- May 30, 2014
- 13
- 0
- 4,520
Hi Guys
I just thought I would post this, as it might help somebody in the future. I have been having some strange graphic related problems with my rig the past week. I'm using a Palit GTX 770 4GB.
The problem has been sorted out, details provided below.
I have been in contact with one of the support guys from the shop where I purchased the card. I will copy and paste our conversation (Because lazy):
ME: "Hi guys
I was hoping you could help me with the warranty details on an item that I bought from you around two months ago. It was a Palit Jetstream GTX770 4GB graphics card. I just want someone to have a look at the card, as I think there might be something that went wrong. The situation:
The card was working perfectly, then without warning or any changes in any other hardware or software, the Ambient Occlusion and Anti-Aliasing features started behaving strangely and presented with some minor framerate issues as well as pixelation & shadow flickering in all of my games (none of which had these problems before). What I have done to try and resolve the problem:
I have uninstalled and clean re-installed the drivers (Both 337.88 & 340.52) a few times, using DDU to sweep the registry as well.
I have also now reinstalled Windows 7.
I have taken out the card and made sure it was clean of dust and re-seated properly.
I have checked the card on another screen using different adapter ports on the card, problem remains the same.
I have updated DirectX and Windows VC redistributables.
I have updated my Motherboard's bios.
Could you please advise me as to what we need to do from here, as well as an indication of the time frame you expect if we do send the card back for testing. I would really appreciate it if I don't have to be card-less for long. Thank you"
SUPPORT TECH: "Since the card was running fine, my first thought is probably heat or power related issues.
1. Does the graphics card run unusually hot? Does your case provide enough airflow to keep it cool, since as you noticed we are moving into summertime now? Heat can cause these kind of issues.
2. Are you sure the card is getting enough good clean power? What PSU are you using? What is the AMP output on the 12V rails? PSUs output tend to degrade over time. Also the hotter it gets the less efficient it gets, and if your PSU was already on its limits all kinds of weird issues will result.
3. Have you installed the GPU in a friend’s PC to see if the problem is not perhaps caused by your motherboard/RAM?
4. Have you tried a different physical DVI/HDMI cable? Bad cables can really mess around and cause pixilation and whatnot.
5. Is this problem readily apparent? Meaning is the issue very obvious? If it is not obvious testing could take a long time and might not even occur on our side.
6. Does it happen all the time or just some of time? If the issue is very intermittent it could really complicate testing on our side
7. When you say all your games, which specific games are displaying these issues?
Testing on our test rigs and our supplier side could take several weeks.
We can test it, but if we cannot verify the issue on our test rigs, then we will have to send it back to you. If we can indeed verify the problem then we can send the card in to supplier for RMA.
The supplier will then also test it, but they are generally a lot less thorough than us. Meaning they test the card for a few hours and if the problems does not occur and is not obvious they will just send it back to us with No Fault found."
ME: "Thanks for the speedy and detailed reply.
My setup:
Asrock Z87m Extreme 4 motherboard
i5 4670 3.4 GHz
Corsair Vengeange 8GB Ram 9.9.9.24
900W Huntkey PSU
Palit GTX 770 4Gb
Gigabyte GTX 560 (dedicated PhysX)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit installed on 64GB SSD
2TB WD Black HDD
340GB Seagate Baracuda SSD
2TB WD External My Book 1140
23" Dell LCD Monitor (connected via HDMI)
I have been monitoring the temps, seems to idle a a few degrees higher since summer arrived. Went up from 35 to about 39 degrees, but doesn't seem to run any hotter at load. Max is still 72 degrees. EDIT: It's actually now 79 degrees on performance power option.
I have a Raidmax Super Aeolus case and I mounted 2 x 120cm intake fans in the front, 1 x 140cm intake on the side and a 3 x 120cm exhaust fans ( 1x rear and 2 x top). So Airflow shouldnt be a problem.
I am using a 900W Huntkey Silver PSU, not sure about the AMP output though. The PSU is only about 4 months old, but I think I'll take it out and make sure it's free of dust, and I'll change the output cables going to the graphics card. Luckily with Huntkey PSU's they can be changed out.
I have tried different display cables, no difference. I have not installed the GPU into another rig yet though, I will try that as well.
To be honest, the problem would probably not be very noticeable to most people, but I can definitely see the difference. It was running absolutely perfectly and created a very immersive effect, then the next time I tried running a game, I was very aware of the fact that I was playing a game. The AO problems make games like Tomb Raider suddenly appear very dark even when standing in direct "sunlight" and anti-aliasing doesnt seem to work correctly. I can tell that changing the AA setting does change the appearance, but it doesnt seem as sharp as it used to.
Arkham Origins suddenly presented with micro stutters and long loading times for textures, as well as shadow flickering and the same AO problems with the lighting and the same AA problems.
Grid 2 has the AO problems and shadow flickering, as well AA problems.
Dead Rising 3 has very bad shadow flickering and micro stutters, which were not present when I first installed the game about a week ago.
Injustice also seems very poorly lit, and also appears a bit blurry/grainy.
Lichdom Battlemage was also running perfectly, but now appears very blurry and poorly lit, almost as if running on DirectX 9 instead of DX11. dxdiag does show DX 11 installed though
I still have a few games to test, Battlefield 4, Borderlands, Watchdogs and a few others. I will do so and report back, after I have taken out and reinstalled the PSU and it's power cable to the GPU.
Thank you for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it."
ME: "Just an update, success has been achieved. I tried cleaning out the dust from the PSU, changing the output cable, and basically took apart and rebuilt my rig from scratch. This did not work.
I then read a few things online with guys with the same symptoms as mine, and eventually found some interesting things regarding the LOD bias and the fact that the clamp function is no longer enabled on Nvidia's latest drivers and cards. I played around with the settings, still nothing.I didn't expect much though, since my problem was something that occurred suddenly, after all was working well.
This is the last part of my process:
I decided to run a program called cc cleaner through my system files and registry, and then used this same program to uninstall my VC redists.
I did a reboot, then used the same program to uninstall Palit's Thunder Master and GPU-Z, as well as my graphics drivers.
Ran the registry cleaner again.
Booted into safemode and used DDU to make sure there was nothing left behind.
Booted into windows, downloaded and installed a Hybrid VC Redist pakage from kickass.to
Downloaded a new copy of the 337.88 drivers from Nvidia's site and did a clean install, installing only the Graphics and PhysX drivers. Reboot.
Set power options to performance.
Chose my usual settings in Nvidia Control Panel, ran WEI, reinstalled Thundermaster and GPU-Z.
Ran Arkham Origins
Voila!
Everything is back to normal and the game looks awesome and moves smoothly. No micro stutters; lighting, tessellation and anti-aliasing all working perfectly. Tested on the other games as well, was absolutely blown away again by how good Tomb Raider looks on my system.
So I'm delirious with joy! Thank you for the advice. Would you mind if I posted some parts of your email responses on Tom's Hardware? If you do mind I won't do it, but I'd just like to write a post that may help others in the future, and there are many things that you said that people tend to overlook when trouble shooting."
SUPPORT TECH: "I am glad you got it sorted out. So it was software related driver issues then? Or some combination of bad registry settings and drivers?
I would be very leery to install anything driver related from kickass.to,…. but ok. Glad it works.You are welcome to post anything you want on Toms."
So, I hope this can be of some use to someone experiencing similar problems. I am super psyched that my rig is working properly again.
Cheers
I just thought I would post this, as it might help somebody in the future. I have been having some strange graphic related problems with my rig the past week. I'm using a Palit GTX 770 4GB.
The problem has been sorted out, details provided below.
I have been in contact with one of the support guys from the shop where I purchased the card. I will copy and paste our conversation (Because lazy):
ME: "Hi guys
I was hoping you could help me with the warranty details on an item that I bought from you around two months ago. It was a Palit Jetstream GTX770 4GB graphics card. I just want someone to have a look at the card, as I think there might be something that went wrong. The situation:
The card was working perfectly, then without warning or any changes in any other hardware or software, the Ambient Occlusion and Anti-Aliasing features started behaving strangely and presented with some minor framerate issues as well as pixelation & shadow flickering in all of my games (none of which had these problems before). What I have done to try and resolve the problem:
I have uninstalled and clean re-installed the drivers (Both 337.88 & 340.52) a few times, using DDU to sweep the registry as well.
I have also now reinstalled Windows 7.
I have taken out the card and made sure it was clean of dust and re-seated properly.
I have checked the card on another screen using different adapter ports on the card, problem remains the same.
I have updated DirectX and Windows VC redistributables.
I have updated my Motherboard's bios.
Could you please advise me as to what we need to do from here, as well as an indication of the time frame you expect if we do send the card back for testing. I would really appreciate it if I don't have to be card-less for long. Thank you"
SUPPORT TECH: "Since the card was running fine, my first thought is probably heat or power related issues.
1. Does the graphics card run unusually hot? Does your case provide enough airflow to keep it cool, since as you noticed we are moving into summertime now? Heat can cause these kind of issues.
2. Are you sure the card is getting enough good clean power? What PSU are you using? What is the AMP output on the 12V rails? PSUs output tend to degrade over time. Also the hotter it gets the less efficient it gets, and if your PSU was already on its limits all kinds of weird issues will result.
3. Have you installed the GPU in a friend’s PC to see if the problem is not perhaps caused by your motherboard/RAM?
4. Have you tried a different physical DVI/HDMI cable? Bad cables can really mess around and cause pixilation and whatnot.
5. Is this problem readily apparent? Meaning is the issue very obvious? If it is not obvious testing could take a long time and might not even occur on our side.
6. Does it happen all the time or just some of time? If the issue is very intermittent it could really complicate testing on our side
7. When you say all your games, which specific games are displaying these issues?
Testing on our test rigs and our supplier side could take several weeks.
We can test it, but if we cannot verify the issue on our test rigs, then we will have to send it back to you. If we can indeed verify the problem then we can send the card in to supplier for RMA.
The supplier will then also test it, but they are generally a lot less thorough than us. Meaning they test the card for a few hours and if the problems does not occur and is not obvious they will just send it back to us with No Fault found."
ME: "Thanks for the speedy and detailed reply.
My setup:
Asrock Z87m Extreme 4 motherboard
i5 4670 3.4 GHz
Corsair Vengeange 8GB Ram 9.9.9.24
900W Huntkey PSU
Palit GTX 770 4Gb
Gigabyte GTX 560 (dedicated PhysX)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit installed on 64GB SSD
2TB WD Black HDD
340GB Seagate Baracuda SSD
2TB WD External My Book 1140
23" Dell LCD Monitor (connected via HDMI)
I have been monitoring the temps, seems to idle a a few degrees higher since summer arrived. Went up from 35 to about 39 degrees, but doesn't seem to run any hotter at load. Max is still 72 degrees. EDIT: It's actually now 79 degrees on performance power option.
I have a Raidmax Super Aeolus case and I mounted 2 x 120cm intake fans in the front, 1 x 140cm intake on the side and a 3 x 120cm exhaust fans ( 1x rear and 2 x top). So Airflow shouldnt be a problem.
I am using a 900W Huntkey Silver PSU, not sure about the AMP output though. The PSU is only about 4 months old, but I think I'll take it out and make sure it's free of dust, and I'll change the output cables going to the graphics card. Luckily with Huntkey PSU's they can be changed out.
I have tried different display cables, no difference. I have not installed the GPU into another rig yet though, I will try that as well.
To be honest, the problem would probably not be very noticeable to most people, but I can definitely see the difference. It was running absolutely perfectly and created a very immersive effect, then the next time I tried running a game, I was very aware of the fact that I was playing a game. The AO problems make games like Tomb Raider suddenly appear very dark even when standing in direct "sunlight" and anti-aliasing doesnt seem to work correctly. I can tell that changing the AA setting does change the appearance, but it doesnt seem as sharp as it used to.
Arkham Origins suddenly presented with micro stutters and long loading times for textures, as well as shadow flickering and the same AO problems with the lighting and the same AA problems.
Grid 2 has the AO problems and shadow flickering, as well AA problems.
Dead Rising 3 has very bad shadow flickering and micro stutters, which were not present when I first installed the game about a week ago.
Injustice also seems very poorly lit, and also appears a bit blurry/grainy.
Lichdom Battlemage was also running perfectly, but now appears very blurry and poorly lit, almost as if running on DirectX 9 instead of DX11. dxdiag does show DX 11 installed though
I still have a few games to test, Battlefield 4, Borderlands, Watchdogs and a few others. I will do so and report back, after I have taken out and reinstalled the PSU and it's power cable to the GPU.
Thank you for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it."
ME: "Just an update, success has been achieved. I tried cleaning out the dust from the PSU, changing the output cable, and basically took apart and rebuilt my rig from scratch. This did not work.
I then read a few things online with guys with the same symptoms as mine, and eventually found some interesting things regarding the LOD bias and the fact that the clamp function is no longer enabled on Nvidia's latest drivers and cards. I played around with the settings, still nothing.I didn't expect much though, since my problem was something that occurred suddenly, after all was working well.
This is the last part of my process:
I decided to run a program called cc cleaner through my system files and registry, and then used this same program to uninstall my VC redists.
I did a reboot, then used the same program to uninstall Palit's Thunder Master and GPU-Z, as well as my graphics drivers.
Ran the registry cleaner again.
Booted into safemode and used DDU to make sure there was nothing left behind.
Booted into windows, downloaded and installed a Hybrid VC Redist pakage from kickass.to
Downloaded a new copy of the 337.88 drivers from Nvidia's site and did a clean install, installing only the Graphics and PhysX drivers. Reboot.
Set power options to performance.
Chose my usual settings in Nvidia Control Panel, ran WEI, reinstalled Thundermaster and GPU-Z.
Ran Arkham Origins
Voila!
Everything is back to normal and the game looks awesome and moves smoothly. No micro stutters; lighting, tessellation and anti-aliasing all working perfectly. Tested on the other games as well, was absolutely blown away again by how good Tomb Raider looks on my system.
So I'm delirious with joy! Thank you for the advice. Would you mind if I posted some parts of your email responses on Tom's Hardware? If you do mind I won't do it, but I'd just like to write a post that may help others in the future, and there are many things that you said that people tend to overlook when trouble shooting."
SUPPORT TECH: "I am glad you got it sorted out. So it was software related driver issues then? Or some combination of bad registry settings and drivers?
I would be very leery to install anything driver related from kickass.to,…. but ok. Glad it works.You are welcome to post anything you want on Toms."
So, I hope this can be of some use to someone experiencing similar problems. I am super psyched that my rig is working properly again.
Cheers
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