Video card cuts out

[jasper]

While playing Black Shark 2.1.1.1 suddenly the sky went all purple (No I wasn't using any 'medication') then the shvalk turned grey. Then my screen went black and the monitor reported that there was no signal from the video card.

It stayed like this (tried Alt-TAB etc. you try even though you know better). So I had no choice but to shutdown by holding power button. After that PC wouldn't start, BIOS booted up but when message 'Windows is Starting' with animated flying balls (or whatever) should come up it just rebooted. Oh oh I was distressed. So I totally unplugged it left it for 10 minutes and tried again. It then booted fine. All is working.

 

I have a GTX580 card (1.5Gig) with latest driver. I was using the shvalk a lot panning around like an idiot. Now my guess was this was a cut out due to overheating. But then another guy on this forum reports something similar saying the driver crashed. I have noticed the temperature of my GPU going up to 89C when using the shvalk (this is when I force my PCI fan to go 80%). Games like Skyrim (yeah sucky) and Grand Theft Auto IV don't do this so much. Anybody with similar issue? Is this a known thing?

[EtherealN]

This does unfortunately sound like a hardware problem.

[Slayer]

It almost sounds like a heat issue. My 480's run at about 89C when playing so that sounds about right. Could be your card is getting full of dust or your power supply is maxed out and not able to provide enough power for the GPU in which case it crashes or gives you a TDR ( The display driver has stopped responding and recovered)

 

How big is your PSU? the 580 consumes about 244 watts when it's running at load.

 

Also a word of warning about beta drivers. One time I installed a beta and one of my 8800GTX's burnt...because it was a beta and the driver didn't properly work with the fan control chip on my card. WHen using betas you should always monitor GPU temps and/or fan speed with MSI Afterburner or evga precision.

[jasper]

Thanks, for the replies guys! I think it was overheating. The pci fan wasn't kicking in (it responds to an ambient sensor which is steady on 23C while my GPU goes above 90C. I can now reproduce it heating up. If I selected the free flight mission and then switch (with F2 press two or three times) to the external view of the big helicopter that looks like a passenger plane. And have the view right above the rotor (zoomed in so the blades fill the entire screen) then slowly but surely it starts to heat up. I'm interested to see if others see their cards maxing out in that case. (i've used GPU-Z to show speeds and temperature). Now with the pci fan at 60% it seems to be maxing at 91 degrees which is still below GTX580 max of 97C. Maybe this will be of use to somebody else with a similar problem. Still partly entertaining the fact that it might have been a driver crash which required the card's cmos to clear for it to be able to start again.

 

Note: I found an app called RealTemp which can give an alarm when your GPU hits a certain temperature. Sort of assuring I've got that running with 93C set as alarm. Max according to NVIDIA is 97C.

Edited May 15, 2012 by jasper

[Slayer]

Just kind of curious what FPS you get in game( hit rtcontrol + pause). If your VSYNC isn't turned on you are probably pushing 120 FPS. I recommend to turn it on and limit your FPS to 60 which will in turn reducce your GPU temps. External views in DCS run at really high framerates, but in cockpit view not so much.

[jasper]

Thanks for the reply again Slayer (does your name have anything to do with the band?). I looked at the fps while everything on HIGH and trees to 10,000m

It started around 40 while flying over through the town more like 30. Then I shot about 10 cars in city with cannon and flew through smoke, frame rate dropped to 20fps. Flying over some landscape it was 48 at some point. But here's the thing. I put everything on MEDIUM and effects off. Trees to 2000m (I didn't look at the fps then) but the temperature thing still happens, doesn't make a difference for that. I've also noticed that it really spikes when I crash my copter and it ends up grinding on the ground, for some reason this brings up the temp. I hit 92C today which is 1 under my alarm temp of 93C. I'm still not happy, why can't the thing just slow down or something instead of burning my card out.:mad:

[jimcarrel]

Might try rolling back to earlier drivers. I've had driver versions that do that. Rolling back to a different version usually worked.

[jasper]

Roll back the driver? hmm I might try that. I've figured out what makes the temp go up when I crash my helicopter. If I leave my copter spinning in the sand (no landing gear) and a lot of dust blows up that really stresses the gpu, that's when it hit 92C. When I spin it on the ground where there was no dust, the temp dropped to 70C. The GPU utilization during dust was 99% (reported by afterburner). Maybe if I turn MSAA down I have it on 8x...Thanks for all the replies. This is a great game. I used to play Jane's Longbow almost 20 years ago :cry:

[jasper]

Well, if you're still reading. Did some more tests. And I would really like somebody else to try this. BE CAREFULL IN MY CASE IT CAUSE A THERMAL CUT OUT ON MY GTX580. Make sure in options you have MSAA on (I'm pretty sure you need some antialiasing for this to 'work'). Bring you're copter down to the ground like for a landing but without the landing gear. You're goal is to generate as much dust cloud as you can. Now hear you gpu fan go wild. I would really appreciate it if somebody gave this a try. MIND YOUR TEMP WHEN YOU DO THIS!!! (I'm thinking of submitting this as a bug because I've done all the GPU burn test from afterburner and although they also in some cases utilize the gpu 100% my card does not shoot up in temp. (it literaly shoots up from say 84C to thermal cut out (I'm guessing 97C)).

Edited May 16, 2012 by jasper

[jasper]

Well, for those following because they have a similar problem: Today (the computer was off over night) I have been testing again and I cannot replay the heating issue by kicking up a lot of dust with my coptor like I could yesterday. I really tried but nothing happend today?! While doing normal stuff my temperature is around 70C. All I can guess is that yesterday some of my setting changes to my card (via NVIDIA control panel) and via the black shark options weren't actuallly used (I didn't restart black shark). Anyway for the settings if your interested: In NVIDIA control panel - 3d settings for Black Shark I have:

 

Antialiasing-mode=override application setting

Antialiasing-setting=8x

Antialiasing-transparency=off

Triple buffering=on

Vertical Sync=Force on

 

My black shark options:

Resolution=1920x1200

Everything on HIGH, tree distance 10,000m, clutter at 10m

Heat Blur=on

MSAA=off

Res. of Cockpit display=512

HDR=off

Shadow Tree=off

Vscyn=on

Fullscreen=off

Cockpit shadows=on

TSSAA=off

 

Hope this is useful to somebody. Cheers :thumbup:

[Slayer]

bad driver

 

How ironic that after I reply to your thread I have the very same issue a day later...

 

Last night both my 480gtx hit 102c using this driver. It's as if the fans quit working. Afterburner said it was at 95 % fan but it was not they were only running at 50% after I quickly exited the gAme and restarted my pc the fans were working normally again. You could hear the fans instantly speed up after the restart. This Is the first time its happened after using this driver for weeks but it almost burnt out my cards ...

[jasper]

Wow, that's crazy. How did you figure out that Afterburner was showing the wrong fan speed?

[Slayer]

Wow, that's crazy. How did you figure out that Afterburner was showing the wrong fan speed?

I had my headphones on and my GF walked up and said" Your computer sounds funny" I looked down at my logitech keyboard and saw the high temps and fan speed on the LCD. Took off my headphones and could hardly hear the GPU fans at all. Hit the power button immediately.

[jasper]

Grrr, I thought I had it sussed. NO! I Landed on a carrier, was all fine than I taxied passed the control tower on my right. I look right to look at the tower FPS go way up very fast from about 30 to 60 in a split second temperature rises very quickly, stopped the game at 94C gpu temp.

[jasper]

Well, here again for those following with similar problem. Played in the morning with pci fan on 60% couldn't get the thing to overheat again (with landing on carrier and looking at carrier deck/tower), played a good bit tonight and practiced about 15 carrier landings (didn't go above 83C). I figured the rapid overheat was some other problem but I'm pretty convinced now that it was just because my fans weren't blowing fast enough. (As probably would be obvious to anybody else...:music_whistling:). So I hope I won't be here again later complaining that it overheated again...conclusion: there should be plenty of airflow in your case, if you can control your separate (not gpu fans) like I can just turn 'm up before you start the game. (I'm starting to love this game by the way)

 

Note: Nearly forgot, I've also capped my fps at 32 (doesn't bother me) via the 'graphics.cnf' there's a setting 'MaxFps' I think, it's set to 120 by default. The file is in your black-shark 2 installation directory under config I think (you can look it up on google, where it is exactly).

Edited May 17, 2012 by jasper

[71st_Mastiff]

one word fire Msi afterburner and get precision X

I had the same problem's with Msi. fried 2 gtx 465, and gtx 580,

luckily I RMA'ed them. MSI's fan control is broken

they just ain't telling any one.

been using precisionX and no problem.