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GPU Driver Error

demetron303demetron303
edited July 2013 in Hardware
Hi all, if you're wonering why I'm writing this on an iPhone 4S while walking on a tread mill, that's OK.

So, around a year ago, we got a new PC. It was a refurbished Dell R5500 with dual Nvidia Quadro 6000s (no SLI), which brings me to the issue at hand. Every day, the display driver crashes unless I'm playing games that tax the GPU a lot. The error message reads:
Display Driver Stopped Responding and has Recovered
At one point, we installed a driver that solved the problem, but then we had to reinstall the OS (Windows 7 Professional 64 bit) due to a virus known as Fynloski.A and, after finding the same driver no longer had any effect, we searched for another and, as you might expect, we were unsuccessful. I was hoping the community here could help. And, in any event, thanks in advance for trying.

Comments

  • DeepFriedCookiesDeepFriedCookies
    Maybe it's trying to enable SLI, but the SLI Bridge isn't there so it's crashing?

    Maybe the cards are bad and the driver fix was just placebo and luck? :|

    What are the rest of the system specs? Are you using the newest Nvidia drivers?
  • demetron303demetron303
    DeepFriedCookies wrote:
    Maybe it's trying to enable SLI, but the SLI Bridge isn't there so it's crashing?
    The R5500 doesn't support SLI, and either way it's turned off in the Nvidia Control Panel.
    DeepFriedCookies wrote:
    Maybe the cards are bad and the driver fix was just placebo and luck? :|
    That's the most likely cause, seeing as the the monitor hooked up to the 1st graphics card flashes and stuff when the driver starts to go, whereas the monitor connected to the 2nd graphics card is only affected when the driver crashes. And the monitors aren't the problem, that much is known. Unfortunately, neither graphics card can be replaced, since one would cost $4000.
    DeepFriedCookies wrote:
    What are the rest of the system specs? Are you using the newest Nvidia drivers?
    It's not using the latest drivers, but I've tried them and it didn't make a difference. As for the specs:

    Dell Precision Workstation R5500
    Intel Xeon X5675
    24 GB (GDDR5?) RAM
    Dual Nvidia Quadro 6000s
    Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
    And too many drives to count.
  • nikkigreg1974nikkigreg1974
    can you disable one of the graphics card and see what happens. If you can disable the 1st graphics card and see if it will crash. You should be able to disable it in the bios or in windows hardware in the device manager. That would be a start i guess.
  • demetron303demetron303
    nikkigreg1974 wrote:
    can you disable one of the graphics card and see what happens. If you can disable the 1st graphics card and see if it will crash. You should be able to disable it in the bios or in windows hardware in the device manager. That would be a start i guess.
    I'll try that. But I don't know what side effects that would have, and there's every chance it won't be good.

    And I've found another possibility. I don't know why, but high-end graphics cards like these tend to experience driver crashes when not under enough stress. Therefore, If disabling the 1st graphics card doesn't work, I need need a program that puts it under stress. If anyone knows of a program like that, and is willing to share it, please do.
  • nikkigreg1974nikkigreg1974
    here a link for you. http://www.freepctech.com/index.php/dow ... boot-disks Just go down to where it say Special Boot Disks and download Hiren's Boot Disk v.10 (2010) . Burn it to a cd and boot your computer up with it. It has a lot of testing software for your computer. I hope that will help.
  • DeepFriedCookiesDeepFriedCookies
    Can't you just trash that quadro shit and get a regular GeForce card? They're the same things but with different firmware. I don't even understand how they're able to sell that shit nowadays..

    EDIT: Okay, I did some research. The only hardware thing you're paying for is the 6GB of RAM. Unless you legitimately need that (probably not, even in a WS) just replace them with two of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814133452 those guys. Although with those specs, I'd imagine my current desktop performs better than that.. and didn't you say you were gaming with it? :|

    EDIT: Oh wait nvm that's the 6 core Xeon durp. Still, it might be worth trying another Gfx card. Contact Nvidia about the problem and see if they'll offer a replacement card.
  • nikkigreg1974nikkigreg1974
    DeepFriedCookies is right. just call Nvidia or even dell. They may had a recall on it for this problem. What is it going to hurt.
  • demetron303demetron303
    DeepFriedCookies wrote:
    Can't you just trash that quadro shit and get a regular GeForce card? They're the same things but with different firmware. I don't even understand how they're able to sell that shit nowadays..

    EDIT: Okay, I did some research. The only hardware thing you're paying for is the 6GB of RAM. Unless you legitimately need that (probably not, even in a WS) just replace them with two of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814133452 those guys. Although with those specs, I'd imagine my current desktop performs better than that.. and didn't you say you were gaming with it? :|

    EDIT: Oh wait nvm that's the 6 core Xeon durp. Still, it might be worth trying another Gfx card. Contact Nvidia about the problem and see if they'll offer a replacement card.
    Don't you think we would've gone for an Alienware if it was meant for gaming? The Quadros, Xeon, and 24GB RAM should be enough to tell you that wasn't what they had in mind. (Well, we're not sure either, being refurbished and all, but it wasn't for gaming.) And as for the reason it was sold refurbished, well, it's probably because of this.

    As for calling a dual Quadro 6000 setup "shit"... You need to have some sense slapped into you.
  • nighticenightice
    I wonder if it's a hardware fault. Maybe something's screwed up with the PCI-Express bus, northbridge, or CPU (I'm pretty sure the X5675 is one of the models with integrated northbridge). Can you rearrange the cards and/or put something else in those slots? That could be tricky to test because it may only be some PCI-express lanes and if you put in an x1 card or whatever you may not be hitting the bad ones.

    I've never worked with the rackmounted Precisions but do they have a separate riser board the PCI-Express slots are on? Try reseating that board if possible.
    DeepFriedCookies wrote:
    Can't you just trash that quadro shit and get a regular GeForce card? They're the same things but with different firmware. I don't even understand how they're able to sell that shit nowadays..
    You have no idea what you're talking about.
  • DeepFriedCookiesDeepFriedCookies
    Maybe I'm behind on this, lol. Last time I looked, Quadros were just GeForces with different firmware. That must've changed, because I remember reading ages ago on I think Tom's that someone flashed the firmware of a GeForce card and basically got a Quadro card of the exact specification of one of the $2000 at the time cards. THAT SAID, I really don't know anything about what I'm talking about.

    Maybe just try a single card then? You already have quite a bit of horsepower there, and losing a bit of it is better than constant driver crashing.
  • demetron303demetron303
    DeepFriedCookies wrote:
    Maybe I'm behind on this, lol. Last time I looked, Quadros were just GeForces with different firmware. That must've changed, because I remember reading ages ago on I think Tom's that someone flashed the firmware of a GeForce card and basically got a Quadro card of the exact specification of one of the $2000 at the time cards. THAT SAID, I really don't know anything about what I'm talking about.

    Maybe just try a single card then? You already have quite a bit of horsepower there, and losing a bit of it is better than constant driver crashing.
    Would you really drop $4000, just like that, all because of a driver crash? No. And either way, from what I recall, having a driver for dual GPUs while having only one GPU can cause irrepairable damage. If I uninstall the driver, it might work, but it's not much use then, is it?

    P.S. I'm gonna quote you in my sig, that was just so stupid it belongs in the River of Dumb. No offense.

    EDIT: Maybe if I installed a driver after taking out a graphics card... That might work.
  • nighticenightice
    demetron303 wrote:
    EDIT: Maybe if I installed a driver after taking out a graphics card... That might work.
    I could believe that. There's probably some amount of configuration that only happens at install time.
  • DeepFriedCookiesDeepFriedCookies
    demetron303 wrote:
    DeepFriedCookies wrote:
    Maybe I'm behind on this, lol. Last time I looked, Quadros were just GeForces with different firmware. That must've changed, because I remember reading ages ago on I think Tom's that someone flashed the firmware of a GeForce card and basically got a Quadro card of the exact specification of one of the $2000 at the time cards. THAT SAID, I really don't know anything about what I'm talking about.

    Maybe just try a single card then? You already have quite a bit of horsepower there, and losing a bit of it is better than constant driver crashing.
    Would you really drop $4000, just like that, all because of a driver crash? No. And either way, from what I recall, having a driver for dual GPUs while having only one GPU can cause irrepairable damage. If I uninstall the driver, it might work, but it's not much use then, is it?

    P.S. I'm gonna quote you in my sig, that was just so stupid it belongs in the River of Dumb. No offense.

    EDIT: Maybe if I installed a driver after taking out a graphics card... That might work.

    LOL I totally had no idea. I remember years ago that's all the Quadro cards were. Things have obviously changed.
  • demetron303demetron303
    Well, it appears to have been fixed. There were two solutions. The first is rather simple: disable the second GPU. The second is a driver my father found, but although he bookmarked the page, it seems to have been deleted somehow. The driver version is 266.87. If anyone thinks they know which driver this is, please tell us, 'cause there'll probably be another time where it's needed.
  • demetron303demetron303
    Found the link. Since browsers just delete it after shutdown for some reason, I'll post it here.

    http://downloads.dell.com/Pages/Drivers/oth-r5500.html

    Thanks for all the help guys!
  • XeChrisXeChris
    The display driver crashing was an indication on HP and other laptops when the video card failed (primarily a failed solder joint in the BGA balls). Perhaps a cold solder joint is affecting the video card? If you have spare time, consider removing the faulty card, remove the heatsink, clean the GPU heatsink and chip with arctic clean or rubbing alcohol, reflow the VRAMS and the chip itself with a heat gun (or better an oven) and apply arctic silver after the reflow then the card should work fine.
  • DeepFriedCookiesDeepFriedCookies
    That applied to graphics cards too? Nvidia really were shitty for a while, weren't they?
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