Nvidia 6800 chipset

[Death-knell]

Just bought and installed this card yesterday. I've tried various drivers and still suffer the same issue. While walking/running/flying the game will just stop. I thought it was lag, but its not. All input performed while screen is frozen is not taken or even acknowledged by the server.

Anyone else have this problem?
Anyone find a remedy?
If you have a 6800 and are not having any problems, what drivers are you using?

[Radzy]

I have seen this problem occur and there are a few things that were the cause. Below is a listing that may help you resolve your issue.

1) Overheating of the video card causes video card to lock up - Horizons is very intensive on video cards, many of the latest video cards in do not have sufficient cooling, so purchasing other fans to direct the air off of the video card and away from the processor will usually resolve the issue.

2)Drivers for AGP slot not up to date - Some motherboards require the correct AGP driver, if you have an 8x AGP slot and the drivers have been installed correctly, if you look in the NVidia drivers setting, (Start > Control Panel > Display > Advanced > GEForce FX tab ), you will see under the logo "Adapter information" "Bus:" and "Memory:" .. In the row where it says "Bus:" it should read your video card AGP settings correctly. For example if your bus for your AGP slot is an 8x AGP Slot but in this display it only shows as being 4x or PCI, then you may need to update your AGP driver.

3) Ensure you have the latest video drivers from NVidia's website.

4)Reinstall DirectX - Usually when you install a new video card it is recommended to update and reinstall your DirectX. There may be additional driversthat need to be loaded for DirectX to function properly.

I hope this has helped you. If you have any other problems, please feel free to PM me.

[Death-knell]

Thanks Radzy
I hope its not heat, I have a thermaltake tower with a large intake fan on the front and an exhaust fan on both sides and the rear of the tower, also theres a fan on each end of the power supply blowing out the rear of the tower add to that a pci slot fan above the card. And yes, I cleaned all these fans before installing the new card [:)]

2) the motherboard is only a few months old, but who knows how long its been sitting on the shelf, I'll check that AGP driver tonight.
3) Tried with the latest drivers from Nvidia's site 6something, forget exactly. EQ2 only supports forceware 71.25, but have the same problem with with both drivers.
4) did reinstall DirectX 9.0C from microsfts DriectX website, looks like its the most current version.

One thing someone else suggested that I'll try tonight is a setting for fastwrite in your BIOS, turning it off seems to have fixed the problems for some folks.

[Death-knell]

2) OK, well I don't have a geforce FX so mine was a little different. But eventually I found the adapter: AGP 8X

I did everything you suggested and the problem still persists

[padishar]

I use my 6800 ultra with 67.66. works great.
I do have problems with the 70+ drivers and horizons.

[Fireclaw]

Also make sure your power supply has enough wattage to handle your new videocard plus the other demands on your system.

[Gorak]

"If you have a 6800 and are not having any problems, what drivers are you using?"

Got a 6800GT and 66.93 drivers

had a problem with Hz in begining(bought the card few months ago), needed to download and run with beta drivers the first few weeks, before the new drivers came out

[Death-knell]

Also make sure your power supply has enough wattage to handle your new videocard plus the other demands on your system.

have a 550W, that should be able to handle it.

[Death-knell]

"If you have a 6800 and are not having any problems, what drivers are you using?"

Got a 6800GT and 66.93 drivers

had a problem with Hz in begining(bought the card few months ago), needed to download and run with beta drivers the first few weeks, before the new drivers came out

Well I ran it with 71.25(beta) and 66.93, had the same problem. Guess I'll try it again.

[Death-knell]

Well I tried it again. I open the tower and reseated the card, made sure the power connector was in nice and tight. Plugged the cables back in and cranked her up. Uninstalled current drivers then put 66.93 on the computer. Went into game, shortly after that my toon started freezing. FPS would go from 60 to 3.4, of course I couldn't see the 3.4 until my character started moving again and then my FPS would go back to 60+FPS, even in dralk. Now flying through chiconis my FPS would drop to 20something, but thats still acceptable. But feezing then locking up so I have to reboot my computer is not.

[gopher65]

Sounds like a cooling issue. When the CPU/Memory overheats the motherboard (or something) cranks them down a few notches until they are cool enough not to burn out.

Buy another fan, or some air suckers (can't for the life of me remember what they are called. They are like a vacuum, and sit at the bottom of your case sucking air).

Actually. First open up your case and leave it open. This will increase airflow a bit. Then plug it in and try HZ. If it lasts longer without going screwy you will know you have a heat problem.

[Death-knell]

Minor problem. I already own a thermaltake tower, it has an intake fan on the front(big fan), it has an exhaust fan on the right hand and left hand side of the case as well as on the back. There is also 2 fans on each end of the power supply blowing the air across the power supply out the case. Also there is a stock fan/cooling unit on the CPU. And I have a PCI slot fan underneath the card.

and all fans are unobstructed so they can exhaust their little hearts out *G*

[padishar]

Maybe you have an old bios. Some of the early 6800 cards had problems like that (mine did too, not in HZ but other games). A bios update can be found at http://www.mvktech.net/. I remember some other things that were said to cause locking/freezing with the 6800 cards but can't find the links anymore.

[Death-knell]

Well I talked to ASUS, they had me update the chipset driver for the mortherboard and a few other things. Temp was good, voltage was good so he had me RMA it.

[Guaran]

I've had a 5900Ultra, now a 6800Gt. I had a 600w power supply (compusa brand, big mistake). And I had various problems in various games. Older games like quake3 (and other q3 engined games) were ok, but newer engine would fail due to insufficient power. Nice thing about the nvidia drivers, they usually tell you (System Sentinel) that theres a power problem, or a heat problem. I measured voltages on the 12v and 5v lines. In windows I had 11.9, 4.75. Fire up a newer engined game and the 5v line dropped all the way down to 4.27! It's amazing I wasn't having more problems with the pc while using that crappy power supply ( <3 nforce 2 chipset). All this time I tried a different 5900u card, even called a friend at nvidia and had a new bios created for my card, still had the problem. Kicked myself when I finally figured out that the 600w psu was the problem. Older powmax 500w got put back in, problem solved.

Even Antec true power 480w can be insufficient for the power demands of the top of the line cards. ( A brand with a good reputation)

Lesson: Power supply is critical, get agood DMM and check voltages during post, normal windows operations, and while running 3d games (or maybe 3dmark), and compare.Big voltage changes(0.5v or more between idle readings and load readings) are not good. A high watt rated power supply doesn't rule out a possible power supply problem.

Another thing about the drivers: Newer drivers often push the hardware Harder, and can bring out weaknesses in the power supply, video card, or other system components.

My experience with the drivers, the betas can be buggy somewhat. Had excellent stability with the 61.77. I'm having more CTD's lately (seems since last content push) and transport errors, but not sure I'm going to blame it on the 66.93's that I'm using now, or the 6800gt.

Overclocking the video card will make it run hotter and use more power. Good case airflow is important, even if not overclocking. One thing I learned was that having fans all over the place doesn't necessarily cool any better. The card coolers (fans aim down at video card, often in the side of the case) often create a turbulent airflow pattern that disrupts good flow. My pc I have now runs cooler that any I have ever had, and It has 2 80mm intakes in the front ( blowing on hardrives, mounted near bottom front), and 2 exhaust in the back near the cpu. no fans on the side or top. Rounded cables. A good air pathway helps alot.

Ati video cards are alot more susceptible to heat problems, as the stock cooling is pretty poor. Some of the lower end nvidia cards can have marginal stock cooling also. 6800gt with the reference cooling should be fine.

From what you are describing, my thoughts echo previous posters in that it sounds power or heat related. Could also be a weak gpu. Let us know what happens after you get the replacement.

Guaran

[Death-knell]

Well like I said, I seriously doubt heat was an issue. But I didn't do any direct measuring of power from the power supply. Don't remember the brand of power supply but it is 550W. Now the software package that comes with the card included a temp/voltage monitor for the GPU and its ram. It seemed to hold a constant 3.3v, but that wasn't under load.
I'll probably recieve the new card early next week, first thing I have to remember to do is update the bios of the vid card itself. Then we'll go from there.

[Guaran]

Be cautious upgrading the bios for the card. You really need a bios from the same manufacturer, for your same model card. Often people post bioses from one manufacturer and people flash it on other brands of cards. It often works, but might not. The important thing is the ram timings. If the same ram is on the other brand of card ( same brand, size and speed of the chips ) then the bios will likely work perfect. If not a match, might not work after flash.

Guaran


p.s. ask your card manufacturer if they have an updated bios. If there was a problem with initial cards' bioses, surely by now they are shipping cards with a good bios. In essence since you are RMA'ing your card, the replacement should already have the most current bios for it. [Don't flash the replacement cards bios. do some testing first, and run the 61.77 drivers, or 71.25)

[Larus-Fel]

i got myself a Geforce 6800 GT 256mb overclocked.. no problems whatso ever.. latest patch as of 3/16/05 so everything is up to date

[Guaran]

Yeah my 6800gt is running on the new 71.84 drivers. All is good.

[Varangaard]

Just an observation: there are two threads about HZ freeze-stop-resumes here, and both seem to be on ASUS boards. A guildie suffered random HZ CTDs on ASUS until he moved to an ABIT board; it was either the board itself or the VIA chipset on it that was the culprit.