So, here's the short story:
- My Inno3d GeForce 8800 GTS 320mb just died on me. Reason being a known defect in the GPU chip.
Long story:
I had just signed up for the Holodeck as i wanted to take advantage of the weekend event offer. So, after downloading the entire 11gb !? patch, i logged in. First thing i see is a warning message that my gfx drivers are too old and graphics might be reduced.
So... i think to myself, "weird, i'm certain i'm using the latest drivers!?" A quick view of my driver info combined with a visit to nVidias driver download page confirmed this.
Still the driver problem message with STO annoyed the he** out of me so i started looking for the nVidia BETA drivers. Downloaded version 197.13, installed it, rebooted and started up STO again.
The annoying driver message was gone !! Success !! ........ .......... ........ well the success was very short lived. The moment i had selected my character at login, without warning, the computer reboots !?
I quickly start Speedfan to check my internal computer temps and they all register normally. Just to be on the safe side, i revert back to the 196.21 drivers. But from here on, all hell breaks loose.
First portion of the install goes well. The computer prompts to be rebooted and it does. Then after reboot, the windows hardware guide kicks in and tells me "new hardware has been detected" wtf i think. It's my gfx card... weird... well i can just select the driver manually and install that so i did. Then AFTER that is done and it asks to be rebooted yet again, the nVidia driver installation guide starts up !? And starts to install the gfx drivers... again... now at this point, i've already selected to reboot the computer so it's in the progress of shutting down. It continues to install the drivers though, albeit much much slower than usual.
After it finishes, the computer reboots normally. I start up Speedfan for monitoring and STO. Now after i've reached the login screen, i ALT+TAB to desktop to check on Speedfan... my screen turns blue... not BSOD blue, just pulsating blue... holy sh*t i think. I cut the power and restart the computer....
Now during start up, there are vertical stripes on the monitor, weird characters (artifacts) all over the screen and my system refuses to load windows other than Safe Mode.
I'm f*cked !
I've placed an order for a new rig to arrive in 3 days...
Comments
I'm using an EVGA 8800GT, 512MB card. I run 100% GPU fan speed whenever I play any game, and I haven't had one problem. You could have a bad card, as you never know how it will perform under X conditions.
I'm hoping your manu of the card sends you a brand new one,or even an upgraded model though. Just don't do something drastic like get a whole new rig, unless you were planning on it. Even then, try to RMA the old card and get that old system running again.
I just noticed you said you signed up for the Holodeck for the weekend event.. Thats Tribble, the test server, not the Holodeck and when you first log on to the test server all graphical options are set to default until you change them. Holodeck is the normal live server, and there isn't any weekend event there. Try running STO in safe-mode when on the Tribble Server, and then set your graphical options to normal...after downgrading to the 190.62 Nvidia drivers.
The card is around 3 years old. I bought it mid 2007. I've asked the retailer if there is any extended factory guarantee on the card.
EDIT.
haha I did of course mean that i signed up for the Tribble event
Oh and i had kinda planned to get a new rig in the not so distant future so it's not that drastic. It's just frustrating since i had plans for that rig.
Any idea what the key symptoms are that would tell me if the chip itself is fried or if something's fnarged my drivers?
Stuff I know:
- Was playing two days ago when game hung and sound started looping like crazy.
- Vulcan Death Grip (CTRL-ALT-DEL) didn't do anything, so hardbooted it.
- Everything fine on startup and Vista load, booted game.
- 10 mins in, same thing occurs. Hard boot again.
- This time, Vista has some odd visual artefacts on main screen load...
- And after about two minutes, hangs briefly. Tells me nvlddmkdm.sys crashed but recovered.
- 15 seconds later, machine BSODs.
- I can still boot in Safe Mode, with a fair few screen artefacts (blue lines behind boot logo etc)
- Trying a normal boot results in BSOD (STOP 0x0000007F)
- Tried the Vaio approved method for replacing the video drivers, but not with an actual driver cleaner.
Any ideas?