Windows 7 GeForce 9800 GX2 and video card driver problems in windows 7

[redox73]

Hi,

My post concerns a problem with my video card. Let me explain some of the details of the problem and what I have discovered so far. The problems started somewhere around 25th of October and manifested themselves in the form of windows not starting up, but hanging on the starting windows screen. The computer always hung during the animation where the four colored balls merge into the windows logo during startup.

As I did not have a system restore point or anything similar created I made a clean reinstall of windows 7 on my primary OS drive. Wierdly however, the windows 7 install would not finish, but did hang on the "completing installation" -phase, after the first reboot during the installation process. I tried to repeat the installation process, but the installation did always hang up at the same phase.

After many days (!) of trying to solve the problem I stumbled across a forum and found at least at temporary solution. [1] I went and bought a cheap ATI video card and by substituting it for my 9800 GX2 the installation process completed just fine with no problems whatsoever. Thus, it seems that my video card was responsible for the hang ups.

However, I have still not been able to tackle the root cause, which is the 9800 GX2 in a win 7 environment. Today, I tried to look into the problem by first making a system restore point of my current win 7 setup. After making the necessary preparations I switched in the 9800 GX2 instead of my back-up ATI card which has been functioning as a replacement card for the past month.

The first start-up was successful, with no hanging on the animation during startup. However, at first startup with the 9800 GX2 in the system, windows 7 automatically installed its own WDDM 1.1 graphics drivers as well as a pretty new version of NVIDIA's graphics driver (258.??) for the card by using the auto-update function for drivers. Unfortunately, when restarting the system after these installations the computer did again hang at the animation during startup.

Later I did the same process by not allowing windows to auto-fetch any drivers, after using system restore to undo the driver installations. However, windows would not recognize the type of video card and as a result I could not install the NVIDIA drivers. Clearly, I have no use of this outcome. If we go one step further and let windows install only its own WDDM 1.1 drivers the system won't start again, but hang at the same point during startup.

At all instances when the system has hung up during the animation I have still been able to enter windows via safe mode. Interestingly, by disabling one or both of the cards (9800 GX2 consist of two cards) the system will start in normal mode. However, the system cannot utilize the card(s) that are disabled. In case of only disabling one card, the card that is enabled will not function and the device manager gives me error "code 43" for it.

All these symptoms clearly indicate that there is a problem with my video card and the drivers I try to install. Interestingly, I have managed to install windows 7 using the same hardware that I have now in the fall of 2009. Furthermore, I have managed to install windows XP using the exact same hardware.

Due to these factors, I can only think that the problem is associated with the drivers and the video card. However, I have no idea how I could solve it. So far I have, in addition to the aforementioned, tried to install three different versions of the NVIDIA drivers (260.99, 257.21, 195.62). I still have warranty left on my video card, but since I managed to install win XP using the exact same hardware I highly suspect that my video card is broken. However, I cannot really understand why windows 7 did manage to install in the fall of 2009 successfully, since I used the exact same installation CD.

Any suggestions on how proceed or similar cases are highly appreciated! If you have any questions or details I have not yet provided I am happy to do this.

[1] Win 7 64 bit Black screen of death? - Windows 7 Forums

My system specifications can be found in my profile or below:

Operating System: Windows 7 x64 Professional
Processor: Intel E8400
Motherboard: evga Nforce 750i SLI FTW
OS drive: OCZ SSD Vertex 2 120 GB
Video card: Gainward GeForce 9800 GX2
RAM: 4 GB, DDR2

Secondary video card: Asus ATI EAH4350 Silent

 

[TorrentG]

Hey, welcome.

I didn't read any of all that because it isn't necessary. Simply post the crash dumps and I'll tell you how to proceed.

C:\Windows\Minidump

Copy the files in there to any other folder then zip them and attach the zip here.

If you are having difficulty installing, which a brief glance shows you may, install using this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/15856-device-manager-access-during-windows-7-installation.html

 

[redox73]

Hi,

and thank you for your response. Let me be more concise. Basically the problem is that neither the windows 7 installation process nor windows 7 startup are successful using my 9800 GX2 video card. However, by substituting it for the ATI video card, everything goes fine.

I do not have to install win 7 anymore since I have a stable system restore point which I revert back to when I have tried to explore the problem. Therefore, accessing device manager during installation is not necessary anymore. Basically, I tried a similar trick by switching in the 9800 GX2 video card, running into safe mode and disabling both of the 9800 cards. Then, starting up win 7 normally and installing the drivers. However, during the next reinstall the problems will reappear and windows 7 will hang up at startup.

 

[TorrentG]

As per the P.M. -

Please tell us your PSU make/model/wattage and also, post a screen shot of CPU-Z memory and spd tabs.

 

[redox73]

Ok,

My PSU is made by Fractal Design; Newton 600W.

CPU-Z screenshots can be found here: Link Removed - Invalid URL
[/URL]

 

[TorrentG]

Set your VDIMM memory voltage in the bios to 2.0V because the timings you have now definitely need that.

Or raise your timings to 5-5-5-18.

Either/or.

 

[redox73]

Ok, I did raise my timings in BIOS. However, could you please explain why you recommended this, so that I can learn something from this as well In addition, how can this help my initial problem with the video card, or can it?

 

[TorrentG]

I recommended it because your memory can not work well at all without one of the two changes I said to make.

When your memory doesn't work well, you're going to have issues for sure.

Now that you fixed your machine, the video card should work fine. Give it a try and good luck, enjoy.

 

[benjiman]

Hi, I'm having the same problem as mentioned above, did this resolve the situation?

 

[redox73]

Hi,

As some people have been asking me whether I found a solution or not to the aforementioned problem, I regret to inform you that I was not able to solve the problem. Unfortunately, I do not remember all the details anymore, but I came to the conclusion that one of the two cards in the 9800GX2 was dead, thus the malfunction.

I am not saying there is no solution as every case is not necessarily the same. However, I used a substantial amount of time trying to find a solution and in my case it did not work out.

I wish you other luck in the search for a solution for the problem!