GPU ERROR help plz :(

i have been playing sl for over 2 years but over the last few days
my 8800gtx 768mb gpu has became incompatible with sl and every time
i start second life it crashes and says that your gpu is incompatible or drivers have not installed correctly.
any help would be great and hope someone has the know how on how to solve this issue

i have tried 5 times reinstalling my drivers and also rolling them back but the issue is still the same please help

You try running some sort of GPU diagnostic program or something on it?

Maybe it burned up.

ive tryed to run apps that will diag my machine and every other game like crysis, spore etc work fine with no issues

i still have the same issue with sl though

Try to delete your settings.xml file in your Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings folder. Perhaps that got screwed up. It will be recreated at the next start.

When you reinstalled your drivers, did you run DriverCleaner? If not, then it's highly likely that whatever may have gotten corrupted is still lingering. Windows is incapable of completely uninstalling most drivers on its own. You should never ever ever install a new driver directly on top of an old one.

Also, make sure you're installing a genuine driver, obtained directly from the nVidia website. Don't try to install any drivers that Windows Update might have grabbed for you. That almost never works.

oopsies...

It would be nice if Windows would stop making people think they can do that.

Sure would.

I agree that any driver should be uninstalled before a new or updated driver is installed........any driver for any hardware device (not just video). The unintallation process is a little more critical if you are installing a driver for a new and different device........such as installing a driver for a new nVidia card replacing an older ATI card (or vice versa). However, if you will go to nVidia's website they do not mention the necessity of any uninstallation of the previous driver before installing the updated driver:


http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2014&p_created=1169792100&p_sid=lCzizZyj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MzkzLDM5MyZwX3Byb2RzPTAmcF9jYXRzPTAmcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PXByb3BlciBpbnN0YWxsYXRpb24*&p_li=&p_topview=1

If you are unfamilar with driver installation it might help you to read the posted link. It's for Vista but there is also a very similar tutorial for XP. At the very bottom of that page there is a link to now to properly uninstall a driver. Good reading, again, if you are not familar with driver uninstallation. The recommended way for nVidia is to use your control panel for that uninstallation......makes no mention of any third party programs for such tasks. Assuming ATI has not changed in the last 4 or 5 years they have a utility for uninstalling their drivers........and nVidia does not. My guess is that nVidia seems to think Windows uninstaller is adequate for ridding your system of nVidia drivers. And from my experience with quite a lot of driver installations Windows does do the job.

So, is it absolutely necessary to uninstall your older driver before you install a new one? Not according to nVidia (they make the drivers.......they are the experts). And if you do unintall your driver (for any reason) is it absolutely necessary to use a third party "driver cleaner" or uitility? Again, not according to nVidia........the experts.

Personally, I do uninstall my drivers before I install a new one.........something taught me a long time ago by a quite knowledgable RL friend. I do not use a third party driver uninstaller......just Add/Remove in the Windows control panel. The one exception I've used in the past was when I had an ATI card..........i used their uninstallation utility instead of Add/Remove. I've been very successful with driver installations (after the one problem I had long ago when I had to call my RL friend to help me). I would recommend you go to the nVidia website and get the information you need from the people who make the product instead of from people who claim expertise on the product. Put your trust in known experts or put that trust in people with unknown expertise.

Your choice.

Here we go again.

Look, you can't expect nVidia to admit in writing that their uninstallation process is flawed, any more than you can expect Microsoft to admit that certain aspects of Windows are flawed, or Apple to admit that anything at all in OS/X is flawed. That's simply not a leap many tech companies are willing to make, for obvious reasons.

We've already talked about the fact that driver installation via Windows Update usually doesn't work, which is something MS won't readily admit. That should be example enough that you can't just go by what the makers of ANYTHING recommend. You also need to take into account user experience, and independent review.

But just to illustrate the point further, let's break away from drivers for a moment, and pick another parallel example. Let's go with disk maintenance. If you look up defragging on Microsoft's website, it will tell you to use Windows Defrag. MS won't tell you in writing to use a third party defragger like Diskeeper, even though it works a thousand times better.

By the same token, nVidia won't tell you in writing to use a third party uninstaller like DriverCleaner, even though that likewise works infinitely better than their own process. Right or wrong, it's not realistic to expect that they ever would.

But absence of such written admission obviously doesn't mean these things are not indeed flawed, nor does it mean that their makers are unaware of the problems. It was none other than an nVidia TSR who first turned me on to DriverCleaner, years ago. And as for user experience and independent review, one need look no further than graphics enthusiast sites such as overclock.net, guru3d.com, or even the nVidia user forums for information and recommendations on why DriverCleaner is so important.

It's frankly more than a little ridiculous that this even needs to be a discussion. It's been well known for as many years as I can remember that if you don't completely uninstall an old driver before installing its newer replacement, you do so at your own risk. And it's equally well known that uninstallation via OS tools, or even driver-maker-supplied tools, doesn't always work fully. In all my years of computer use, I've encountered exactly one person who purports that this is not actually true. Take that for what you will.

The fact of the matter is this. DriverCleaner WILL fully uninstall a selected driver, every single time. Attempts to uninstall via Control Panel might or might not work. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather go with what I know always works than leave it to a coin toss.

WTF are you talking about?

Get over yourself........you are NOT the end all to everything in this freaking world.

I told the OP (and anyone else who chooses to read what I write) what I have found is the best and least problematic method of updating or installing drivers. I also told why I believe the way I do and why I update and install drivers the way I do.........I happen to trust the people who write the software, make the product, and advise the users of their products so much more than I would ever trust a know it all on a second rate forum.

My opinion is every bit as good as yours...........and probably much safer to follow than anyone who tauts a 10 dollar program only obtained off the internet. Go back in your bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror some more.

Once again, please restrict your comments to the facts of the subject at hand. Please keep your personal opinion of the people involved to yourself. I think we'd all appreciate that. Thank you.

I just wanted to pop into this thread for the OP and say I have the exact same card. Nvidia 8800gtx 768mb and up until last night it was fine. Then I experienced a system freeze until finally my driver corrupted. It took a few other drivers along with it and took about half a day to stabalise the system again. Reinstalled my graphics display driver, the audio and my bluetooth. Nice system take down SL.

I'm a bit scared to log in again because it's finally working and I don't expect the client to be any more stable I suppose, but what else can I do.

I may have asked for it as I run the release client instead though and by running it I run the risk of dealing with bugs and incompatibility like this. Just surprised that more debugging wasn't done before the release of the new client with an official announcement that "problems may be expected on the following Nvidia cards."


edit:

Wanted to add, Zade, that before my driver went to shite, all other functions using that graphics card were fine. Zbrush. Photoshop, other gaming. It corrupted on going into the newer RC client. Killed my driver then crashed me. I had to shut down the system cold. On the restart my driver made normal function challenging. I reinstalled the graphics driver and function outside of SL is normal again. It's only when I go back into SL that it corrupts.

I cannot say if the regular client works with our cards. Last I used it my driver was already corrupted from running the RC. I'll likely use that first for testing later. I'm still backing up files and putting the drivers onto a disk for easy reinstalling should it all go bad again.

Good luck on your own issue.

I suppose it's remotely possible that the RC (which has some shadows support, does it not?) makes more demands on graphic cards, and yours is now overheating, whereas before it/they were not?

My 8800 GT seems OK - however, judging by the performance on the terrible lappie with Integrated intel graphics, there may have been some more-demanding change to the rendering engine server-side as well.
.

il try all these ideas out thank you people for your knowledge on this matter and i hope to be back on sl real soon (fingers crossed)

i play piano all around sl so if anyone needs me or wants some free live music add me

What kind of music, Zade? Nova Albion is planning a several-days-long citywide music festival for September and it would be great to see you play.

I don't think it's overheating. I've done as much as I can to my HD without going liquid cooled. For work I have to run multiple 3d graphics proggies for file testing and it's still working fine. Also tested this theory by stress testing with the Nvidia stress test/performance test option in the control panel. It handles them brilliantly. ..it's just SL that absolutely brings the system to its knees. Most of my past issues have been driver issues. last time I had a radeon card. On the new system I avoided it and went nvidia. ~laughs~ Can't get away! I'm also an XP user btw.

I haven't tested the system on the regular Sl client because I'm backing up all of the work files still. I'm just watching the thread to see how Zade is doing and if he can make it back in.

I honestly think the new release is simply not playing well with Nvidia 8800 gtx drivers...crosses fingers hoping the updated driver install helps.

Do the GT and GTX cards use the same drivers?

Forgot to mention that before I had crashed my display began to go wonky with little pixel artefacts that remained all over my screen. Very pixilated...then the system freeze. Outside of SL, once the drivers were corrupted I lasted longer. My system crashed after 4.5 hours. ~laughs~ It still had strange pixel artefacts. Now that I have replaced the driver, my display is crystal clear and the pixelation is gone. Hope it makes SL just as happy.

Right on time I had a problem with my graphics - yes, I have an 8800 gtx. My display in SL splintered into a big mess. I shut down and cleaned up a little, cleared cache, restarted, and it was fine - but it seems to bear out what Baron has said.

Only SL was affected.

I use XP Pro.

I switch viewers a lot - I am not sure if I was on the RC when I belly-upped, but it's likely.

Zade how are you doing? Making it into SL?

I just tried this morning on the RC and the regular client again and it's the same as before regardless of updating the graphics driver.

Everything working just brilliantly outside of SL but as soon as I load the client I get horrible pixel artefacts all over my screen which stop as soon as I close the client. Most times. If I keep pushing to get into SL I'm going to ruin my drivers again.. Gah...happening already. It's going to crash outside of Sl. I'll send this before it freezes my system.

I'm going to attempt to put out my opinion without a certain someone quoting my post and ripping it apart point by point.

I do not think your problem is caused by the SL client. What I'm reading is that after a few minutes (or maybe a bit longer) your computer is locking up or shutting down. A corrupted driver (especially a corrupted video driver) could be the problem. But I don't believe the client is corrupting the dirver........it's the system locking up or crashing or shutting down that would damage a driver like what you are discribing. I fresh installation of that driver would correct the problem and not continually get corrupted due to software (other than critical software such as operating systems or drivers).........the client would crash instead but the system and drivers would remain unharmed. I'm not going to go out on a limb and tell you that the client absolutely cannot be the cause........but it's very unlikely that it is.

What it appears to be (since you have reinstalled the damaged driver) is a hardware problem. Most likely the video card. Things such as computers shutting down without first closing all running processes can (and often does) damage files. A file damaged in a critical program like drivers and operating systems will cause huge headaches........up to and including making your computer unable to boot properly. My guess is that you are either overheating the graphics card or you card has overheated before and is now showing the damage with sudden shutting down and crashing you computer OS. If your computer case is clean and all your fans are working properly the point toward a video card not able to operate at it's designed tempertures anymore. There is a design limit for any hardware device.......under normal conditions that device will work for years as long as that limit has not been exceeded. However, if the device has been subjected to conditions above the limit, all bets are off. It's not an absolute that the device will fail with a few instances of exceeding the limits.......but it is likely that device has recieved damage that could start a casading effect leading to eventual failure. That failure may never happen before you wind up replacing it for whatever reason.....but it could happen in just a few days or minutes too. Like I said.......all bets are off.

I know the nVidia 8800 runs hotter than most or maybe all the nVidia 8000 and 9000 series cards. I don't know the design limit simply because manufacturers don't make that information readily available. But I do know 105 C is about the highest most devices can handle......and yes that is pretty damned hot (water boils at 100 C). Once that temp has been reached (even one time) that design limit is null and void.......your card may show problems at 100 C or even lower. Then, even though you are below the max temperture you are above what the card can handle..........it gets progressively worse as time goes on. Evidentually it will fail completely.

You need some way to monitor you temperatures. Google "PC Wizard 2008" for a simple and free program that will do that for you (assuming your motherboard supports monitoring). SL being the graphically intensive program it is will heat your card up at a startling rate (like 20 degree jump in about 1 min). If you get near or above about 95 degrees you need to pay close attention (that's my guidline only........some will take issue with that number being too high or too low). If your system shuts down before you reach 95 C then I'll say your card is damaged and is failing. If it gets over 100 C before it shuts down check your fans and case. If it gets above 105 C.........quit SL.

A clean case with adequate ventalation and all fans working properly should keep the tempatures well below those critical tempertures. If you are getting that hot you need to find out why and correct it. If it's merely a card on it's way to death, eventually you are going to have to replace it. Hate that my opinion is not better news..........but if it were me I'd quit trying to find a problem with the client and look for a much more likely cause for my problems.

Peggy I thank you for your response. I certainly won't say it's not the graphics card dying, but I still think it's the client not playing nicely. I'm on a backup comp at the moment and tomorrow I have to debug my main.

Not sure if I'm explaining what happened accurately in text. (Im on the backup comp btw) My system, during these issues, has never shut down on its own. It's not like a graphics card overheat where your system shuts itself down because of temp. I've had that before and this is the card I bought when my old radeon went out. Because I've had that problem before and I'm aware of how I stress the system with multiple apps running I built this system to handle temp well taking into account this exact card. If it happens to be dying then in a way I'm glad it is because it gives me a reason to upgrade to the 9 series ~laughs~ but I honestly don't think I'll get that opportunity.

What I was getting was a stable system that got screen artefacts and freeze only when running SL. The reason it froze outside of SL after that was because I still had not reinstalled the drivers. I did that an hour or so later and after I reinstalled from the Nvidia site my system returned to normal stability. Nice and smooth.

Worked all day without core temp or card temp issues or artefacts. No freezes and multiple apps running and stressing my system including photoshop, poser, zbrush, and ftp and skype most of the day. No problems.

Well I was lulled into thinking, after I took care of my HD backups that day, the next morning I would try SL again.

To my own fault I stupidly tested this theory on the RC client first instead of the regular client(the RC was the client I originall had the issues with. It went fine for about 5 minutes and then the instability occured again. My only problems occur on logging into SL. My theory is the regular client may work well with this card if I update the drivers. I usually use the alternate clients. The shadow client i believe is also have major issues with 8 series gtx cards isn't it?

I've had all day to mull over the issues however and I do offer up a few possibilities for those other people experiencing these same issues on this same graphics card. It looks like a couple of us are running XP pro. I have XP pro as well. I think it's a combination of things such as system and card with the RC client. So yes I blame the client but it's not a blind finger pointing. I have a hunch it depends on if someone's XP pro is up to date on updates, and if their driver has the later updates. Mixed with the RC client spells trouble and if someone is running the RC client without problems I wonder if they are on Vista or an up to date XP Pro.

Tomorrow or the next day, I'm going to systematically go through and make sure both Windows and Card are updated. Then run the regular client. If it messes up again. I get it stable again then try the RC client. If after...not sure. Maybe a full wipe of the system and start from scratch.

From what I've learnt in researching the downloads for the drivers for this card Nvidia makes a distinction between the 8800gtx for desktops and laptops. That got me thinking if it's a driver issue it may only be on desktops. If anyone can prove this theory wrong I would really appreciate it. I'm checking back and paying attention to all posts to try and get this thing solved methodically and nothing is out of line in terms of theory as far as I am concerned. I'll be the first to eat crow if it's indeed my graphics card dying but the typical symptoms aren't there right now. Either way, I'm a dog on a bone with this issue and once I solve the issue I'll post what happened.

-wanted to quickly add it sounds like my system is constantly corrupted in some way. This is false actually. It's only happened twice. Each time only after running the RC client. Once the drivers were reinstalled they returned to normal. I'm only on the secondary comp because I got tired of dealing with my computer and went out into RL. Back to the debug grind soon.

Oh my there are PC people/friends with same problems... as I have on my old Mac(

I have serious problems with my:

Modellnamn: Mac Pro
Modellidentifierare: MacPro1,1
Processornamn: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processorhastighet: 3 GHz
Antal processorer: 2
Totalt antal kärnor: 4
L2-cache (per processor): 4 MB
Minne: 4 GB
Busshastighet: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM-version: MP11.005C.B08
SMC-version: 1.7f10
Serienummer: CK649135UPZ

Styrkretsmodell: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Typ: Bildskärm
Buss: PCIe
Kortplats: Slot-1
PCIe-bandbredd: x16
VRAM (totalt): 512 MB
Tillverkare: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Enhets-ID: 0x0602
Revisions-ID: 0x00a2
ROM-revision: 3233
Bildskärmar:
Cinema HD:
Upplösning: 2560 x 1600
Djup: 32 bitars färg
Core Image: Maskinvaruaccelererad
Huvudbildskärm: Ja
Spegel: Av
Uppkopplad: Ja
Quartz Extreme: Stöds
Rotation: Stöds
Bildskärmskontakt:
Status: Ingen bildskärm ansluten

*****

The screen freeze, the screen get dropouts, the screen get mysterious effects.

And its same - in the normal viewer and the release version. No differance.

My comp gets slower and slower and then sudenly it dies on me or just stop working and it ONLY do this to me when I am using Second Life.

It has started the last week and have continued since this. Every day every second. It dosent matter if the comp are warm or newly started.

I always update by the Apple updater so all software are the latest.


Please help me I am getting sick by this, stressed, sad and furious.)

/Tina

if your video card has one of those boxed in fans (which a lot still do) they get clogged up with dust rather quickly

try removing it and blowing it out (outside)

Crow tastes like chicken btw.

I eventually got back into SL after having a graphics issue by replacing my graphics card.

I went from an evga Nvidia 8800 GTX 768mb to a PNY Nvidia 9600 GT 512mb.

Steps I took to help others to debug their card issues:
1) Reinstalled the driver. Unstable.
2) Rolled back the drivers. Unstable.
3) Cleaned the dust out of the fan on the card. hooked it up. Still artefacts and instability.
4) Hooked up a low end card. Graphics and stability immediately.
5) Installed the new card. Perfection.

It looks like my memory on the card was completely fecked up. How it got that way, I'll never be completely sure. Perhaps it was simply its time. My case has excellent air flow. I use the card heavily in multiple, load heavy apps. There isn't a huge deterioration in the graphics...as a matter of fact, going to this card gave me higher screen resolution, it's quieter, runs cooler, and gives me comparable graphics performance in gaming and game content creation.

The single thing that still bothers me is this, I had none of the normal signs it was going out. Is it a fallacy that there will be signs of a card going out? This is only the 2nd card I've had to replace rather than voluntarily upgrade. The first had all of the signs one would think would be normal. This second replacement snuck up on me.

The oddities only occurred after running the Second Life with the RC client. Could it have been a card that was on the way out anyways, and had some sort of strain put on it only when playing SL? I usually run the game in ultra.

It's really hard to swallow I suppose, because I was running intensive games and high poly work in Zbrush without incident. I can understand the theory that it's simply coincidence that this behavior occurred whilst playing SL. I like to understand things however and If I could understand what is it about SL that is such a drain on graphics cards I could extend the life perhaps of my new card.

What is it about SL that zaps resources and why would I only see defective behavior from my card playing this game. From this thread there seem to be a -lot- of people using the nvidia 8800 gtx and having issues. If that card is having issues running the current client, is the faulty behavior simply compounded by a card that is already having memory issues.

Why would a card develop memory issues to begin with. Is it possible because I had exclusively run the RC client, which can be buggy, I participated in straining the card.

I think the state of your card is important when running SL, and with a card that it doesn't like anyways, issues could range from mild instability issues with a healthy card to full on card crashing as my did due to it being on the way out regardless. Is this theory sound to explain the various extremes of user experiences using this card in game?

curious,
Baron

(btw, I also added an external uninterrupted power supply of about 750 watts to stabilise the voltage drops that might hurt my system. From what I have heard, voltage drops are harder on systems than cold shut downs. Not having this when I knew there were voltage drops may have hurt the card as well right?

Quickly addressing air flow, I have about 5 fans and a nice copper heat sink under the top airflow vent with a fan that also helps suck the rising hot air out. the entire front of the case is ventilated with fans. Same with the back. air over the entire graphics card and lots of room around the componants. Cool case. The only thing left to do if I want another fan, is custom cut the side of the case and install a fan to blow additional air over the card. Don't think it's necessary at this point.)

I'm glad you've got a working solution, Baron. If your card was in bad shape, physically, then it's certainly good that you replaced it, obviously. But I hate to have to tell you that the particular details of the solution you chose are somewhat unfortunate, for two reasons. Allow me to explain.

First, EVGA offers a lifetime warranty on the 8800 GTX. As long as you registered when you first bought it, like you were supposed to, you should be covered. Just call up EVGA and get an RMA number, so you can send it back to them, and they'll fix it or replace it for you. You'll find their customer service is excellent.

If you didn't register, though, then you might be out of luck on the lifetime replacement. Still, they might do something for you. They were kind enough to replace a motherboard for me once, even though I hadn't registered. The CSR simply registered it over the phone for me, and backdated it. I can't guarantee they'll do that for everyone every time, obviously, but it's certainly worth a shot.


Now, if for any reason they can't or won't help you on the warranty, then obviously it would be time to buy a new card, as you did. But that brings me to point number 2. Unfortunately, the model you chose for your replacement isn't anywhere near comparable to what you had. You replaced a top of the line high end card with a midrange one. In comparison with the 8800 GTX, the 9600 GT is a significant underperformer. Even though the 9600 GT has some higher clock speeds, it's only got half the stream processors, and 2/3 the memory bandwidth of the 8800 GTX, not to mention 2/3 of the physical memory amount. As a result, the 9600 GT benchmarks only about half as high, on average, as the 8800 GTX.

To stay comparable with the 8800 GTX, in the 9 series, you'd want at least a 9800 GT, preferably a GTX. A 9600 GT, I'm sorry to say, doesn't come anywhere close. Remember, with nVidia, it's generally the second digit that makes the biggest difference, not the first.


My first recommendation to you would be to seek a warranty replacement for your 8800, and to return that 9600 to wherever you got it from. But if warranty replacement is not an option, then considering the difference between a 9600 and a 9800 is all of about $30-40, I'd strongly suggest you at the very least exchange the 9600 for a 9800. It will be well worth it, either way.



As for what actually happened to your 8800, if you're sure it's physically damaged, then my guess is your theory is correct. It was probably on its way out anyway, and could no longer handle the strain SL was putting on it. We're both obviously just speculating, though. The real truth could be anything.

In any case, for whatever it's worth, I've had not one, but two 8800 GTX cards (also from EVGA, just like yours) in my main desktop for a couple of years now, and I've never had a problem with either one (knock on wood). A friend/colleague of mine has a similar setup, except his are from XFX. One of his did die, but XFX replaced it right away. Other than that, I don't know anyone who's ever had a problem with an 8800 GTX. As far as I know, it's one of the most rock solid designs nVidia ever put out.