Really weird 8800 GTS slowdown problem

[goofyballer]

I just built a new computer a month or two ago (with a lot of help from you guys here picking out the parts) with the following specs:

2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, OCed to 3.3 GHz (370 MHz FSB)
2 GB DDR2-800 Corsair RAM
Leadtek 8800 GTS video card
Antec P180 case (plenty of cooling)
Seasonic 500W PSU
Gigabyte DS3 motherboard

Anyway, after the computer's been running for awhile (I generally leave it on 24/7) the graphics become super choppy in any 3D game I try to run, including a really small Direct3D game I'm working on for a school project (which obviously shouldn't be stressing the system very hard). The card will render a few frames, pause for maybe half a second, render some more frames, pause for another half second, etc. I've tried reformatting the hard drive, stepping down my overclock (FWIW, I've never touched the PCI-E voltages or tried to OC the PCI-E bus speed) but nothing seems to fix the problem. Does anybody know why this might be happening?

 

[Mogadon]

You got the 640MB or 320MB version? What drivers you using?

If you're not already try the newest 97.94 forceware drivers from the nvidia site.

edit - and out of interest, have you tried testing this with a lower or no overclock?

 

[imported_Tick]

Try underclocking it and see if that fixes it. Also, temps?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Have you tried running any 3d games that aren't d3d? Something with OpenGL support, like Quake 4 maybe? I'm curious as to whether or not you have the same problem with any of those games.

Also, does rebooting fix the problem you cited above, and if so, for how long?

 

[goofyballer]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Mogadon - 640MB version. It's happened with multiple versions of the Forceware drivers, including the current ones. I tried stepping my overclock down to 333 MHz and then stock speeds/voltages (except for the RAM, which I'm running at 2.2V (because that's what it's rated for...I think I recall reading that higher-performance RAM like Corsair is better off running at its rated voltage?) and 4-4-4-12) and it hasn't helped.

Tick - I'll try that. nTune reported about 59C last night while I was experiencing the problem; I turned the fans way up and it cooled down to 53C, but the problem still happened.

DrMrLordX - No, I haven't; do you know any quick OpenGL apps I could download? One thing of note is that nVidia's stability testing program in nTune doesn't experience this slowdown. I'm not sure which API it uses though.

Rebooting does fix the problem, usually for a few hours, although sometimes it's shorter, sometimes it's longer. I can't think of anything specific I do on my computer that might cause it to start; I always run a bunch of programs, but that shouldn't be a big deal given that it's a pretty fast computer. Also, the problem is "all or nothing"; either graphics applications run perfectly, or they're entirely unplayable. The slowdown doesn't slowly get worse over time or anything, it just comes out of nowhere (although interestingly, it's never started while I'm in the middle of a game).

 

[sthaznpride17]

Not to hijack your thread, but I have the exact same problem in LoTR: Online. Initially the game will run very smooth at the highest setting 4xAA, 8xAF. But just like the OP it suddenly becomes very very choppy.

 

[goofyballer]

OK, so thinking about what Tick said about it maybe being a D3D vs OpenGL issue, I tried to figure out a way to test both out. I have a small little game called Armadillo Run which uses OpenGL which appeared to run ok, but it's a pretty simple game so I wasn't sure if it meant anything.

I went on Steam and downloaded Half-Life (yes, the first one) because I remember the engine had both Direct3D and OpenGL rendering support. The weirdest thing happened though - I open up HL and go to the menu, and in the OpenGL renderer everything is smooth, and in the D3D renderer everything is slow as crap. However, when I go in game with the D3D renderer, everything runs ok...and then when I exit Half-Life, other D3D apps work again!...for a few hours anyway (EDIT: I think the fact that HL was changing the screen resolution may have had something to do with this...next time the problem happens, I'll try just going into display settings and changing desktop resolution and see if that 'resets' things). Anyway, this is seriously weird, and I'm still not really sure what to do...it's obviously a DirectX problem, but what can I do about it? You can't uninstall/reinstall DirectX. I tried re-downloading the 9.0c installer and it exited w/o doing anything.

 

[goofyballer]

OK, so the problem happened again, I went into display settings and changed my desktop resolution from 1600x1200 to 1600x900 and back again, and it seemed to 'reset' things and video stopped being choppy.

I understand this is mostly a hardware forum and this probably isn't an appropriate question now that I know it's a DirectX issue (or, is it likely it might still be a video card problem?) - can anyone point me where I can take this question? I looked all over Microsoft's site and they don't even seem to have anything called 'customer service', and I couldn't find any Microsoft forums/newsgroups that seem appropriate. So yeah, if anyone knows where I can best get this resolved I'd really appreciate it!

 

[Cheezeit]

I have this same problem with a 7900gs. I get half the 3kmark06 score I should until I reboot. I score 2600, reboot, then get 4800. Hope there's a fix for this...

 

[manimal]

well first things first. Go to stock as others have said. Run orthos see if you crash. Run memtest from a CD to make sure your ram is ok, it prolly is. Get driverclear pro-free and remove all traces of old drivers and reintstall latest see if it helps. If these things dont help try to open the side of the case and run it with a fan towards your NB, it may be cooking because of subpar airflow. Use Coretemp to check temps.

BTW LOTR online is still beta. it has tons of memory leaks and if you check the forums for that there are a TON of workarounds and fixes.Remember its beta....

 

[DrMrLordX]

It looks like you've got a driver or directx issue. The guys over in the OS forum or the video forum might have more help for you . . . I've never really experienced problems like that myself.

If you want to uninstall/reinstall DirectX you'll have to format/reinstall I guess, though you could probably just reinstall from the DirectX redistributable package:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta...-4F61-ABA1-914185249413&displaylang=en

Given the fact that rebooting and running Half-Life in d3d mode seems to fix the problem, I'm guessing it's a driver/directX issue that is not related to driver corruption. Corrupt drivers would probably cause problems from the get go, or so I'd guess.

Maybe something is causing your card to erroneously slip into low-power 3d mode? Even still, I don't think that would cause the render/stall/render problem you've observed.