5 réponses à ce sujet

[Zenon]

Hi!

Long post, but I am getting really desperate. Currently tech support of my notebook not reachable. So I try to ask if some tech expert has an answer. But first things first:

My computer is a Toshiba Qosmio X300 14P with intel core 2 duo P8600 and nvidia 9800M GTX running on vista home premium. I frequently played ME2, DAO and other cool games on this laptop and it ran like charm even for hours without break. I own the computer now for about 2 years. I played ME also before on this machine, and today felt like playing it again. I used nhancer before with an older driver of nvidia to play it with 4xAA. Currently I have all updated to the current version. Somehow ME didn't run with AA anymore. After I managed to get 4xAA running on ME2, I also wanted to get it (again) to work with ME. Somehow the current driver didn't seem to react to my attempts with nhancer regardless of the compatibility settings of nhancer.

I reinstalled the current nvidia drivers for the 9800m (258,96) and nhancer 2.5.9. Then I used recommended settings for ME. Started ME. No AA. Then I tried to override the application settings with the nvidia control panel. ME started all-right, but no AA. After a few seconds SUDDENLY some random pixels started to flicker in bluish green color all over the screen. I immediately pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del and the screen went black. But the expected screen to switch to the task-center did not show up. I did a cold reset by pressing the on/off button of the laptop until it switched off with an audible click (hdd i guess).

On another occasion I switched off my laptop with this method before (accidentally. I think it was in standby and I just pressed the button too long), and it never harmed the computer, not even the hdd. (did a successful chkdsk after that.)

This time I waited for maybe 10 seconds, switched it on again, but no Qosmio welcome screen comes up! 

The screen itself switches on (turns from pitch black to a dark grey) without cursor, the leds for power, battery, on status are glowing, the hdd flashes a few times, but that's it. No welcome screen. HDD seems not to start or boot after the led was on and flashing a little bit, but then stays off.

I then switched off the computer again. I removed the cables (power line) and removed the battery for a few minutes. Then tried with only power supply and no battery and also with only battery. Nothing seems to work so far. I'm kind of in panic mode now.

Could wrong graphics settings have such a devastating effect? I didn't overclock or use overclocking tools. I only set AA to 4x multisampling and 8x anisotropic filters with the nvidia tool. I am positive, I used the original nvidia driver for the 9800M series. Can this still cause such a problem? It seems to me, that the bios got deleted, or fried even. Is there any other explanation and what are possible solutions to rectify this?

Hardware info can be seen here (Sorry in German, but Tech Specs are international):  http://www.heise.de/...ch/a398874.html

Modifié par Zenon, 10 septembre 2010 - 12:17 .

[Gorath Alpha]

Sorry. I was in a hurry. A video card that has a poor quality cooling solution, as the only concrete example I am aware of, can allow a chip to become overheated repeatedly before shutting down for self protection, which over a comparatively extended period, damages the card, whose excess heat can also damage the RAM, over that extended period. A driver that excabrates such a badly cooled device's already poor capability could contribute to a system being damaged in general.

I have to go. I didn't read it all. Laptops shouldn't be used for games; they never cool themselves well enough. nVIDIA was forced to reserve a quarter million dollars six months after the Geforce 8n00M chips were released, to refund to their partners for the many failures caused by bad fan control firmware.  Relatively recently,  one or more of their new drivers have made that situation much worse, for all of the 8n00 cards, particularly. 

Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 10 septembre 2010 - 05:13 .

[Zenon]

Thanks for your reply. In fact the notebook was advertised as a gaming laptop. I bought it for games, because I often had to travel for my job and wanted to play in the evening.

Thank goodness I still have a valid warranty and customer support is going to pick it up for repair. It seems the graphics adapter is damaged *sic*, because if I let it run with a black screen for a while I can hear the Vista Welcome sound. Perhaps the fan was damaged or running not properly. Nvidia seems to have had problems with fan control with driver 196.x causing the fan to slow down and cause overheating.

Tech Support told me, that in spite of heat problems this shouldn't happen to this product (even if moderately overclocked). Works for me fine, since the warranty covers repair cost.

The only sad thing is, that I probably can't use it for at least one week.

[Brp650]

Nvidia cards are prone to just die?

I slapped a pc together for my daughter to play her Lego games on......she would battle me over use of mine.....and stuck a 8800gt that i used for years in there and still works like a charm.

Keep the dang Vram chips cool and the card will last.

[Gorath Alpha]

The entire Geforce 8n00 generation was defective in the same manner when first released. When moved to new dies and renamed to 9n00s, they got new firmware, about a year later. The 8800s saw several new models issued after nVIDIA's initial releases, and most of those also had the corrected firmware.

However, if an 8n00 was never heavily stressed, it never overheated, and thus ought to last as long as the Geforce 7n00s seem to have done.