.

 

[willard]

D'oh, needs to get about 30 degrees hotter to throttle. Well, all I can say is try to put the card in another machine, or put another card in this machine. That will at least tell you where the problem is.

 

[sm0k3]

Alright. Will do. Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it