New SSD... now GPU troubles

[mwwwilson]

Hello all and Happy Holidays!

Well, I got an SSD for Christmas... installed it and now have graphics card troubles.
This is what I did:

1 - Opened case and CAREFULLY cleaned it out with compressed air.
2 - Disconnected my HDD's and connected the SSD only.
3 - Fresh installed Windows 7 Ultimate on SSD along with the Nvidia drivers for my GTX 550 ti and installed a few other applications like McAfee, Firefox, etc.
4 - Went online to download iRACING (the primary function of this rig) and installed it.

I have no idea what I did but my GPU is now pooping out. I normally always manually set the GPU fan to 100% when gaming. I have run into some issues with it in the past pooping out after getting hotter than 75 C - so I just beat the heat to the punch and set it manually to 100% before starting a game or sim.

Well, 1 to 2 minutes into running a track on iRACING the GPU quits working. I have never had troubles until now. So I thought that maybe I unseeded the card slightly while maneuvering around inside the case. So I rolled back the driver to the onboard graphics. Uninstalled all the Nvidia drivers and shut the PC down. Physically removed the 550 card and powered the PC back up. After about 5 minutes I shut down the PC, physically re-installed the 550 card and restarted my rig. Once in windows I installed all of the Nvidia drivers, this time from the Nvidia website (updated drivers) and set my Nvidia control panel settings up. Same poop!

The GPU is running the display fine. However, under gaming load it is crapping out. Even if I lower my graphics settings in game. What, oh WHAT did I do?

Just so I understand correctly. The graphics card inserts into the PCIE slot and a PCIE power connector plugs into the card. And that's all, right? I am just making sure that I didn't unplug something and didn't plug it back in.

Can somebody help me out? Did I fry this card somehow?

This is what I get when attempting a benchmark test with FurMark.

The NVIDIA OpenGL driver lost connection with the display driver due to exceeding the Windows Time-Out limit and is unable to continue.
The application must close.

And this is what the Nvidia help page online states about the msg:
What does it mean?
If you received this message from an application (on a pop up message or in the Event Log), the application was unable to continue rendering because the Microsoft Windows imposed time limit (TDR) was exceeded. This is normally the case when the workload sent to the Graphics Card is greater than what the graphics card can process in the normal timeout of two seconds.

Thanks in advance,
Mark W.

 

[PP Mguire]

Soo all that and no load temps? It shouldn't crap out at 75c like that so I'm going to guess either something running in the background or needs more core volts due to a factory OC. Load up Afterburner and Kombustor and see what's up.

 

[mwwwilson]

It is spiking on GPU load 5 seconds into any kind of benchmark test. Once the fan jumps up RPMs from idle speed it crops out. Like 5 seconds. No over clocking on my part either. Just adding that SSD to the system wouldn't effect it that much power wise... Would it?

If you walk me through what you want to see from Afterburner and Kombuster I will try to send you some info. I just don't know what to look for. Thanks

 

[PP Mguire]

Set the fan to 100% for these tests and leave it there.
You could have a factory overclocked card which could finally be unstable. I don't think this really has anything to do with the SSD at all, just fresh install and something isn't liking something.

When you say craps out what do you mean? Driver crash with the little bubble in the taskbar saying Nvidia Driver recovered, or full on BSOD?

 

[mwwwilson]

OK, I manually set the GPU fan at 100%
I ran the 720p benchmark test (but it does this on every test that I run, don't matter)
It kicked the fan speed down, basically off, after 11 seconds and quit. Went to black screen and when it comes back up to the desktop I get the error that I mentioned in my first post (this is from the FurMark app) and the taskbar error is the Graphics card recovery error. It says something about the Nvidia driver's kernel mode. The driver is the updated one for this card from their website. But I'm getting the same results from the original drivers that came with the card. It seems like it's not getting power when it is under load. It's fine when a test or game starts but once it starts to get any kind of load it crashes. This doesn't crash my system at all. It just crashes the test or the game and gives me that Graphics Card recovery error in the taskbar. I sent 2 pictures with this.

Pic 1 - pretest, shows you the FurMark dialog box (I chose the 720 test) - but like I said before, it doesn't matter what test I run... I get the same results. Also in the picture is the dialog box for GPU-Z showing card information.

Pic 2 - posttest, shows you the graphs and how they spike under load almost immediately.

What do you think?

 

[PP Mguire]

That's why I asked you if you BSOD or not. That just means the card is unstable. Use MSI Afterburner and bump the volts up a little to see what it does. The fan dropping speed is because when the card driver crashes defaults are reset to insure stability. This is the #1 reason why I love Nvidia so much because their drivers are top notch.

 

[mwwwilson]

Thank you ...

Let me try and I will keep you posted.

 

[PP Mguire]

If you're nervous about that, you can always try downclocking your GPU core 50MHz at a time.

 

[mwwwilson]

I'm downloading Afterburner again. It's the Core Voltage that I need to bump up, correct?
I'm going to try something in the meantime. I came across the drivers that worked great for this card. They are not the original version that came with the card but an upgraded version. Ver. 2xx came with it. The new version that I am having trouble with is Ver. 331.82 but I found Ver. 320.49 - it's worth a try.

If that doesn't work out. I will attempt the Afterburner advice you gave.
I will keep you posted. Thanks

 

[PP Mguire]

Doubt seriously it's the driver or else I would have a similar problem due to having a 500 series card too. I've been running the 331.82 since they came out.

There's only one voltage you can adjust. You'll have to unlock it in the settings and restart Afterburner. The alternative is downclocking.