6600GT black screen / Restart

[locster]

Hi,

I get a black screen from time to time with my 6600GT..the screen goes black for 1 sec and goes back to normal this happens if the computer is idle, im surfing the web or doing graphics etc..somtimes it happens 5times in 1hour and other times its just happens once every hour..the real problem comes when I start playin games that some games just crash back to the desktop without an error or I get a black screen n my computer just restarts..I wonder how to fix this as its annoying having the black screen because once in a while the screen turns black and even im just surfing the web or just listing to music the screen stays black! the monitor LED goes orange n thats it..gotta reboot..that happens rarely but it happens so its annyoing..i tried several different drivers but its will all the drivers the same..my idle temp is around 60c and when playin for a few hours bf2 (when it doesnt act up n turn black) then I have around 80 - 83c but not more and it says in the nvidia cpanel that only from 145c the grahpic card will clock down to save itself from overheating..also I feel that my graphic card doesnt perform as good in games as it should in GTA SA on 1024x768 with everything on high 3AA and distance on LOW i get around 30 in the city n often drops to 22 fps the same with battlefield its ok sometimes but sometimes it drops to a bit under 25 on everything high but with 2AA on..

my system.

XP sempron 1450ghz @ 1950ghz
1GB Ram DDR
Gainward 6600GT 128mb
160GB hdd

[TylerNZ]

Wow, I am having this exact issue with my XFX GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E! PLEASE let me know if you find a solution. I contacted XFX and they were stumped ... so they listed a whole bunch of forums! hmmm ... if I can't find a fix in the next week or so, it'll be sent back for a replacement!

[locster]

alright I just reformated my windows n installed everything new but that didnt help I still get my drops on certain areas on GTA to 20fps with 2AA on very high n 1024x768 and the screen still goes black once in a while..im really frustrated now as I thought a fresh clean win xp installation would solve this but it didnt..im thinkin about going back to the place where I bought the card 3weeks ago n tell them to give me another one..but until then im going to try around a bit more if i find a solution somehow/where i will let u know!

[macatak]

Have you tried reseating the card in the AGP/PCI-e slot ?

[sharangad]

Are you connecting through a DVI to VGA convertor? If you are is the convertor loose or not straight?

[Smokey]

Im taking a guess here, but I would suggest looking at your PSU, sounds like there maybe some fluctuations in the voltages.

[locster]

hi i havent tried reseating the agp slot but i will give it a try now..yes im connectin through a dvi to vga converter and it is tight..just speakin about it after formating my pc again I was doing nothing at the computer (just desktop) and it turned black once every hour let say but then it turned total black and the LED light went orange on the monitor and the pc rebooted automatically..I deactivated automatic reboot now so I get a bluescreen next time so I atleast see why it was rebooting..anyways after the reboot I get a similar popup as the "send error report" from windows but it says windows is started again after a SERIOUS error. or something I had to translate the error message so I hope u understand what i mean so I didnt make it to the shop to return the card today so I give it a shot n reseating the card..my psu has 400w n it says 12v / 16a max...I was reading in another forum and it should be atleast 13a or something to run the card so I shouldnt have a problem..how do i figure out about the fluctuations???

[locster]

ok I tried reseating the card and even connected the dvi to vga converter in the other dvi slot and made sure its properly done but the problem still occurs..Im not sure but as I can remember the problem got worse with newer drivers..im not sure but there were times when i played bf2 and it just crashed all the time n it turned black alot (the monitor in idle or while surfing) so I switched back to the 77.77 drivers which came with my card and that seemed to have reduced the problem..but that was 3weeks ago when i did this so Im not sure if it was better or the same my "feeling" tells me the black screens are reduced lol..well I hope theres anybody here with similar problems or whatever i would be thankfull for every suggestion on how to fix this!

[locster]

@ TylerNZ

what monitor do u use? Are u using a crt or tft? what brand? Im running the card on a miro fp156 tft n I just tested my sisters CRT monitor n so far I didnt had any "blackouts"..but then again this blackouts just come whenever they want lol..I tried playing gta SA on 1280x1024 on my sisters CRT with high details n 2 AA but then it drops to like 20fps in most places..I also put in another PSU but with the tft its still giving me black screens..now I wait to see if there the same problems with the crt!

[Smokey]

The reason I got thinking about the PSU, is because yesterday I starting reading up on which PSU to upgrade to as Im going to order a second 7800GT next week . Currently Im using a el chepo Q-Tec 550W, but what it states and what it is are two different things. Although it has served me well over the last couple of years, I know it will not be enough for SLi, and maybe holding me back on my overclocking of my cpu.

Before my upgrade I had a Barton 2500+ @ 3000+ with a 5900XT, and I too had a couple black screens, but I didnt bother looking as to why as it may have only happened less than say 10 x over a few weeks, and only when I was away from my pc.

I found some interesting reading on PSUs over at the overclockers.co.uk forums (www.overclockers.co.uk)
Im not saying it is your PSU, but it would be worth looking into.

[locster]

The reason I got thinking about the PSU, is because yesterday I starting reading up on which PSU to upgrade to as Im going to order a second 7800GT next week . Currently Im using a el chepo Q-Tec 550W, but what it states and what it is are two different things. Although it has served me well over the last couple of years, I know it will not be enough for SLi, and maybe holding me back on my overclocking of my cpu.

Before my upgrade I had a Barton 2500+ @ 3000+ with a 5900XT, and I too had a couple black screens, but I didnt bother looking as to why as it may have only happened less than say 10 x over a few weeks, and only when I was away from my pc.

I found some interesting reading on PSUs over at the overclockers.co.uk forums (www.overclockers.co.uk)
Im not saying it is your PSU, but it would be worth looking into.


hi thanks for the link I will look at the link n read about the PSU..i mean right now I got my sisters PSU in my pc its also 400watt but atleast I can be sure that its not my PSU because with the tft it still gave me blackscreens..right now im using my sisters crt monitor and so far no blackscreens and ive been using it now since 2hours..i played GTA the whole time n run at 1600x1200 with 3AA but therfor details on low and it runs more or less ok..i dont see no different between low n very high details whatsoever it just kills my pc somehow lol.so 2hours success with the crt lets hope it stays that way then I gotta consider trading my tft with my sisters crt and since the tft only supports 1024x768 n 75hz n this screen up to 1600x1200 at 100hz I prefer it eventho its massive lol..I came on the idea because at my last blackout with my tft as the screen went of for 1 second it came back on with "automatic screen adjusting" so it looked like the tft just goes blank because its adjusting the screen new all the time..I found another post on some board where a guy was talkin about his tft screen going blank sometimes with the 6600gt so maybe but just maybe that guy has the same screen as me n its just the tft (miro fp156) which is causing the problems.. @ TylerNZ if u have a tft but u have somewhere a spare crt then try it but I keep u updated i let it run now for a few hours if its not turning black then we know where the problem was!

[locster]

:mad: well the blackouts seemed to have gone but just the once where the screen turns black for 1 sec..with the crt monitor I had now 3 total blackouts (only reboot helped)...I doubt its the PSU eventho I used a different one but wouldnt the graphiccard mess up then by playin games etc.. when its using its 3d modus @ 500mhz but those crashes mostly happen when its either idle oder im surfing the web so its at 2d modus @ 300 mhz so power wise it shouldt mess up when its using less power but it should mess up when its using more power..I think somethings wrong with the card and not with my PC since it worked perfect before the upgrade..i should have maybe sticked to ATI since my two previous cards where ATI n never had problems but tomorrow Ill return the card n hopefully I can exchange it then and there and then i think about takin the same card again or takin an ATI

[Smokey]

Welcome to the joys of pcs :)
Just FYI, Im using a crt, and I havent had any blackouts since my upgrade :p
Im guessing because, 1 - the A64 uses less power than my previous Varton, and 2 - this 7800 may use less power than my previous 5900XT (not 100% sure on this). Also my blackouts only happend when my pc was idle also, hense taking a guess that our problems maybe the same. Im taking a guess that my problem was due to the PSU, never looked into it though as I dont have any quality PSUs just laying around :) but I am defently upgrading my PSU when I go SLi as I dont want to take any chances. Are both PSUs you have tried no name? Do you know anyone that has a good quality PSU that you can try? I wouldnt want you to go and buy a new PSU only to find out that it wasnt the problem. The reason that Im thinking that it isnt your card, is that I havent read many people having this problem, and with the amount of nvidia cards sold, you would think that if it was that card, you would see more people posting about it.

Trouble shooting pcs can be a pain at times, one time I thought I killed my Barton 2500+, left it out of my pc for a couple of months, put it back in and it worked! Sometimes it can be as simple as a bios setting, like wake-up on LAN being enabled etc. Have you tried the card itself in a different pc yet? I would do that before sending it back.

Also, just noticed that you are overclocking, try running everything at stock just to see if it helps, as usually when OC'ng the cpu we raise the voltage, but not so when OC'ng the videocard, unless you flash the cards bios.

[locster]

yea I just set my bios back to default so its not overclocked now..the problem is I can just test parts of my sisters computer since I gave it to her a while back but where im from my friends etc.. dont have computers they just hang out in the streets rather then be on the PC so its always hard for me to test other things as in gettin a mainboard, ram, cpus , graphicards and so on Im using PCs since 5yrs and whenever i had a problem the only way find out what was causing the problem was to save money n buy a new mainboard lets say..oh have a small doubt in me about the grahpic card jsut because of what u said above i had a similar thought but I just cant explain it to myself that ever since 3weeks ago I had money to get a new graphiccard that my computer messes up I just have to blame the graphiccard lol..but I run the cpu now at 166FSb (1500mhz) and the RAM at 200mhz eventho its better to run both same speed but just to make sure everything is at default settings..the problem is this that I just can see it that nothing happens e.g. no blackouts and jsut when its time when the shop closes (where i want to return the card) the blackout comes..it was like that today aswell..i thought ok it runs fine like that but then it was 8pm the shops closed and 1 hour later i get a blackout lol..so I just wanna give it back tomorrow but I was readin of a similar problem somewhere a guy had with a 6600GT n he returned it n same thing happend again..then he bought a new PSU..same thing happend again n then he bought an ATI n same thing happend lol..so he said he is going to buy a new mainboard...so Im frustrated lol because if i give the card back n the new one acts up aswell it means to buy a new mainboard..and that said I would need to buy a 64bit board because its pointless buyin a non 64bit board because sooner or later i need it anyways for a better CPU..so that in mind im frustrated already because it takes me like 6months to save up money for a new board and then I would need a new cpu aswell since i just got a 32bit sempron..oh well I will give it a few hours testing running some benchmarks now n this n that n tomorrow I just follow my gut feeling n either return it or not..lets see I keep u guys informed tho!

thanks for the help !

[leekirlew]

I had 2 9800pros that died whilst idling over night, I didnt believe it was the cards as I would expect them to have died whilst under load, as stated earlier, welcome to PCs! I would try a board and if it still blacks out "take it back and say you bought it for someone for xmas and they've already got it or something like that" then return your card, if it works keep the board, have you tried a mainboard bios flash?

[locster]

yep the board is flashed to the latest version.. I returned the card today in the shop..there was a broken corner on of those black things (dont know the english word for it) n I just noticed it today after lookin at it properly in the shop the guy said normally he cant take it back then since it has a piece broken off but he returned it anyways but I noticed now that black thing where a corner was broken off the card I got now that black thing has a few scratches on also u can see the card has been "used" because the golden stripes for the AGP slot show marks..Im thinkin that the shop might bought the cards from the manufactur directly but those cards where "used" cards which have been returned but tested n they worked..thats the only way i can explain it to myself..but either way I just could exchange it so lets see if it works..i was talkin with him about it n he said he cant imagine its the graphic card but n my feelings tell me it really isnt but I just blame it right now since its the only part I upgraded lately so I can atleast make sure that the graphic card is ok if the blackouts still occur then its most likely the motherboard or the PSU (eventho I tried 2 different ones)..rams i tested the other day with memtest86 n they were fine..ok lets what happens if it still has blackouts then it wasnt the card n I can start saving money for a new mainboard n CPU... @ leekirlew u know what ever happend to the computer shop? they seemed to have closed down all their shops in the UK over night? I used to shop there but now I just go to maplin..Im going back to london in january so im going to send my PC over there via mail so by the time I arrive my PC arrives there aswell but thank god I have and old crt in london otherwise I would have to send my crt via mail n that would be too expensive lol..

[locster]

ok so far no blackouts but Im not sure if thats because of the new graphiccard or just simply because im running my CPU / RAM at stock speed...thinkin about it that running my PC at stock speed might give me more power for my graphiccard and so it doesnt blackout or crash..im gonna let it run now for a couple of days with stock speeds n then i overclock it back to where they were before and if its gonna crash then I either need a new PSU or maybe the motherboard is not "strong" enough for the card + the overclocked CPU / RAM at once..just sucks because now I run at 1500mhz again so I lose alot of performance while gaming..