8800GT 169.02/169.04 Black screen & monitor shutoff during gaming session

I also experience bsod/freezing when I play games with 8800gtx. I have never had this problem before, I think it started when I traded my 975x motherboard to 680i chipset. I have problem in every game, sometimes it take 5min to it stops and sometimes 5 hours, varies a lot. Today I was very lucky, I managed play COD4 8 hours straight without bsod/freeze, but at the end it froze
I don't know what to do, I have tried everything. Hope someone can find a solution for this.

 

This is interesting. How can you make sure that you've cleaned out all left over registry entries/files? I just assumed Driver Cleaner did that.

 

You can use a tool like Registry Mechanic or Registry Cleaner to remove old registry entries that have been left behind

Driver Cleaner and Driver Sweeper may miss some Nvidia registry entries or files left over in Windows directory. It may also be a conflict with other software running on the system though.

Another thing to try before you start reinstalling your OS or replacing hardware is to Shutdown then unplug your system from power. Next place a jumper on your CMOS reset pins then remove the jumper, boot your system, set your BIOS settings back the way you had them and hopefully no more BSOD. If you can't find your CMOS reset pins they may be under your graphics card so you may have to remove it to jumper them.


I have read that cleaning the contacts on your RAM and Graphics card with some alcohol may help and there are some updates/hotfixes at Microsoft for specific problems. I want to understand exactly what is causing this problem however.

I've run Memtest and RAM seems fine, so I am going to collect a few dump files and have a look with Windows Debugger and see if it sheds any light on the problem.

The only other thing I can think of is some hidden Rootkit doing the rounds, but I really doubt that so many people would be affected. It is more likely to be a driver conflict.

I'm sure there was a similar problem with Nvidia drivers conflicting with other software years ago that was easily fixed, but I can not remember the solution. It is a pity that there is not better support from Nvidia and Microsoft as some users have completely rebuilt their machines and reinstalled Windows only to find they still get BSOD.

It is about time that a better error message system was developed for Windows as I thought Vista was supposed to help prevent these kinds of problems with it's new driver model. Apparently not the nv4_disp.dll errors though.

 

I've managed to sort my issues completely now (post #83 regarding black screens and nvlddmkm.sys-related errors from Vista 64), so here is my feedback.

I was barking up the wrong tree assuming that nvlddmkm.sys was leading me to an issue with drivers and Vista. After trying all the recent GPU drivers under the sun, I had no luck and broke out the diagnostic tools.

Lo and behold, I had a CPU temperature issue! I was using the stock CPU fan that came with my Core 2 Duo, either it wasn't up to the job or perhaps it wasn't well fitted. It was idling at ~55C and upon running most games it would leap straight to 75C and the CPU protection was causing the stuttering and GPU driver resets. I replaced this cooler with a large heatsink/fan cooler: the CPU now idles at 35C and peaks at 55C under prolonged gaming. The stuttering is completely removed!

Hopefully this is of some use to other people having similar problems, in my case the error messages I was receiving were not leading me to the correct cause and I needed the diag tools to get to the bottom of it. Also I was quite quick to suspect a Vista 64 + nVidia 8800 driver issue due to a mixture of Vista's reputation and the large number of other posters with similar issues!

 

Alright after reading all the solutions posted by everyone, I've tried pretty must all of them including going back to a older version, using 174.xx with modified "iNF" file, changing the Ram memory clock speed from BIOS (my bios seems up to date). As you can see my system specification is pretty decent and there is no overheating problem, but I am still freezing in the middle of a game after an hour or sometimes even less but its not predictable. And I have to restart my computer since ctrl+alt+del doesn't work along with anything else (computer pretty much hangs). So I was just wondering what could be the solution for my computer? if anyone has any sorts of ideas/suggestion feel free to post it here, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

i just got my card refunded today (pov 8800GT 512) and bought a 8800GTS 512 BFG OC instead.. hopefully it will fix the problem.

will let you know when the card comes

 

Yeh, my screen goes black now too sometimes.
Sometimes I'm just doing something, the monitor will go black, and turn back on a few seconds later.

 

I managed to post a new thread about this issue (here) before realising there was already a huge discussion over it (go me, eh), but I'm just chiming in to say that I've been getting these black screens randomly as well (with an 8800GT).

To begin with, I can play intensive games (UT3 etc) for over an hour and the card will be fine, but then later on when I'm just browsing around Windows or listening to music the screen will go completely black apart from the mouse cursor, which can still be moved around.

At this point, I usually reboot the computer, and enter the BIOS. What I'd hoped was a driver problem might be a little deeper - just moving around the BIOS causes the screen to go black as well. There's still a signal to the monitor, it's just not displaying anything other than a blank screen, and only a reboot will make the display work again.

This time, if I go into Windows and try playing a game, the screen will usually go black as it finishes loading (UT3 displays a series of logo adverts for example). I've tried flashing my BIOS (P35 chipset) but it's not solved anything. At the moment I'm back using an old 8800GTS which works perfectly. Damn these new cards!

 

Hello all =)

I upgraded my pc this week with the following:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
Asus P5K
GeIL memory kit, 2x1GB DDR2-800
XFX GeForce 8800GT 512mb 'Alpha Dog Edition'

After I installed these parts I did a clean windows xp install and fully patched it. I also downloaded the lastest drivers from the nVidia website and updated DirectX 9.0c to the november release.

Shortly after I finished I started getting these annoying 'blank screens' sometimes my screen went blank for 2-5 seconds after which it returned to normal as if nothing happened. This happened at totally irregular timings, sometimes an hour would go by without it happening and sometimes it happened like 5 times a minute.

I tried alternative drivers, boosting my pci-e frequency to 105mhz and swapping the powercord that connects to the card. Nothing helped so far.

I went back to using my old Ati X1800XT card for now as I can't play with my screen going blank every so often =)

I don't have any problems with my ati card so I think I can rule out issues with my PSU, mobo and memory.

I will try installing Vista and Ubuntu later today to see if my issue is with xp alone, I pray that it is :x

Anyway, will keep you guys posted, if anyone has any other suggestions please let me know. =)

 

1. Faulty nVidia driver
2. Overclocked card

Probably a combination of both, but more of the first.

 

I've managed to have my 8800GT running without any blank screens or crashes for 3 days solid now (and I was going to RMA it as well...), it's either bad drivers or overheating memory it seems. Here's what I did:

1. Uninstalled the official 162.* whatever drivers (from the nVidia website) and ran Drivercleaner in safe mode to get rid of the remaining files.

2. Downloaded the 174.74 beta drivers from this thread: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=257650

3. Installed the beta drivers, restarted, then ran RivaTuner.

4. In RivaTuner, underclocked the memory from 900MHz (1800 effective) to 880MHz (1760 effective).

5. No more black screens or hangups!

It might not be the memory, it could just be the drivers, but as I've managed to get the card working fine, I'm not in any rush to reset the memory speed in case it starts blackscreening again!

Has anyone else given this a try? You never know, it might work.

 

Hello all,

I seem to have fixed my problem (random black screens that lasted for a few seconds) yesterday. What I did was reseat the card, uninstall the drivers from safe mode and remove the leftovers with driver sweeper. Then I rebooted and changed my memory timings to 5-5-5-15 (was set to 4-4-4-12 by default, using DDR2-800 memory). Then I installed the drivers I got from the card's manufacturers website, ForceWare 169.32.
My card seems to run smooth now

update: problem returned now :< I'll probably buy a new motherboard and psu at the end of the month as part of a planned upgrade, hopefully this will fix my problem.

 

Same problem here. The only game I managed to play perfectly with this 8800GT was Bioshock. Crysis used to freeze once in a few hours, though I was able to complete this game with a dozen of resets during the process. The Witcher freezes as soon as I start the dialogue with any NPC. And finally, the same monitor shut-off issue that I encountered only in race games. After 5-10 minutes of playing Project Torque or Test Drive Unlimited the monitor loses DVI signal and goes black. All I can do is to press reset. Now I'm waiting for the final release of 174.xx drivers, because I REALLY want to believe this is a driver issue. Along with the driver update I'll also install the latest DirectX, try downclocking (I have a non-reference Gigabyte card) and increasing fan speed with RivaTuner. If these measures don't help, heh, guess I'll have to give up gaming for a long while. :3eyes:

I switched my mobo from Asus P5B to P5KR, CPU from E6300 to E8200 and RAM from DDR2-667 Corsair ValueSelect to DDR2-800 OCZ, but nothing changed. The problem is in our "great" 8800GT's.

 

Yeah, the problem is definitely with the card itself. Have you tried what I suggested above, which is to download the 174.* beta drivers and underclock the card's memory slightly? The blank screen issue was driving me mad until I tried that, and it hasn't happened since. You shouldn't need to touch your RAM, mine's running fine at 4-4-4-12, as long as it's rated at those speeds it should work.

I do occasionally have an issue where there's a black screen booting up, and I have to reset to get to the POST screen, but it's horses for courses and I'd much rather have this more powerful card if that's all I have to put up with every now and then!

 

Ever since I:
A) Disabled speedstep
B) Set my ram timing to 4-4-4-12 (was on auto, which defaulted to something like 5-5-4-14 or something like that, first setting was deff 5)
C) Installed the latest NVidia beta drivers.

My card has been stable \o/

 

Temperature issue?

I've also had the same problem with BSOD / Black Screen / Signal Cut Off. Been "trying" to play Assasins Creed & Crysis so far, but both crashed after 5-15 minutes. Only cutting off the power and restarting the stupid pc was only way out of the crash :biggun:

However this thread helped a lot!

I've got a FoxConn GF 8800GT Standard OC on a MSI MB(P35) with Termaltake(750W). Using driver v.169.21. Should not be any problem with that.

I've played less excessive games and they work fine. Reducing the resolution also increased playtime(about 30 minutes). So I've figured my problem had to be the 8800GT and the memory on it and/or related to a temperature issue, from reading all the posts. Driver problem could be, but this is far from the part that cuts signal output, so my bet is on memory/temperature.

Before playing, at first, the GPU temperature is 65C, this should't be a problem as far as I've understood but this doesn't actually tell anything about the memory.

First off I've used nTune to increase fan speed to 100%. This has given me a lot more time on the gameplaying, about an hour before crashing. GPU before starting the game is now 52C and right after the last crash I could see 71C. So could be in relation to temperature, but 71C isn't much. But the last time playing, the game only crashed and I was back to XP GUI. So now theres no cut off in the signal.

My next step now is using nTune to downclock memory. If this is working I'll return to this post! And return my GeForce card to the store! :bang:

Everyone that got the signal cut off failure should try downclocking just to be sure! If this works, return your card! This is not right, you know!

Thanks for all the input!

Next step is testet regarding downclocking and theres still problem with game crashing. However no more black screen and completely system crash, its just back to windows. Lucky me, I now get about 1 hour playtime! :bang: This seems more like a driver issue, so I might try to return this card, based on my first issue with blackscreen because of the temp.

 

I was having the exact same problem for a while and even read this thread before. I was using a 7900gt and was getting this problem, so I decided it was time for an upgrade anyway and got a 8800gt. I had the black screen again (playing gears of war, world in conflict, guild wars). A few days later I kept getting the BSOD and Vista kept failing as well.

I ended up finding out that my processor was overheating and was pretty much done for. I have bought a whole new setup (see info) using the same graphics card and havent had a single problem since.

My best advice would to be to benchtest everything on your computer. It is probably something else screwing up. At least thats what was happening to me. Good Luck!

 

It's not a overclocked card (as far as I am concerned), and as for the drivers I tried using official 169.xx version, as well as modified ones; ALSO the 174.12 versions with the modified inf files it still didn't fix the problem. Keep in mind I can see the game screen and my monitor doesn't go blank or Black just hangs the whole computer and I can't use alt-tab or anything like that. So could this be my memory by any chance? or even the PSU (which is less likely because my system's temperature seems perfectly fine considering I have a pretty good cooling system overall) because when I looked up in the BIOS event log it says my memory was reduced from 4 gig to 2 gig, thats about it. Finally my computer runs absolutely perfect when I am not in-game as in it never hangs or anything when I am not in the game.

 

I'm going to do that in complex with the driver update. I'm just holding myself until the final non-beta 174.* release, just to be surely sure.

I think most of us already did this. As for me, I even changed the whole computer platform and now I can definitely say my problem is 100% videocard and/or videodrivers-related.

 

I had a chat with one of the support guys from XFX and he said they've had a lot of problems with P5 motherboards, and boards with the P35 in general. I will be buying a new motherboard with nVidia 780i chipset tomorrow to check if that's any help.