GeForce 6800 and random freezes

[Noxis]

I did have a problem with random freezing mainly noticed in FarCry (very card stressful) and when attempting to bench in '03

Yes I know there have been several threads but no one has posted a concrete solution. This worked for me and ALOT of other people in the OCUK forum.

First of all I thought heat, then I thought power related. However after lots of testing and forum posts it turns out it was Fast Writes being enabled causing it. I cant take credit but it definitly fixed the problem.

Interestingly disabling it in bios did not disable it in windows and I had to disable it using RivaTuner.

Also instersetingly for people not experiancing this, disabling Fast Writes appears to allow higher overclocks for people using all types of 6800s.

This appears to be a problem specifically on the nforce3 150/250/Pro/non-pro chipset ironically (as far as we know).

The problem has been posted by people in various places but its never been categorically fixed to my knowledge anyway (I did lots of googling believe me!). So I felt it best to post as a FYI for people.



Updated on 3/20/2005 by MikeC:

I put together a new system back in January, which consists of an AMD Athlon 64 4000+, MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum Motherboard (nForce 3 Ultra), and two 512MB sticks of Corsair DDR400 dual-channel memory.

Most of my gaming of late has been in single-player mode, but this weekend I had the urge to fire up my favorite multi-player game - Enemy Territory. Unfortunately, I have spent most of that time investigating an annoying system "freeze" that occurs while playing on PunkBuster enabled servers (http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php). The system even "freezes" for a split second when PunkBuster is enabled during ET's player profile creation process.

I didn't experience this problem during a preview of the GeForce 6800 Ultra (http://www.nvnews.net/previews/geforce_6800_ultra/page_2.shtml) on a similar system last April. I have tested the GeForce 6800 Ultra and Radeon X800 XT PE in the new system and the problem occurs with both graphics cards. There are a number of items left to troubleshoot, but so far the only way I have been able to avoid the problem is to play on servers that do not require Punkbuster.

The main reason I am mentioning this is because of the growing number of reports of random lockups and freezes with GeForce 6 Series graphics cards. If you are experiencing similar problems during on-line gameplay, be sure to check out "Punkbuster, ATI and Nvidia: Freezing in your online FPS favorites?" (http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reports/pbfreeze/index.html) over at Neoseeker. Then head over and contribute in this massive thread at HardwareForum (http://www.hardwareforum.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=120&page=1&pp=20).

System Specs:


AMD Athlon 64 4000+ Processor
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum Motherboard (nForce 3 Ultra)
Corsair TWINX1024-3200LLPRO - (2) 512MB DIMMs - 1GB Total
Antec 550W TruePower Power Supply
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
ATI Radeon X800 XT PE
Creative Sound Blaster Driver v1. 84. 55
NVIDIA nForce Unified Driver v5.10 (Ethernet v4.42, GART v4.36, SMBus v4.04, NVIDIA IDE v4.46)
NVIDIA ForceWare Graphics Driver v71.84
ATI CATALYST Graphics Driver v5.3
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 & DirectX 9.0c

[Vagrant Zero]

For me, it only freezes when OCed...and even then it's about a minute into a level...happens once per level. I find it to be acceptable, and that's just Far Cry and 2003. Everything else works like a charm. Small price to pay for a 430/1150 OC.

[Noxis]

For me, it only freezes when OCed...and even then it's about a minute into a level...happens once per level. I find it to be acceptable, and that's just Far Cry and 2003. Everything else works like a charm. Small price to pay for a 430/1150 OC.

Seriously try disabling FW it may solve that problem for you, also people are reporting that setting the 2D and 3D overclocks the same can solve freezing issues when OCed to higher speeds.

[cam9786]

Strange, when I go into the AGP part of Rivatuner, it's all grayed out? ANy helpe here, I want in on this!

EDIT: Nevermind, you MUST disable it from the bios on non intel based motherboard systems. As for my OC, I got a bit higher, thanks man!

[Odral]

I was still having problems with Far Cry, can't wait to go home and try this thanks!

[cam9786]

Man, it worked great the first time after disabling the FW, then i restarted and it froze again, and FW's were off. I dunno, I really want this solved man.

[cam9786]

Nevermind, I Fixed it. Never have your 2d and 3d clocks the exact same. It froze mine up and got all weird. I am just gonna use default clocks of 400/1100 with FW turned off. Best way to go.

[EngenZerO]

I am using a MSi K8N Neo (250GB) and a BFG 6800 Ultra OC (450/1.2) with fastwrites on. I have no problems what so ever with FarCry or 3DMark03. I dunno...

[Noxis]

I am using a MSi K8N Neo (250GB) and a BFG 6800 Ultra OC (450/1.2) with fastwrites on. I have no problems what so ever with FarCry or 3DMark03. I dunno...

Not everyone is having problems but I posted it because I saw some people were and I definitly was. Glad its helped.

[Noxis]

Can this be made sticky? So many people asking the same thing.....

[YOGIx213]

Nevermind, I Fixed it. Never have your 2d and 3d clocks the exact same. It froze mine up and got all weird. I am just gonna use default clocks of 400/1100 with FW turned off. Best way to go.

That's funny... I had the exact same problem and what worked for me was to have both 2D and 3D clocks the same. After that, my game freeze problems dissappeared. I guess if you're having problems, just try having the 2D and 3D same then try them different. These cards seem to have a life of their own. :)

[cam9786]

hah, yeah they do. Well, I DID get higher OC's after FW's were turned off, like alot higher. Before I was getting at the highest like 409/1.08. Now I can get it to 420/1150!. Fastwrites blow, I hate them. They cause too many freeing problems.

[skypx]

That's funny... I had the exact same problem and what worked for me was to have both 2D and 3D clocks the same. After that, my game freeze problems dissappeared. I guess if you're having problems, just try having the 2D and 3D same then try them different. These cards seem to have a life of their own. :)

I set my 2d and 3d clocks the same freq, and so far I have no lockups in far cry and the rthdribl demo. This is too weird. I will do further testing and report back. :clap:

[Mathesar]

Is all this trouble really worth it? How much more performance are you getting out of these OC's... And if you think Far Cry is stressful wait til Doom 3 arrives =)

[npras42]

Could somone explain to me what FastWrites are. I know how to switch them on and off etc etc, but what do they do? If its a performance gain, then when switching it off and overclocking are you getting greater performance from the overclock or the FastWrites?

I could do the testing myself, but I spend way too much of my time doing this stuff already. Trying to cut down. Its like an addiction! :)

[Raptorman]

FastWrites is suppose to let your video card write faster to the CPU. Supposedly eliminating some of the bandwidth limitation. Though fastwrites only gives about a .8% increase in performance in most cases. FastWrites is also known to cause many irritating problems.

[kahloq]

Rivatuner wont let me change anything. It lists FW as off so no big deal, but through Rivatuner, I cant even change clock or mem settings. So I stick with coolbits2

[Cruel_Logic]

Im sure many of you have seen me post about this before, but I am convinced it's the overheating of the RAM on your v/c, not the core. I voided my warrranty and replaced the hs on my ram, and I have not seen any problems since, even running overclocked. Don't know if this will be everyones solution but it definitly worked for me. Remember, I just changed the weird putty I had on the ram.

[Raptorman]

Rivatuner wont let me change anything. It lists FW as off so no big deal, but through Rivatuner, I cant even change clock or mem settings. So I stick with coolbits2

You should be able to turn FastWrites on and off in the "Low-Level" settings, and the clock rates in the "driver level" settings.

[No_Sleep_Needed]

Where do you turn it off in rivatuner? i am having trouble finding it...

[Killall]

Fastwrites is greyed out in rivatuner, even disabled danger settings.. But in the greyed out part it says its disabled anyway... going to try setting 2d same as 3d.. Im having lockups as soon as i try to OC my XFX 6800 Ultra in Farcry after 5 min or so... :retard:

Ok tried syncing the 2d and 3d OC, doesnt help. If i choose auto detect optimal frequency it defaults to the standard frequency setting of my videocard wich is weird since its clocked at 425/1.2 default. So its overclocked alrdy so why can't i go any higher and why doesn't the autodetect frequency setting find another setting that it likes.. Can't be a coincidence that 425/1.2 is the max it detects AND is the default setting of the card?

[Annihlist]

I get no lockups in any other game, or no artifacts apart from painkiller at 441/1200. I play farcry to 3 hours strait and nothing happens. I load a level in painkiller and the second it loads it locks up. Bah. I have tried lowering clocks and it doesn't make a diff. When I play at stock it doesn't lock up. FW are off

[Raptorman]

A lot of my issues were fixed by switching to the 61.34 drivers. No more lock-ups in anything. The only problem remaining is the Join Ops sound issue.

[Carbon Unit]

I dont have the fast writes option in my bios, and I have never had any games freeze, seems its a particular board problem?

[Annihlist]

Ya occationally I get a little bit of a sound glitch or something in Far Cry even with stock speeds