Severe graphic artifacts & Nvidia driver crashes GTX 460 1GB SLI / ASROCK P55 EXTREME

[vineswingman]

I've had this system for about 14 months now and have constantly battled bizarre behavior regarding the graphics.

System:
- 12GB G.Skill DDR 3 1600
- ASRock P55 EXTREME4 LGA 1156 P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
- 2 x ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit
- Antec EarthWatts EA750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V version 2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply
- Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750

At random times while playing games and during general desktop computer usage artifacts will begin appearing, usually resulting in an un-watchable video or game. Aero will break down, and often the screen goes black and comes back after a few seconds with a notification that the Nvidia Kernel Driver has crashed and restarted. There are lots of people with this problem on Nvidia's forums: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=207666&st=100. Other than messing with power manage to help, but not solve the problem nobody can pinpoint the issue.

Sometimes I cannot boot into Windows at all and need to re-configure the cards in the PCI slots. The system is a lot more stable with just one card installed, although I still get problems in that configuration.

Sometimes the system wont boot into windows with a single card in the x16 slot. I need to move it to the x4 slot to get it to boot. Once it does, I will stress test the video card and it will be fine.

Temps are good all around, everything is at stock speed. Cpu ranges from 30-75, video cards stress test at about 80 degrees and are completely stable when I test them.

I am baffled as to how to diagnose this problem. I've formatted and re-installed all sorts of different driver versions. At first I thought it was one of the video cards, but now I'm not so sure because I can swap out the cards and experience the same issues. I doubt that there is a problem with both of the video cards.

750 Watt Antec PSU should be adequate for my setup with 3 hard drives.

Any suggestion on where to go from here other than start buying new components and switching them out? If I start RMA'ing parts (video cards, motherboard) and there is no fault found, what is the punishment usually?

I am tempted to replace the motherboard because other people have had stability issues with ASRock, but it's difficult to find a p55/1156 sli motherboard these days. If I want to buy new I will need to replace both the cpu and motherboard with something currently on the market at the tune of around $400. This is not ideal, as the computer is plenty fast for my needs.

 

[vineswingman]

I just found this thread:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=187401

Looks like this problem is not going to be easily solved.

 

[Majcric]

You're not a alone. I just got done selling my GTX 560ti because it cannot play a simple youtube video or browse the web properly.

 

[blackened23]

What say you ATI driver apologists? Where's the ATI driver defense force?

 

[Majcric]

I've had this system for about 14 months now and have constantly battled bizarre behavior regarding the graphics.

System:
- 12GB G.Skill DDR 3 1600
- ASRock P55 EXTREME4 LGA 1156 P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
- 2 x ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit
- Antec EarthWatts EA750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V version 2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply
- Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750

At random times while playing games and during general desktop computer usage artifacts will begin appearing, usually resulting in an un-watchable video or game. Aero will break down, and often the screen goes black and comes back after a few seconds with a notification that the Nvidia Kernel Driver has crashed and restarted. There are lots of people with this problem on Nvidia's forums: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=207666&st=100. Other than messing with power manage to help, but not solve the problem nobody can pinpoint the issue.

Sometimes I cannot boot into Windows at all and need to re-configure the cards in the PCI slots. The system is a lot more stable with just one card installed, although I still get problems in that configuration.

Sometimes the system wont boot into windows with a single card in the x16 slot. I need to move it to the x4 slot to get it to boot. Once it does, I will stress test the video card and it will be fine.

Temps are good all around, everything is at stock speed. Cpu ranges from 30-75, video cards stress test at about 80 degrees and are completely stable when I test them.

I am baffled as to how to diagnose this problem. I've formatted and re-installed all sorts of different driver versions. At first I thought it was one of the video cards, but now I'm not so sure because I can swap out the cards and experience the same issues. I doubt that there is a problem with both of the video cards.

750 Watt Antec PSU should be adequate for my setup with 3 hard drives.

Any suggestion on where to go from here other than start buying new components and switching them out? If I start RMA'ing parts (video cards, motherboard) and there is no fault found, what is the punishment usually?

I am tempted to replace the motherboard because other people have had stability issues with ASRock, but it's difficult to find a p55/1156 sli motherboard these days. If I want to buy new I will need to replace both the cpu and motherboard with something currently on the market at the tune of around $400. This is not ideal, as the computer is plenty fast for my needs.

Try one GTX 460 at a time. I remember reading that a user had sli 470's, tryed them one at a time, only one TDR'd, the other card was fine.

 

[tweakboy]

Also could be a defective card and you can RMA it.... its the VRAM on your card when it gets to hot or its defective or became defective.. gl

 

[FalseChristian]

You could try baking it in an oven. The good-ole' oven trick.

 

[mlinz]

I have, and have had these same problems.
I have an EVGA Motherboard that isn't made anymore, but is a P55 based board as well. Currently I have an EVGA GTX460 (ordered the day they came out)

I randomly, no matter what I am doing, get artifacts on my screen. Seconds later my screen goes black and I go into a driver crash and recovery cycle. Though eventually the computer just locks up entirely. I RMA'd the card about 2 months after buying it because of the problem and even the new one they sent me did the same thing. The only thing that seems to help me is if I keep my computer laying on it's side, not sure why this helps, but I assume it has something to do with the cards HSF. I've even removed it, polished the contacts and applied AS5 which helps with the temps even though they weren't bad, but doesn't do anything for this problem.

Usually when it happens I'll re-seat the 460 in the PCIE slot and then everything seems to work well for awhile. For instance, this just happened a minute ago, but before that the last time the issue came up was November 2011. So obviously I have no idea what the actual problem is, I just know it happens more often when my case is standing upright and weight of the hsf isn't pulling down/away from the pcb. It's a very annoying issue and from my understanding its a problem with almost every fermi card and most P55 motherboards and probably others. While I don't want to switch to AMD due to poor driver support for a lot of games I like, I might have to because I've yet to see a single issue like this with those and I never had problems with ATI/AMD cards in the past. I actually preferred them until the 7000 series Nvidia cards came out.

 

[vineswingman]

I have had the same feelings about ATI, my previous laptop had a Radeon and I always was fighting the drivers, especially having overscan issues when outputting to my HDTV. Being that this system is a HTPC, I wanted to go with Nvidia even if I could get a better deal on a Radeon because of my experiences with their drivers. But realistically, I've alternated between Radeon Cards and Nvidia cards since the Geforce 2 MX and Radeon 9800 Pro, and have for the most part not had any problems with either until these 460's.

I replaced the 460's with a Radeon 6950 a week ago, and so far everything is working great. I can still run all games with settings maxed out, and should be able to sell the 460's for about what I paid for the 6950 so I am happy.

And BTW, my laptop has a 460m and I've never experienced any issues whatsoever with the graphics. I'm not sure who to point the finger at here, but hope that this problem is behind me! Thanks for the help guys.