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skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

I'm running a XFX 8800GT dual DVI on my workstation and I'm experiencing a few problems. On rare occasions I have blackouts on one or both monitors (with and without system freeze), sometimes at start up one monitor doesn't have the correct refresh rate (blurry), and sometimes one monitor doesn't get seen as digital. I'm curious if anyone has having similar problems. It may be the video card or the drivers, I don't know. I do know that it's not an overheating problem. This morning about two minutes after the computer started I have a full blackout and freeze. The temperature of the card is at 42C which is 58 degrees below overheating. Is anyone experiencing problems lately? I have the 169.12 driver installed, and it was happening before this release too.

Last edited by skottish (2008-03-26 21:16:00)

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

Maybe try the nvidia 171.06 driver.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

Thanks. I'll try this first. I've been reading some reports that the memory clock speed may be too high. If I have any more freezing, I'll try under clocking the memory.

--- EDIT ---

The updated driver does not solve the problem. On day three I experienced me first blackout. I'll try to under clock the video RAM next.

Last edited by skottish (2008-03-12 15:47:25)

Chaniyth

Member

Registered: 2008-03-10

Posts: 33

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

Maybe try the nvidia 171.06 driver.

What? Where are these at?

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

See nvidia announcements.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

This is as good as place as any to do this...

I cannot figure out how to under clock my card (I reverted the driver to the version in the repos). I've tried both nvclock and nvclock-cvs. When I hit the 'Change Speeds' button, the resulting .nvidia-settings-rc file has no indication of the changes, as well the gui resets itself. If I try to add the changes manually following all the ways listed in this thread:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=15474

either nvidia-settings breaks or it has no effect. What am I missing here?

Last edited by skottish (2008-03-13 01:25:44)

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

Clock speeds *aren't* written to ~/.nvidia-settings-rc - this is deliberate, in case unstable speeds are attempted.

Run nvclock_gtk or nvidia-settings, and change the speed. Exit the program then re-run it. Notice that the speed you changed it to is shown

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

It's not sticking no matter what I do. On the terminal that I launched nvclock_gtk on, the display shows the memory clock speed that I just set:

blaat: 801 0xb00050 1

801 MHz. Close the program, check with nvclock:

[skottish@iasE ~]$ nvclock -s
Card:         nVidia Geforce 8800GT
Card number:     1
Memory clock:     899.996 MHz
GPU clock:     601.712 MHz

I'm not sure what's happening here, but the settings are not taking.

[skottish@iasE ~]$ nvclock -m 800
Requested memory clock:     800.000 MHz
blaat: 800 0x620f20 1

Adjusted low-level clocks on a nVidia Geforce 8800GT
Memory clock:     899.996 MHz
GPU clock:     601.712 MHz

Last edited by skottish (2008-03-13 01:50:26)

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Possible nVidia 8800GT issues [SOLVED (I believe)]

Bump for more information...

I missed adding:

"Coolbits"   "1"

in the Device section of xorg.conf. I have control of the cards clocks now. I made the settings persistent by adding a desktop file entry with visible set to false. That part solved. Thanks a lot brebs for taking the time to help.

Onto the original problem. I read a few places that underclocking your card can create it's own set of problems. The original post that I read about doing it said that he went from 900MHz down to 800MHz with no problems. I'm trying 850MHz first. Does this seem like a safe value? What kind of problems may I expect if it isn't?

----EDIT----

If anyone is following this thread, dropping the memory clock to 850MHz did not work. I had my first blackout before the log in screen came up after two days of non-continuous operation. I'm dropping the clock to 800MHz, but I suspect it won't work. Being wrong would be great here.

----LAST EDIT----

Cool! I think I'm wrong. Dropping the hardware clock down to 800MHz seems to have solved this issue.

Last edited by skottish (2008-03-26 21:17:04)