9800GTX+ Driver Issues, Only 178.24 works properly Options

[3dfx]

Hey nVidia forum's, long time nVidia fan. Picked myself up a 9800GTX+, great card overall. However I was experiencing random reboots in the following games:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Left 4 Dead
F.E.A.R. 2

I narrowed down the issue to be driver related, it seems the 9800GTX+ is a bit picky about which drivers it likes. I did a short run of troubleshooting and testing with several different driver releases, both official and beta. As of right now this is the data I've got going for my card;

Problematic Drivers:

180.48
182.06
182.08
182.46 (beta)

Working Drivers:

178.24

I do realize that these drivers support hundreds of cards playing thousands of games and not every card can be pleased with one magical release, and honestly I'm fine using older drivers despite the fact the performance is noticeably lower in certain games when using the 17X.XX versus the 18X.XX. I would love to be able to use the 18X.XX drivers properly without my system rebooting. Is there any way possible you can work on this issue in your next driver release? Or is this a common issue that someone can help me with? I can provide any and all information you need.

I was considering upgrading to Vista x64 Ultimate (currently using XP SP3), would this affect the drivers in any way? Or would I still be stuck with 17X.XX?

Here is my system's specifications, I can provide more detailed information by request;

ASUS P5Q Deluxe
Intel Q6600 C2Q (G0 Stepping)
XFX GeForce 9800GTX+ (65nm, Revision A2)
2x2GB Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066
Corsair 850TX

Samsung DVDR/RW
Samsung CDR/RW
Samsung 500GB 7200RPM SATAII HD

Linksys WMP54G Wireless NIC (Version 2)

Running Windows XP Professional SP3 (Fully up to date)

Thank you in advance for your help with my issue.

[combatfetus]

I am having the exact same problem . Just recently purchased a XFX 9800 GTX+ and it works fine, except the only successfully working driver that I could manage was 178.24. Whenever I try anything newer than that, my computer boots up and after the boot screen fades out, just goes to a black screen with the mouse showing. I have looked around, and this may be because of the BIOS being out of date, but I am not sure about this, and I don't see why it would be this way seeing as I just recently bought this card. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[3dfx]

Hey combat, glad to see I'm not the only one having an issue with this card, apparently the 9800GTX+ was a bad investment. Many users are reporting multiple problems with this card. I just hope our situation can get resolved. If it's any help to you my cards BIOS is 62.92.5D.00.02 (version can be found in the NVIDIA Control Panel -> Help -> System Information.

I checked on XFX's website for a BIOS update for this card, there is not one out as of now. The only thing I could find was a tutorial on how to flash your 9800GTX+ into a GTS 250 on Google. I have also submitted a ticket through XFX linking to this thread, hopefully XFX and NVIDIA can work together to work out these issues with the BIOS/Card/Drivers.

[combatfetus]

my cards BIOS is 62.92.5D.00.02 (version can be found in the NVIDIA Control Panel -> Help -> System Information.

Mine's 62.92.6D.00.08. I also went to XFX's support to ask about this, hopefully one of us will get a reply soon.
I've been staying with this thread too, http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtop...mp;#entry523744
I believe its about this problem, and one of the people in the thread was able to flash their card's bios and get the drivers to work properly.
Quoting from him:

My old bios - 62.92.62.00.0A

New bios that works with current drivers! - 62.92.79.00.A3

This post has been edited by combatfetus: Mar 28 2009, 05:39 PM

[3dfx]

Mine's 62.92.6D.00.08. I also went to XFX's support to ask about this, hopefully one of us will get a reply soon.
I've been staying with this thread too, http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtop...mp;#entry523744
I believe its about this problem, and one of the people in the thread was able to flash their card's bios and get the drivers to work properly.
Quoting from him:

I attempted to flash my cards BIOS with the official XFX Rev 4 BIOS (62.92.62.00.0A) found here; http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co...parent,category

After the flash I tried the following drivers;

182.08
182.46 (beta)
178.24

All drivers including the older drivers that allowed my card to run without the reboots, cause random reboots. So I reverted back to my backup BIOS, reinstalled the 178.24, just to keep my system stable.

Edit:

Now that I reverted back to 178.24 and my original BIOS, other games work, but WoW causes random reboots.

This post has been edited by 3dfx: Mar 28 2009, 09:08 PM

[JimmyStewart]

I attempted to flash my cards BIOS with the official XFX Rev 4 BIOS (62.92.62.00.0A) found here; http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co...parent,category

62.92.62.00.0A is the 'bad' official bios from XFX. It's the one that came with my 9800 GTX+ and was causing me the black screen at boot and wouldn't let me past the 17X version of the nv driver. The bios I got from XFX that works is 62.92.79.00.A3.

[Tat3]

It seems to be XFX's problem.

Friend has eVGA 9800GTX+ with 182.08 WHQL and no issues.

You can try to flash your card with eVGA's BIOS if XFX can't get the issue solved.

[3dfx]

62.92.62.00.0A is the 'bad' official bios from XFX. It's the one that came with my 9800 GTX+ and was causing me the black screen at boot and wouldn't let me past the 17X version of the nv driver. The bios I got from XFX that works is 62.92.79.00.A3.

Can you send me that BIOS Jimmy? I just crashed in CoD4 with the 178.24 drivers, FEAR2 and Tomb Raider seem to work fine though. Would love to get drivers that work with all games.

[3dfx]

Random Rebooting with the following games & 178.24 drivers:

World of Wacraft
FEAR2
Call of Duty 4
Counter-Strike Source

Seems these drivers do not fix my issue, they just allow me to play longer before rebooting.

Ugh, I'm done with XFX and the 9 series. This card probably isn't stable enough to run as a PhysX card down the road really sad. "Alpha Dog" can kiss my ass. My next GPU will be done right, I'm buying EVGA.

This post has been edited by 3dfx: Mar 29 2009, 02:00 AM

[combatfetus]

I got a support ticket replied to on XFX's website, and was directed to an .iso to boot from to flash the BIOS of this card. I ran into a problem though, which told me that the supported EEPROM was not found. So I replied to the tech support guy and he hasn't replied yet. Hopefully I'll fix this soon, and if I do I'll send you the links to the stuff.
I agree though, next time I'm going Evga or BFG. I had an evga 8600 GT before this, never had any problems like this.

[3dfx]

I got a support ticket replied to on XFX's website, and was directed to an .iso to boot from to flash the BIOS of this card. I ran into a problem though, which told me that the supported EEPROM was not found. So I replied to the tech support guy and he hasn't replied yet. Hopefully I'll fix this soon, and if I do I'll send you the links to the stuff.
I agree though, next time I'm going Evga or BFG. I had an evga 8600 GT before this, never had any problems like this.

I believe they explain in the readme included in the file you downloaded, what to do in case EEPROM is not found.

I also got a reply to download a new BIOS, unfortunately I wont be able to test it for until the weekend after next. Thanks to XFX customer support not working on the weekends, or supplying their damn BIOS updates in the support section.

As I mentioned before, I tried eVGA when they were nobodies, and was very pleasantly supprised, I decided to try this again with XFX. Terrible move, I'll be placing an eVGA GTX 285 SC on order tonight. Near ~40USD more for the eVGA over an XFX, but comes with a phenominally better product and support. The "Alpha Dog" better start putting up a little more than a neat looking box if they want me and my clients business.

I'm sure many of you have XFX cards, and they're doing wonderful for you, I am happy for that. I just happen to want the best of the best in my components, maybe I just have high standards, either way, eVGA shares similar standards, so I feel better off with them, and will continue to recommend them.

As for my 9800GTX- (no, not a typo), I will flash this BIOS, and see if it works. If it does, I'll sell it off to a friend for cheap. If not I'll throw it in it's neat looking box and shove that in the closet for testing, or maybe a PhysX card (assuming this 180USD paperweight can handle that).

Either way, thank you XFX, you've made me a stronger eVGA fanboy

Edit: combat, make sure to post back with your results after the BIOS update, I'm curious, and I'm sure others are. I spent many hours and days searching for the cause of my reboots, not to mention a fix.

This post has been edited by 3dfx: Apr 1 2009, 05:12 AM

[T@2]

Have you runned succesfully 22 passes of Memtests ?
Are you re motherboards BIOS-es up to date ?
Having in mind the problems i had with my 8800GT i would say that the VGA cooler may not be properly installed from the factory.When i replaced my stock VGA cooler with an Akasa Vortexx, in a disperate attempt to not hammer the card, i discovered memory chips that werent in contact with the heatsink
Only with 2 drivers my card was working somehow properlly.As you can see the brand is different in my case.Poor quality in the assembly line and you know the location of the factories

[combatfetus]

I believe they explain in the readme included in the file you downloaded, what to do in case EEPROM is not found.

My readme.txt didn't say a thing about this. If your's did, could you enlighten me on this? That would be very helpful!

Edit: combat, make sure to post back with your results after the BIOS update, I'm curious, and I'm sure others are. I spent many hours and days searching for the cause of my reboots, not to mention a fix.

So I have received a total of 3 BIOS updates from 3 'different' technicians on XFX's support site, because I requested a different one when one of the updates was not successful. It turned out to be that all of them are the same. All three, (after wasting 3 good CD's), did not successfully flash my card's BIOS. And only one of them had a readme.txt which only told about using MagicISO and what to do with multiple optical drives. Oh well, if I don't get this fixed soon, I will most likely return this. Ugh.

[3dfx]

My readme.txt didn't say a thing about this. If your's did, could you enlighten me on this? That would be very helpful!

So I have received a total of 3 BIOS updates from 3 'different' technicians on XFX's support site, because I requested a different one when one of the updates was not successful. It turned out to be that all of them are the same. All three, (after wasting 3 good CD's), did not successfully flash my card's BIOS. And only one of them had a readme.txt which only told about using MagicISO and what to do with multiple optical drives. Oh well, if I don't get this fixed soon, I will most likely return this. Ugh.

Awesome, XFX shining through again. Yeah I canned this card, I will never buy an XFX product again, and I will recommend others against purchasing them. 3Dfx gave better support then this after they went out of business.

I purchased an eVGA GTX 285 SSC the other day. I'm done trying with this 190USD paperweight.

Don't get me wrong, XFX GPU's do play hard, really hard, you have to, because you never know when your system is going to crash or reboot, so you need to squeeze in all the play time you can. These GPU's are truely great if you feel you aren't getting the full use out of your computers reset button.

This post has been edited by 3dfx: Apr 4 2009, 01:23 AM