NEW DRIVERS RELEASED ---- NVIDIA System Sentinel Issue------ NEW DRIVERS RELEASED !!!

[Mr Fox]

This thread is to alert the AT community of this issue....


Some 8800 GTS/GT (G92) users are having issues with a service in NVIDIA Drivers that is known as System Sentinel.

In Vista :

Poor performance results from System Sentinel downclocking the GPU without any notification from the drivers. Certian High End Name Brand PSU's are involved with this issue.
System Sentinel believes that there is inadequate power even when this is not the case.

This results in Extremely low FPS lag, and framing.

In XP :

System Sentinel tells you there is a power issue, and downclocks your GPU to protect your card.
The notification at least appears here, and tells you why the issue is happening.


General Info :

There is this Thread over at Nzone : http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=55320

This issue has effected a very small number of people that have no real common thread hardware configuration wise. (I.E: Various Chipsets, and motherboards running Vista.)

People that had the issue have what is considered to be more than adequate power resources. (I.E.: Quality Name brand PSU's 500 watt - 1kw)

The common thread is Vista, and 8800 (G92) GTS/GT and 169.25, and 169.28.

NVIDIA has admitted that the issue does exist, and it is on the hit list for further driver revisions.


Work Arounds;

There is a few ways to work around this issue from what I have read.

1,) Disable System Sentinel in Start-up using MSCONFIG, and then editing Registry to not allow the service to run.

2,) Some people have bought Independent Supplementary PSU's that will solve the issue without messing with the driver.

3,) Swap PSU's and pray.......


I have not listed the names of the PSU's that are involved, mainly because I don't believe it to be a PSU issue.



Hope this helps !!



Revised to include GT also in Title, and text.

Revised To Change Title !!

 

[ManWithNoName]

Originally posted by: Mr Fox
This thread is to alert the AT community of this issue....

Some 8800 GTS (G92) users are having issues with a service in NVIDIA Drivers that is known as System Sentinel.

Nicely written up Fox. I've been tracking this issue as well and have mentioned it on several forums where users appear to be having this problem. Just some added info though. The issue is not restricted to just the 8800GTS G92 as I have encountered this problem on various Forums since the introduction of the 8800GT. So it affects the 8800GT as well and I've seen more posts with the 8800GT and this issue than 8800GTS posts. Likley due to the fact that the 8800GT is in wider distribution.

What is causing the issue? This is where we part company......maybe. What appears to be the same exact issue first surfaced with 8800GTX users. The False Low-Power Nvidia Sentinel Error was triggered by a bug in the Antec Quattro 850w/1000w PSU. Did some Googling when I first came across this problem and a few other power supplies seemed to be affected as well, but I have only seen an official statement from Antec on this. See Below.

Could this problem be Driver Related, I suppose. It just seems odd that the 8800GTX would have the exact same issue and was not using either of the driver sets you mentioned. I'm more inclined to believe it some sort of weird power supply bug possibly triggered by the Vid-BIOS used by some of the 8800 series cards. Hard to say though, so I won't discount the Driver theory either. Regardless of what is at fault here, power supply, driver, or 8800 series Vid-BIOS, I bet Nvidia can fix the issue at the driver level anyway, or at worst with a Vid-BIOS update. Pure supposition on my part though.

Good post though, on a real confusing issue. Luckily it only affects a few, although not so lucky I guess if you're one of the few.

Antec/Response: 9/6/2007

In fact, the TPQ-850 has more than enough power to run an 8800GTX and is SLI certified (posting on slizone.com coming soon). Unfortunately there is what amounts to a recently identified communications problem between some units of the power supply and the firmware on NVIDIA's card that causes an error message to be generated. (The nvidia system sentinel is reporting that the nvidia-powered graphics card is not receiving sufficient power) Antec apologizes for any inconvenience, and is working with NVIDIA to isolate the precise cause and identify the solution as quickly as possible.

Please note that this does not affect the 8800 Ultra or any NVIDIA card besides the 8800GTX, and neither is every Quattro affected. We will shortly have revised units that solve the problem for those who have encountered it, and will gladly swap units for those customers. If you have further questions or need help with any Antec product, please contact Antec Customer Support. Antec is one of the few industry companies to offer toll-free live customer support, which can be reached at 1-800-22-ANTEC.

 

[Mr Fox]

Yeah the issue that you are referring to has been known for a while...

This issue was affecting Corsair, Silverstone, and some others.....

They are outstanding PSU's and that is what lead me to more believe that it was a driver issue, along with that there was no notification, in Vista... But when XP was used the issue was stated.....by the driver.

I will however expand the name of the thread to include the GT, and revise the OP to include it also.

Thanks !!

 

[smithkt]

I've been bitten by this problem using a Corsair 550VX, EVGA 8800GT and Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P. There are threads on many enthusiast boards regarding this, so it surprised me to have to dig to find info here. No one from the AT community is having trouble?

 

[BassBomb]

I haven't noticed any problems.

I will check my clocks when im using programs and see if anything changes.

I have used Enermax Noisetaker (used the last two weeks)+ Antec Earthwatts (using at the moment)

 

[chizow]

Here's a thread I found helpful when researching the TPQ-850W. It seems newer revisions of the PSU fixed the problem with this PSU and the 8800GTX, revision 3.0 and higher. There is also a 3.1 out there as well. Some GTX users are still having problems with 3.0, although mine is running flawlessly in Vista 64.
TPQ 850W thread @ overclock.net

Also, it doesn't seem this problem is limited to 8-series cards, as there's a few users in that thread reporting similar problems with the TPQ-850 and ATI cards. Seeing as there's a few workarounds and it varies from card to card and PSU to PSU, I'd say its an issue with Window's Sentinel driver. I wasn't even aware of that driver until I started researching the TPQ-850W, but it looks like Windows takes some generic info from the PSU and the GPU and then throttles performance on its own based on some lookup table. I'm guessing an update/patch to that lookup table would fix any throttling issues due to System Sentinel.

Edit: Also wanted to add, I ran an 8800GTS 640MB, 8800GT, and 8800GTX in XP and Vista 64 with a TP Trio 650W without running into this problem.

 

[ManWithNoName]

Originally posted by: smithkt
I've been bitten by this problem using a Corsair 550VX, EVGA 8800GT and Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P. There are threads on many enthusiast boards regarding this, so it surprised me to have to dig to find info here. No one from the AT community is having trouble?

Not surprising really as the issue is not widespread at all. I'm on 8-10 Forums and from what I've seen, this problem has only affected an unlucky few. And yes, it has come up here before in another thread, but again it was restricted to 1 or 2 users. I believe the second user in that thread complaining of the problem was trying to power his 8800GT based Rig using a PSU with only 18a on a single +12v rail. Now don't take what I said the wrong way, there is obviously a problem, it's just not a huge one which is unfortunate for you guys as the PSU manufacturer's and Nvidia have probably put you very low on the priority list.

 

[smithkt]

I'm sure you are right.

I researched for a least a week before settling on the components I purchased. Unfortunately this was well before this post had been made. Had I stumbled across this issue even once, I would likely have been able to avoid it. I guess since I got caught by it, I have reason to actively search for other threads so it may seem like a bigger problem than it really is. Lucky me.

Thanks for the responses. Now, back to waiting to see if the manufacturers can figure this out.......

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: chizow
Here's a thread I found helpful when researching the TPQ-850W. It seems newer revisions of the PSU fixed the problem with this PSU and the 8800GTX, revision 3.0 and higher. There is also a 3.1 out there as well. Some GTX users are still having problems with 3.0, although mine is running flawlessly in Vista 64.
TPQ 850W thread @ overclock.net

Also, it doesn't seem this problem is limited to 8-series cards, as there's a few users in that thread reporting similar problems with the TPQ-850 and ATI cards. Seeing as there's a few workarounds and it varies from card to card and PSU to PSU, I'd say its an issue with Window's Sentinel driver. I wasn't even aware of that driver until I started researching the TPQ-850W, but it looks like Windows takes some generic info from the PSU and the GPU and then throttles performance on its own based on some lookup table. I'm guessing an update/patch to that lookup table would fix any throttling issues due to System Sentinel.

Edit: Also wanted to add, I ran an 8800GTS 640MB, 8800GT, and 8800GTX in XP and Vista 64 with a TP Trio 650W without running into this problem.

I ran into this issue after transferring the card to my P5WDH and my Xeon 3060.

I have this goofy ass issue. My Silverstone Strider 650 was not getting along with this Driver Service.

Because I was using Vista there was no warning, only after allot of crap did I Install XP... that gave me an Idea what was going on.

I was on the phone for hours with EVGA, NVIDIA, and Silverstone but to no avail.... the week after New Year everyone with a brain was in Vegas at CES.

EVGA, and Silverstone were helpful, and have good Customer Service.

NVIDIA was very condescending to work with, until I showed them that my ducks were in a row...

I was one of the first people with the issue, and in the past few weeks as sales has grown, and the cards have become a little more widespread in the market, then the issue has been a little more obvious, and many other PSU makers were pushing at NVIDIA also...

Now there are 6-8 threads out there, and Corsair, and JonnyGuru, Guru3D, and a few others have users that are having the issue also...

But it will take weeks, if not months to get NVIDIA to admit the issue, and get a fix out there.


When the Issue would happen 3DMarks06 were like : 1128


After disabling the NVIDIA Driver Helper Service this is the scores :


http://www.imagecross.com/mysp...8678after-disabled.jpg


To fix....

1,)Enter "msconfig" in the start search box of the Vista Explorer Interface.

2,)Under the Startup Tab Disable NVIDIA Driver Helper Service, Version #####

http://www.imagecross.com/mysp...p?id=4659MS-Config.jpg

3,)Apply, and Exit and Re-Boot.

Now you are done !

Leave me feedback if that helps you...

 

[csnyoung]

I wanted to comment on this issue.

My 8000 GTS was giving me pretty poor performance in general, and I consistently got messages from the nVidia sentinel saying that my GPU had been throttled. I had found several threads like this, so I was just going to wait until nVidia updated their drivers before worrying more about it.

But earlier today, by some miracle - the sentinel must have reported everything was working fine - and my games were performing so well that when I went out for the evening and came back to find that my card had reverted back to its old pathetic performance, I couldn't take it anymore.

So I tried the fix by Mr. Fox, and after a cold boot, the card performed beautifully. Many thanks for the help.

 

[ManWithNoName]

Originally posted by: Mr Fox

Originally posted by: chizow

1,)Enter "msconfig" in the start search box of the Vista Explorer Interface.

2,)Under the Startup Tab Disable NVIDIA Driver Helper Service, Version #####

http://www.imagecross.com/mysp...p?id=4659MS-Config.jpg

3,)Apply, and Exit and Re-Boot.

Now you are done !

Leave me feedback if that helps you...

Nicely done and it's so simple to fix. I'm wondering why the card manufacturers haven't recommended doing this? Playing devil's advocate for a minute, I can only think of one reason. If someone disables this service and they are actually having a power supply issue because of low power or a bad power supply, I'm wondering if this could damage the card? Anyway good work and I'll start recommending this myself if I see someone with this problem. I'll even give you the credit. I'm sorry, what was your name again?

Edit:

I was curious and did some digging to find out if there were any negative side-effects to disabling the "NVIDIA Driver Helper Service". Apparently this service is also used to override/force refresh rates. If you don't need this function, then it appears safe to disable it. Some users have even reported that disabling this service has improved their shutdown times and solved some game issues. Found the below at Blackviper.com ....

"This service is installed when you change from the WDM drivers to nVidia's latest and greatest version. The service uses about 945k and zero CPU. I have even experienced EXTREME shutdown delays with this service active, but no adverse side effects with it disabled unless you override your refresh rate. This service is required to override monitor refresh rates in OpenGL games. In DirectX games, you can disable this service and run "dxdiag" and override the refresh rate there. NOTE: If using drivers other than nVidia's, such as Asus, this service may have been renamed to reflect that."

One of the fixes for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 is to disable this service, so I might even do it for the helluvit, even without the power supply issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837195

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: csnyoung
I wanted to comment on this issue.

My 8000 GTS was giving me pretty poor performance in general, and I consistently got messages from the nVidia sentinel saying that my GPU had been throttled. I had found several threads like this, so I was just going to wait until nVidia updated their drivers before worrying more about it.

But earlier today, by some miracle - the sentinel must have reported everything was working fine - and my games were performing so well that when I went out for the evening and came back to find that my card had reverted back to its old pathetic performance, I couldn't take it anymore.

So I tried the fix by Mr. Fox, and after a cold boot, the card performed beautifully. Many thanks for the help.

Cool... good to hear that my insanity has gone to some good. !!


Just one more to add to the list.

 

[philipv]

Hi all,

I hope someone can help. I have been experiencing what appears to be this problem. My set up is:-

Samsung SM226CW 22" TFT Monitor Widescreen
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping Socket 775 L2 8MB
EVGA nForce 680i SLI SKT775 Motherboard
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Music OEM Soundcard
Coolermaster CM690 Dominator Black Mid Tower Case
Inno3D 8800GT (G92) 512MB 256bit x 2 in SLI config
Western Digital 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache
OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1G DDR2 800MHz PLATINUM XTC
Antec TruePower Quattro 1000W PSU

The first time I started up with the nvidia drivers installed it came up with the "not enough power" etc message, and it didn't even give me the option to start SLI mode. I did a bit of digging and found this thread.

I've disabled the service as you suggest in msconfig, but don't understand what you mean about making the change in the registery. My computer now no longer displays the error, and SLI mode is selectable. However, the performance of my gfx cards with or without SLI is awful. I ran 3dMark06 out of curiosity and got 1099 points!

So, do I still need to do something in the registry for the change to work properly, or is there something else wrong that I haven't identified yet?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated,

Phil

 

[ManWithNoName]

So I guess we're not crazy after all. An Antec Rep recently made this post regarding the Antec Quattro PSU's and the new 8800 Series G92 cards confirming what we've been saying here in this thread ....

http://forums.pcper.com/showpo...p=4215664&postcount=62

Antec?s TruePower Quattro power supplies, the TPQ-850 and TPQ-1000 have way more than enough power to run an 8800 graphics card and are SLI certified by NVIDIA. The actual issue with the graphics card and System Sentinel is a communication issue. The Supply has plenty of power, but the card is not handling it properly.

This problem is not only with the Antec supply. Other brands of power supply are having these issues as well. There have been reports of power supplies from Corsair, ThermalTake, Enermax, Rosewill, OCZ, XCLIO, and Silverstone not working with these cards as well.

Nvidia SLI certified our power supply to work with the cards. Months after the launch of their card we started to have problems with the 8800GTX and the Quattro supplies. We implemented a fix at this time because we were the only company with the issue. This fix worked for any user having the 8800GTX issue.

Then Nvidia released the (G92) core series of graphics cards GTS/GT. These cards sometimes do not work with either the original or fixed version of our power supply. We have been researching the issue, and Nvidia has been testing this issue in their labs. The problem appears to be a hardware interaction. With the right (wrong?) motherboard/graphics card/PSU, this issue occurs. Many combinations work, however (we?ve got an off-the-shelf Crosshair+8800GT 512+Quattro 850 system running perfectly in our lab), so changing any of the components could possibly make the system work. It seems that a bios fix/flash is going to be the final solution, but we don?t have any definite answers at this time.

 

[smithkt]

No, we are not crazy. Similar posts have been made by Corsair reps. The problem is there is no timetable for a real fix and not a peep from Nvidia or any of it's board partners acknowledging the issue. I emailed EVGA (my cards) and they said "We have not been alerted to any problems". So while it is encouraging to see some validation of the problem, I still feel left out in the cold.

 

[ManWithNoName]

Originally posted by: smithkt
I still feel left out in the cold.

As well you should. My post was for others reading this thread NOT having the issue, not to make you feel better about the situation. Many probably think we're just chasing windmills, so I thought a post supporting what we've been "saying" was in order.

 

[smithkt]

Preaching to the choir my friend. I've been beating my head against the wall trying to prove to people this issue is real. It was great when the Corsair rep posted this:

http://www.asktheramguy.com/v3...?p=329684&postcount=10

For those interested, NVIDIA has finally been able to reproduce the problem in their labs, and is working on a solution. As of right now, every major power supply vendor can potentially be affected by this problem. It is not tied to any specific brand or build of power supply.

When NVIDIA has a solution worked out we will post it here.

And this from a Corsair rep on the jonnyguru forums:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/forum...p?p=35004&postcount=61

We know what's causing the problem now. NVIDIA has been able to reproduce it. I don't want to share any more info at this point, NVIDIA will discuss it when they have a solution.

I can say this, though. The problem is not limited to any one particular build or brand of power supplies, it can potentially affect every vendor. No one brand is more or less likely to have the problem.

 

[ManWithNoName]

Originally posted by: smithkt
Preaching to the choir my friend. I've been beating my head against the wall trying to prove to people this issue is real. It was great when the Corsair rep posted this:

http://www.asktheramguy.com/v3...?p=329684&postcount=10

For those interested, NVIDIA has finally been able to reproduce the problem in their labs, and is working on a solution. As of right now, every major power supply vendor can potentially be affected by this problem. It is not tied to any specific brand or build of power supply.

When NVIDIA has a solution worked out we will post it here.

And this from a Corsair rep on the jonnyguru forums:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/forum...p?p=35004&postcount=61

We know what's causing the problem now. NVIDIA has been able to reproduce it. I don't want to share any more info at this point, NVIDIA will discuss it when they have a solution.

I can say this, though. The problem is not limited to any one particular build or brand of power supplies, it can potentially affect every vendor. No one brand is more or less likely to have the problem.

That's great, well sort of. You know what I mean. I'll be saving those links for future reference. Thanks for posting them here.

 

[Necrosis180]

Originally posted by: philipv
I've disabled the service as you suggest in msconfig, but don't understand what you mean about making the change in the registery. My computer now no longer displays the error, and SLI mode is selectable. However, the performance of my gfx cards with or without SLI is awful. I ran 3dMark06 out of curiosity and got 1099 points!

So, do I still need to do something in the registry for the change to work properly, or is there something else wrong that I haven't identified yet?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated,

Phil

i have the same prob, i disabled the service (display driver support blar blar) (xp pro 64bit) yet it still lags heavy and the down clock is active. How do i make the change take effect? should i re-install drivers and disable the support thingo before i boot up?

 

[ManWithNoName]

Originally posted by: Necrosis180

Originally posted by: philipv
I've disabled the service as you suggest in msconfig, but don't understand what you mean about making the change in the registery. My computer now no longer displays the error, and SLI mode is selectable. However, the performance of my gfx cards with or without SLI is awful. I ran 3dMark06 out of curiosity and got 1099 points!

So, do I still need to do something in the registry for the change to work properly, or is there something else wrong that I haven't identified yet?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated,

Phil

i have the same prob, i disabled the service (display driver support blar blar) (xp pro 64bit) yet it still lags heavy and the down clock is active. How do i make the change take effect? should i re-install drivers and disable the support thingo before i boot up?

All you should need to do is remove the check box in MSConfig/Startup next to the "Nvidia Driver Helper Service" and restart the computer. Hopefully Mr. Fox will be by to respond, since it's his fix. According to his first post though he mentioned something about editing the Registry.

If you wish to attempt a Registry Fix rather than using MSConfig, see the link below to a pic of my Vista 32 Registry. The location of the Registry Key should be the same under XP. I would strongly suggest making a System Restore point before making any changes however.

It appears you need to change or delete NVSVC.DLL to keep the Service from running from the Registry. Not sure if it's different under XP as I don't use it, but I have seen references to NVSVC32 under XP from doing a general google search. Anyway you'll see the Path to the Registry Key which needs to be changed in the Status Bar at the bottom of the Window in Pic. You may want to try 2 things here .....

Delete the Registry Entry for NVSVC entirely or just delete the ValueData where it says "nvsvcStart ".

Nvidia Driver Helper Service - Registry Entry

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/3481/regfixdc6.jpg

Note:

I experimented on my Vista32 System by the way and stopped the service from loading using MSConfig only. I then rebooted and looked at the Registry and MSConfig did in fact delete the Registry Entry above as it should.

Also, what power supply are you using?? You should be absolutely certain your power supply can handle the card before proceeding down this path.

Good Luck

 

[philipv]

I've tried two different psus - a 1000W Antec, and an 850w coolmaster. The problem is the same with both. I have also tried the usual things of reseating the cards, trying them one at a time etc etc all with no joy. I have read about others where this fix hasn't worked, but I do agree that it is a little strange.

Cheers,

Phil

 

[Necrosis180]

ok, here is what my rege looks like at that folder

http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/4839/27790231pt8.jpg

however i just noticed nvcpl in msconfig at startup, ill try disabling that.

 

[Necrosis180]

ok, i disabled every nVidia thing i could find from starting up. I don't get any messages but the down clock is still active. (quick test by resizing a window and dragging it around, lags heavily)

im running xp pro 64bit and i have a HX520W corsair PSU with single 12V rails for PCI-E. My card works fine in other computers with a lot older and weaker power supplies.

Is there some 3-rd party driver somewhere that does not have the sentinel in it? All the older official drivers are incompatible with my setup (8800GT 512mb)

also, is there a program somewhere that can counteract the down clock and clock it back up to default values? I think i remember someone mentioning this as a possible solution while i browsed every nvidia sentinel thread on the net.

 

[Ctrackstar126]

I have the same problem with my tpq-850. I swapped out a trio 650 and it works flawlessly. The thing is I bought the 850 6 months ago from compusa when they were having a 60% off sale. I called antec and said wtf m8 cause I noticed mine was a R3 which was supposed to be fixed. He pretty much told me that nvidia is supposed to come out with a bios update to solve the problem. I didnt go further in it with him because I wanted to research it myself and see what has been done by others. He did pretty much tell me to put it on a shelve until a fix comes out but that wont be happening because when I take something out of the box I expect it to work and not have to wait to use it.

Also you said disable the service but does that fix the fact that no power is going to the psu. Its an actual problem that made my score in 3dmark05 go to 3000 on a x3110, 8800gt, 2gb system which is obviously fucked. With my new PSU i hit over 21k

 

[amenx]

I've had a similar problem when I went to a g80 card (gts 640mb), extremely slow performance. What fixed it for me was clearing the cmos.