Nvidia drivers

[steve61]

Hi.

I have just replaced my old Nvidia cards with a pair of Zotac 470 GTX cards in SLR.

I keep getting lock ups, especially if I am using Internet Explorer or Firefox, usually when there is an embedded clip on Facebook, but not all the time.

It also happens if I have my CCTV viewer running (CMS3) and I try and start another program.

I have tried several things including creating a TDR entry into the registry, disabling hardware acceleration in IE and Firefox, using modded drivers, and installing newer Motherboard drivers.

All these things have improved the matter, but I am still getting at least one lock up per day.

When I first installed the cards, I had problems with games, but all games now seem to work fine, unless I am trying to start one with CMS3 running.

I have searched the internet, and I have found that lock ups with the 470GTX are not unusual, the drivers don't seem to work with the cards very well.

But most of these complaints stem from around 2010, using 2 series drivers.

But this is still happening on these modded 335 drivers I am using.

It is not a heat problem, as the GPU`s are Liquid cooled, and the card memory still use the original card fan (I cut the shroud to fit the cooling blocks, so that I could still air cool the memory, and keep the look of the card), the cards at most run at 50 degrees after gaming for an hour, they idle at 36 degrees even at the moment when it is summer heat.

The problem isn't that bad that I could not live with it, but its just one of those things that is more annoying because you cant find the cure.

Thanks

Steve.

[steve61]

Well the problem turned out to be a strange one, but easily fixed.

I played around with settings in the bios, it would be ok for a day, then play up again.

I tried taking a card out and trying it with just one graphics card, same again, ok far a day, then problems.

Then I started getting blue screens quite a lot, so in desperation, I tried removing a memory stick (this model of board is known to be fussy with memory), same again.

I then checked in the motherboard manual to see if I was supposed to have the memory in adjacent slots, instead of slot 1 & 3.

At this point I noticed that the manual said that if you use 2 sticks of memory, they should go in slots 2 & 4, not 1 & 3.

Swapped the memory around, and Bingo, no more problems.

No more crashes (No more than usual anyway), no more blue screens, no more graphics problems in IE, or Firefox.

You learn something new everyday.

[KenB]

Thanks for the feedback Steve - good to hear you managed to fix it.

 

The usual rule of thumb is use the slot nearest to the CPU and its partner if only using one pair.

Was this the case?

 

All m/boards are different :)

[steve61]

No, this is what was confusing.

The slot nearest the CPU is number 1, and then 2,3,and 4.

Whenever I have built a system before, the manual has always stated to populate slot 1 first, then if two sticks used and four slots available, slot 1 and 3.

But, with this Asrock 970 Extreme 4, it says to use 2 and 4 first, of course I didn't read the manual first 8-)

Anyhow, now I have got it working properly, I have invested in two more sticks of Kingston`s finest, so now all the slots are populated, and it works great!

[KenB]

Hi Steve

I have done a bit of reading and apparently Sandy Bridge architecture specifies this configuration re: RAM slots.

Other m/boards may adopt this arrangement too.

I don't think your Asrock is Sandy Bridge though - either way you have it sorted :)