Tried Nvidia once, formatted, everything is good now

[Genx87]

Probably unlucky. But will say after searching the internet I am not the only one who is unlucky.

 

[PingSpike]

I don't much care for CCC, its a pig and a huge download, plus requiring .NET is annoying...I only tolerate it because I love me some fixed aspect ratio scaling on my LCD.

 

[error8]

CCC is great! What do you all have with it? I don't understand. I like it more over the Nvidia's control panel.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

I submitted a bug report. PSU is pretty good too:

We loved this power supply. Why? Because it has exactly the same design of two other good high-end power supplies, OCZ GameXstream 700 W and Zalman ZM600-HP, but costs a lot less ? only USD 85, on average, in the USA. For the average user this is a terrific buy. This unit not only costs less than competing 600 W products, but you will be also bringing home a 720 W power supply!

In fact OCZ could easily have labeled this product as a 700 W power supply and keep claiming 80% efficiency (during our overload tests we pulled 711 W from it and it kept 80% efficiency).

The only internal difference between OCZ StealthXstream 600 W and those other two high-end models are the rectifiers used on the +12 V output, capable of delivering less current (and thus power). But it is still enough for the majority of users. The other components are exactly the same.

There are, however, some external differences that may prevent you from buying this unit. It has only three SATA power connectors (the other two power supplies have six) and five regular peripheral connectors (GameXstream 700 W has six and ZM600-HP has seven) and it does not feature a modular cabling system. So if you are thinking of installing more than three SATA devices (i.e. hard disk drives and optical units) you?d better look for a different unit, unless you don?t mind using adapters to convert standard peripheral power connectors into SATA power connectors ? which isn?t a bad idea at all, due to the lower cost of this unit.

For us to consider this a ?perfect? product, we?d like to see efficiency higher than 80% when delivering 600 W, especially when this power supply could easily reach 85% efficiency under lighter loads.

Ripple and noise level was a little higher than competing products, but still inside specs, so this isn?t a real issue.

The only real flaw we saw on this unit was the absence of a MOV, a component in charge of removing spikes coming from the power grid.

Anyway, we think this is a terrific product for the average user, being a power supply with one of the best cost/benefit ratios around.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/451/10

 

[geneSW]

Ok, gonna throw my 2 cents in here.... I've never... and i'll repeat it for clarity... Never had a problem with nvidia drivers and steam, or CoD4, or CoD:WaW, UT3, Crysis wars...ect...ect... BTW, i'm only running a 8800gts (640mb). I however have had problems with ATI numerous times... Some people just have luck with Nvidia, while others have luck with ATI...


I wouldn't write up Nvidia as bad just because you get one BSOD. If it was consistant, happened every time at the same spot, then there might be reason for concern.

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

OP is a drama queen. So you experienced a ONE-TIME BSOD and wrote off all nVidia cards? I have no doubt you'll have one-off errors with ATi too; it's an unfortunate reality when dealing with video cards and their drivers, especially in homebuilt systems where other hardware is a wildcard.

And then I love the people who threadcrap by saying "Well I have never had a problem, must be user error." Seriously, what good is that?

 

[Dribble]

Never had any problems playing L4D or any other game except mass effect with my 8800GT. Had plenty of problems with my gigabyte motherboard however - which never worked quite right and slowly died. Replaced it (with an asus P45) which solved all my problems.

 

[geneSW]

Originally posted by: Dribble
Never had any problems playing L4D or any other game except mass effect with my 8800GT. Had plenty of problems with my gigabyte motherboard however - which never worked quite right and slowly died. Replaced it (with an asus P45) which solved all my problems.

See, this is interesting as i've never had luck with ASUS but my gigabyte board has been wonderful. Guess this just goes to drive my earlier point home even further. lol.

 

[Schmide]

I just installed a second 4870 on my system. First boot, the hardware was recognized and a driver was installed. After rebooting, CCC center stopped working. I then attempted to install the latest driver that just came out. It would not install even after uninstalling it. After I cleaned my drivers with driver sweeper. Everything is fine.

With the amount of revisions and variances of hardware, how could anyone expect things to be completely bug free?

 

[MrK6]

Originally posted by: Schmide
I just installed a second 4870 on my system. First boot, the hardware was recognized and a driver was installed. After rebooting, CCC center stopped working. I then attempted to install the latest driver that just came out. It would not install even after uninstalling it. After I cleaned my drivers with driver sweeper. Everything is fine.

With the amount of revisions and variances of hardware, how could anyone expect things to be completely bug free?

Exactly. With the way tech is moving now both companies must be going nuts trying to keep up with the driver revisions and updates. Therefore, do your homework and keep a clean set-up to eliminate any shortcomings on your end. And futhermore, don't point fingers unless you're double-checked sure you aren't in error

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: OCguy
Never had an issue with a nV driver. Or an ATi driver, for that matter.

agreed

it is usually the user who is at fault; or the PC .. RARELY is it the driver; and you can always roll back to a stable one .. if you cannot find one, then the fault is not the drivers

same here, i've never had a driver issue. If there was a gfx problem - it's likely I caused it by messing with settings.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

nvidia + nhancer

'nuff said

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: n7
nV drivers have had issues with L4D since the game came out.
I have tried countless versions; they are all broken in some way for L4D.

Trust me, you'll develop a serious hatred for nV's drivers if you play a lot of L4D.

I've been fighting with L4D crashing, audio looping, freezing, & other issues with my GTX 280 since i got the game.
Over half a year of bullshit.

I finally got fed up & i just installed my new solution today.

:thumbsup:

Thats why I haven't upgraded my nvidia drivers yet. I can see how someone can get fed up with it and just change to a ATI video card.

You are right though and for the most part I would believe n7. He has no reason to say the latest and newest nvidia drivers causes problems for L4D.

It is not a problem just with L4D but L4D demo as well. I still play the L4D demo at the moment because I am waiting on the next sale and really can't afford it at the price it is now. With L4D 2 coming out as well rather not spend almost the full amount for L4D.

If you don't believe me that you can still play the L4D demo single player and online with other friends who still have the L4D demo then I will show you exactly how you can still get it and play it. Nothing wrong with doing it either because you get it straight from steam still.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: yh125d
I've never had problems with nvidia at all til the current drivers, which admittedly are pretty crappy. Other than that nothing but stability. Definitely don't judge nvidia too much by this round

Which drivers would those be please?

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Genx87
Which nvidia card did you get?
Edit: I see a GTX260 216. I have a 4850, want to trade?

CCC should be illegal and the writers put in jail. I never install it anymore because apparently its only purpose is to cause BSOD or driver failures.

are you kidding?

CCC is a decent control panel - equivalent to Nvidia's [now]
= what you are describing is 2900XT era


BtW, i found issues with my GTS 250, Geforce 185.85 and Source Engine

What problems please ?

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Which nvidia card did you get?
Edit: I see a GTX260 216. I have a 4850, want to trade?

CCC should be illegal and the writers put in jail. I never install it anymore because apparently its only purpose is to cause BSOD or driver failures.

Never had any issues with ATI drivers or CCC(I install new ones every month),I had a few with Nvidia on my other PC however both have been good overall.

 

[Keysplayr]

I kept getting BSOD's playing CoD W@W yesterday. I immediately suspected the 185.05's. Looking deeper, and considering I just upgraded my memory to DDR21066 yesterday morning, I checked voltages to my new ram. Voltage for my old memory was 1.8 in BIOS. New memory states 2.0 to 2.1. I upped the voltage to 2.0 for memory. BSOD gone. So while I thought it was the Nvidia driver immediately, it wasn't. It was user error. My error. Most common problem for people who constantly screw around with their computers as I do. Live and learn, everyday.

The behavior was so weird though, just before the BSOD's, my game would behave as if I Alt-Tabbed to desktop, but my taskbar was completely missing. I was about to dub the new drivers crap, when I decided to check my own stupidity. And yes, I was stupid.

I will note though that many are finding the new 185's not so great. Which is probably what made me suspect them so quickly.

 

[Mem]

My opinion driver wise is both ATI and Nvidia are not a factor when I choose or upgrade my video card,both companies have good drivers and as Keysplayr stated sometimes its user error and as we know troubleshooting can go a long way.


End of the day no driver is perfect ,throw in how much hardware (from ATI and Nvidia) and users there are and you are bound to get a problem or two,even third party software can cause issues with video drivers,I read a thread earlier in a different forum about ATI driver that would not install(Kaspersky anti-virus was the culprit).

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

I don't overclock, memory is at correct voltages, McAfee and AdAware are my antiviruses so it's not my fault.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: WaitingForNehalem
I don't overclock, memory is at correct voltages, McAfee and AdAware are my antiviruses so it's not my fault.

Sure it is

who elses?

nVidia's
:Q

try 182.08

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: yh125d
I've never had problems with nvidia at all til the current drivers, which admittedly are pretty crappy. Other than that nothing but stability. Definitely don't judge nvidia too much by this round

Which drivers would those be please?

185.85, I got BSOD whenever I loaded a game, wouldn't playback video properly in any format I tried, so I rolled back to 182.50 and everything's working now.

 

[Dkcode]

TF2 crashed soon as i installed 185.85.

Reverted to 182.50 and all is good.

 

[apoppin]

there do seem to be issues with 185.85 and Source
- my 8800GTX and GTS 250 refused to run Hl2 .. although my 9800GT did
- go figure

 

[Dribble]

Originally posted by: geneSW

Originally posted by: Dribble
Never had any problems playing L4D or any other game except mass effect with my 8800GT. Had plenty of problems with my gigabyte motherboard however - which never worked quite right and slowly died. Replaced it (with an asus P45) which solved all my problems.

See, this is interesting as i've never had luck with ASUS but my gigabyte board has been wonderful. Guess this just goes to drive my earlier point home even further. lol.

I used several asus motherboards in the past which always worked fine, but since the grass is always greener I tried a gigabyte X38 motherboard for a change. At first it mostly worked - other then occasionally loosing network connections coming out of standby.

Mostly it would work but randomly now and again the network connection would completely die (i.e. no lights in the back of the board) - fortunately it had two so I would scramble around at the back of the pc and switch to the other one. When that went everything went wrong and you had to hard reboot (i.e. unplug it).

After about a year and a quarter my memory started going wrong and got slowly less and less stable (I think the motherboard was killing it) till it wouldn't even pass memtest at stock frequencies.

Not long after that it started, at runtime, to loose hard disks - i.e. I have a drive C and a drive D, I'd start up, they'd both be there, then I'd do something, open file browser and my non system drive D would have gone - no sign of it in file browser anywhere. Only switching it off at the wall would fix that.

It also got itself into such a state a few times that I had to take the cmos battery out, resetting firmware to original version, to get it to run again (i.e. before then it wouldn't even start to boot - no display, just the fans spinning up, stopping, then starting again).

POS, never going near gigabyte again.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: WaitingForNehalem
I don't overclock, memory is at correct voltages, McAfee and AdAware are my antiviruses so it's not my fault.

Sure it is

who elses?

nVidia's
:Q

try 182.08

LOL, I'm on 182.50 and like I said I only got the crash once and haven't been able to replicate it since. I've played L4D a ton since and like normal there have been no porblems. It must have been somce unique circumstances I guess.