GTX 280 problems, regular crashing, nvlddmkm errors - even loss of power!

I did post earlier that underclocking my Card solved the issue

Its running 5C cooler after underclocking it from 670MHz to 620MHz, so far has been perfectly stable. I'm still being told by my brother to RMA it back though.

 

At least a 750 watt psu from thermaltake is awsome! I got one as well and no problems had some artifacts with the old drivers before but not with the 180.48 drivers now. And you might wanna try reinstalling the drivers sometimes that does help.

 

I know if you call the manufacturer they will tell you two things, I know this because ive spoken to them not too long ago about my 260. Firstly, they will say run the 280 at its original OC intended speed & secondly either offer more case cooling which is what I did as well as a better PS and/or RMA it back. I removed my side case panel and run a small box fan and everything on my sys. is running 15 degrees cooler from the CPU to the M/B to the 260. I also had overheating probs with my case closed up even with a side intake fan sucking in cool air. Just wasn't quite enough cool air for factory OC, however when I under clocked mine as you did my sys. was also stable with the case closed. At this point the 260 I have runs flawlessly on OC long as the side is open so ...........thats the rout im sticking with. An RMA on a factory OC video card is iffy the next one might be even touchier. Its a gamble at best. My advice is run the 280 with the side case open and a small fan blowing on it and if it runs fine then add a cooling fan to the side case and another couple in the front and rear of the case if you prefer it totally inclosed. These babys do run hot...............

 

i had the same card that one was defect, the sended me a new one probem solved

 

An interesting crashing problem that seems to be encountered by many people.

My Gigabyte - not overclocked at all - is doing the same, but almost only in one game (rFactor). Which I put down to the gfx power demands/load on the card being higher in that for some reason. (than other things I run, seeing they are pretty much ok)

I have RivaTuner running the card at 100% fan for all games and it runs from 55deg to 65deg absolute max. But the card itself is very very hot!
I also have a 120cm fan blowing right over the card, and no side cover on the PC case, so the ambient air temp is fine and the 280GTX is the only thing hot in the whole PC. eg CPU heatsink cool as a cucumber.

It feels excessively hot to me. Certainly not good for anything electronic to run that hot! Yet the temp report (from RV or Speedfan etc) show the GPU at the 65deg or less. The card (black housing around it ) feels like it is at 60deg!

A brand new install, on another hard drive, of WinXP with only drivers and the game still does the same. So it is a hardware issue.

And another big clue, which points it to being the 280GTX - and probably its heat.... The exact same PC and full OS (not new clean install), with 2x4850 in crossfire put into it, then runs totally fine ongoing!

 

Well interestingly enough I was having all the same issues. I had to downclock my processor to 3.4 and my card to 620 from 648 to run COD W at W at all. This was with the latest WHQL 180.48 on Vista 64. I tried earlier versions of the drivers with no luck. So I decided WTF, I'l try the 180.70. Well to my surprise, I fired the game up and it worked perfectly. I bumped my processor back up to 3.6 and still perfect. I OC'd the 280 up to 702/2448 and still solid as a rock. I was getting BSOD's and constant lockups with the earlier driver. So give the 180.70's a shot

 

My crashing situation is reliably reproduceable, so I will give the 180.70's a try and see what that does.

I would much rather it be a driver bug than a card issue - of either poor design (overheating) or seemingly very poor quality control seeing it happens to so many people.
It can be a few reasons, but I do suspect the driver because I had pretty much the same issue (driver crashing) with an 8800GTS, which drove me to Ati before coming back to nVidia for more of this trouble! sigh.

Out of interest, the 280GTX runs from 125% to 150% faster than crossfire 4850's. For about that exact linear cost more too though. The 4850's run quite hot (I run fans at 100% for games, 60% for 2D), but it doesn't bother anything if you have good case cooling and they at least never miss a beat.

 

I've got an Antec 900 case and with my card OC'd @702/1248 it doesn't get over 80c using ATI tool and typically in games like HL2 and Far Cry it doesn't exceed 75c @1920x1080 at ultra high settings with the fan control left on auto. NewEgg had the case for 58 dollars the other day.