GTX 260 problem?

[jwenham]

I have a EVGA GTX 260 OC Edition 216 core. I have been having artifacting problems since installing it 2 weeks ago on my new build. I am running the latest driver which has seem to help a little with the reoccurance of the problem, but I still have it. I have read where people need to sometimes down clock the card to fix the problem so I did that. I down clocked it to the stock non OC 260 speeds and the problem goes away. I am sure it is not heat related as if I change it back to the OC from the factory the problem starts to show again. What I am seeing are vertical spikes on my screen followed by poor performance and eventually lock up (infinite loop error). So my question is , is it a hit or miss when buying a OC card? I have contacted EVGA and am awaiting to hear back to see what they say but I wanted to see what experience you all have had with OC cards.

Jim

[waspiflab]

which motherboard?

[Mazza]

which motherboard?

Are you blind

[Wingo]

You seem to have some similar issues to this thread: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 1229340542

Give it a read, it may be helpful.

[NickN]

I have a EVGA GTX 260 OC Edition 216 core. I have been having artifacting problems since installing it 2 weeks ago on my new build. I am running the latest driver which has seem to help a little with the reoccurance of the problem, but I still have it. I have read where people need to sometimes down clock the card to fix the problem so I did that. I down clocked it to the stock non OC 260 speeds and the problem goes away. I am sure it is not heat related as if I change it back to the OC from the factory the problem starts to show again. What I am seeing are vertical spikes on my screen followed by poor performance and eventually lock up (infinite loop error). So my question is , is it a hit or miss when buying a OC card? I have contacted EVGA and am awaiting to hear back to see what they say but I wanted to see what experience you all have had with OC cards.

Jim

one of two possibilities if you have exhausted driver changes and settings checks

1. If its a 32bit OS you may be seeing the edge of stability due to OOM in address space with the OS. Assuming the correct edit has been applied to the system for the switch and cache, decreasing the USERVA amount can allow more breathing room for the OS and video card to live in the 32bit environment. The typcial amount reserved is 2560 however reducing that amount by 128 may fix the issue

2. Defective card

[dvpro]

I too get the verticle spikes but the system pulls through....not locking up unless there is heavy fog or cloud cover (CN).

I am ditching the card, if it happends with the next one than it's just a setting issue. Messing with AA in Nhancer did affect artifacts on my rig. GL

[jwenham]

I have a EVGA GTX 260 OC Edition 216 core. I have been having artifacting problems since installing it 2 weeks ago on my new build. I am running the latest driver which has seem to help a little with the reoccurance of the problem, but I still have it. I have read where people need to sometimes down clock the card to fix the problem so I did that. I down clocked it to the stock non OC 260 speeds and the problem goes away. I am sure it is not heat related as if I change it back to the OC from the factory the problem starts to show again. What I am seeing are vertical spikes on my screen followed by poor performance and eventually lock up (infinite loop error). So my question is , is it a hit or miss when buying a OC card? I have contacted EVGA and am awaiting to hear back to see what they say but I wanted to see what experience you all have had with OC cards.

Jim

one of two possibilities if you have exhausted driver changes and settings checks

1. If its a 32bit OS you may be seeing the edge of stability due to OOM in address space with the OS. Assuming the correct edit has been applied to the system for the switch and cache, decreasing the USERVA amount can allow more breathing room for the OS and video card to live in the 32bit environment. The typcial amount reserved is 2560 however reducing that amount by 128 may fix the issue

2. Defective card

OK, removed driver via drive sweeper decided to load the driver that came with the card 177.42 (which doesnt even show on NVIDIAs web site) did the KSEA test flight with no issues using the factory OC. I will fly like this for a day or so and see how it goes. The panning using Track IR is MUCH better than with the newer driver as well. If it stays good I will go up a level in the drivers as this one I am now using is dated July 2008 which is anchient in GPU driver age these days.

[jwenham]

Another thing I just noticed is that when installing the driver from the CD that came with the card it did not load the Physics crap with it. Is there a way to choose to not load that with the newer drivers or shoul it just be uninstalled?

[GabethePilot]

I have a EVGA GTX 260 OC Edition 216 core. I have been having artifacting problems since installing it 2 weeks ago on my new build. I am running the latest driver which has seem to help a little with the reoccurance of the problem, but I still have it. I have read where people need to sometimes down clock the card to fix the problem so I did that. I down clocked it to the stock non OC 260 speeds and the problem goes away. I am sure it is not heat related as if I change it back to the OC from the factory the problem starts to show again. What I am seeing are vertical spikes on my screen followed by poor performance and eventually lock up (infinite loop error). So my question is , is it a hit or miss when buying a OC card? I have contacted EVGA and am awaiting to hear back to see what they say but I wanted to see what experience you all have had with OC cards.

Jim

one of two possibilities if you have exhausted driver changes and settings checks

1. If its a 32bit OS you may be seeing the edge of stability due to OOM in address space with the OS. Assuming the correct edit has been applied to the system for the switch and cache, decreasing the USERVA amount can allow more breathing room for the OS and video card to live in the 32bit environment. The typcial amount reserved is 2560 however reducing that amount by 128 may fix the issue

2. Defective card

Third.....remember my problems (!).......GTX 260 + 3GB Switch on XP 32 = not happy ! It preferred the 177.92 drivers but basically my system was not happy running FSX with the 3GB switch...get rid of the 4GB and use good 'ol 2GB with no stoopid switch.

I've had zero problems since reverting to standard practice...and even the 180x drivers work fine. Take my advice or not.....but I know what caused my GTX 260 problems...and this was how I solved them.

[NickN]

I have a EVGA GTX 260 OC Edition 216 core. I have been having artifacting problems since installing it 2 weeks ago on my new build. I am running the latest driver which has seem to help a little with the reoccurance of the problem, but I still have it. I have read where people need to sometimes down clock the card to fix the problem so I did that. I down clocked it to the stock non OC 260 speeds and the problem goes away. I am sure it is not heat related as if I change it back to the OC from the factory the problem starts to show again. What I am seeing are vertical spikes on my screen followed by poor performance and eventually lock up (infinite loop error). So my question is , is it a hit or miss when buying a OC card? I have contacted EVGA and am awaiting to hear back to see what they say but I wanted to see what experience you all have had with OC cards.

Jim

one of two possibilities if you have exhausted driver changes and settings checks

1. If its a 32bit OS you may be seeing the edge of stability due to OOM in address space with the OS. Assuming the correct edit has been applied to the system for the switch and cache, decreasing the USERVA amount can allow more breathing room for the OS and video card to live in the 32bit environment. The typcial amount reserved is 2560 however reducing that amount by 128 may fix the issue

2. Defective card

Third.....remember my problems (!).......GTX 260 + 3GB Switch on XP 32 = not happy ! It preferred the 177.92 drivers but basically my system was not happy running FSX with the 3GB switch...get rid of the 4GB and use good 'ol 2GB with no stoopid switch.

I've had zero problems since reverting to standard practice...and even the 180x drivers work fine. Take my advice or not.....but I know what caused my GTX 260 problems...and this was how I solved them.

That is not an option here

He is running i7 and the required 6GB so the only alternative past what I posted is to install a 64bit OS which FSX is actually better designed to run under anyway

your situation was rare and more than likely one that leads back to the motherboard/BIOS and memory in use

[jwenham]

Update.  After seeing that loading the older driver worked I decided to lower the 3gb switch down 128 and then reloaded the latest drivers which I could not run for more than 5 min without a issue and everything worked fine! Now being the kind of person that I am with a need to know exactly what the cause of the problem is I will set the switch back and see if I can duplicate the problem. If I cant and it works I will assume the driver did not load properly the first time and simply removing it and reinstalling it was the solution. I will post back my results.

Thanks Guys!

[jwenham]

I think we are getting somewhere. I got the problem to come back again. It reared its ugly head when I switched from the 172 to the Level D 767. Here is a pic



It seems to be growing from the Autogen. At the time I had autogen set to max which even at KSEA in the defaults can stay at 3o locked. If I tax the system by adding fuel to the fire ie Level D 767 the problem really shows fast. If I turn AG down to Dense it stays away even in the level d. Is the VC mem being maxed when this happens or is something else causing it? My tast mgr shows I have 1.2 - 1.5 gb ram available still so I dont think it is sysyem mem but VC mem being my hold back. BYW I also have scenery set at max but the autogen is what does it. I know... turn it down a little, I am at the cusp of being able to run this at max and before my CPU was the issue and now that I have a CPU that can eat FSX for lunch my GPU needs bigger ones. Nick can anything else be done to help this with what I have or is it as simple as turning down the volume some.

[jwenham]

Just went back and read your info on setting and tunning the switch. I am in the process of doing that now. Some of this stuff makes more sense when you actually have to do it.

[jwenham]

Nick, you can log one more problem solved in your book! Went back to the latest greatest drivers, notched down the userva from 2560 to 2496 and I can now fly from KSEA with Max Scenery and Very Dense Autogen in my LevelD 767 with no spikes! I tried hard to make it come back but it stayed away. The thing that would make it happen for sure was to look at the plane in spot view and rotate around as fast as I can and that would make it happen very fast. When flying around it usually would happen with in 5 to 10 min of flight. Every thing is even smoother than ever, very happy!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!

[NickN]

Nick, you can log one more problem solved in your book! Went back to the latest greatest drivers, notched down the userva from 2560 to 2496 and I can now fly from KSEA with Max Scenery and Very Dense Autogen in my LevelD 767 with no spikes! I tried hard to make it come back but it stayed away. The thing that would make it happen for sure was to look at the plane in spot view and rotate around as fast as I can and that would make it happen very fast. When flying around it usually would happen with in 5 to 10 min of flight. Every thing is even smoother than ever, very happy!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!

Your solution would be to move to a 64bit OS but that will hold you for now

You are definitely seeing the result of OOM issue on a 32bit OS with the PCie memory of that card

You may even be able to use bufferpools now too but I would not push it too much


My tuning list at simforums covers the USERVA edit and dropping the value for memory problems in a 32bit OS.. however I did not specify those memory errors can also show in the form of visual graphic errors without the OOM message