9800M GTX - Is my card a lemon?

Hi all,

I'm having significant problems with my system which I have narrowed down to the 9800M GTX Card. I'm wondering if the card I have is a lemon, and what I can do about getting it sorted.

I've ruled out OS problems, as I've tried with Vista, XP and Windows 7 to no avail.

I'm sure it's the graphics card, because if I uninstall the drivers for the graphics card and drop the VGA drivers, then the problem disappears. Likewise, if I disable the graphics card or run in VGA safe mode, the problem disappears. The problem only occurs with any nvidia driver.

As soon as I enable the graphics card and install any kind of driver for it, the graphics card starts eating up 20% CPU constantly, causing mass loads of interrupts and delayed procedure calls. The system slows to a grind, sound stutters, the mouse lags, and the entire system is somewhat unusable.

A couple of days ago, I posed a DPC latency graph, I've attached it again here - this is what my graphics card continually generates through usage.

I've tried using the drivers on the Clevo CD that came with my computer, along with the latest ones I could find from nvidia, from clevo and the ones from windows update.

The card is unfortunately a 9800M GTX with a device ID of 0608. I've noticed that nVidia no longer support this device ID in their drivers, and that most traces of things that work with the 0608 device ID seem to have been eliminated - all 9800M GTXs these days seem to be 0617, which does seem to be supported.

Is the 0608 9800M GTX problematic and that is why nVidia dont seem to acknowledge its existence anymore?

Even moreso on top of that, is my 9800M GTX horribly broken? I cannot believe it is normal for the card and system to perform this badly

Maybe I'm just using the wrong drivers - afterall, other than the drivers that came on the driver CD (which also didnt work well), all the other drivers I found did not like my deviceID so I had to use modified infs to get them to even install, and maybe thats part of the problem.

Or is there any way to upgrade the BIOS on the graphics card which might help, but I dont want to make things worse?

Or perhaps, is there any way to work out if my graphics card might be damaged or broken or not working well?

I'd greatly appreciate any help or ideas

Thanks

 

Even though you ruled out OS problems, that doesn't mean that the problem relies on the graphics card. Could you tell us why you're so convinced that the graphics card is the problem?

 

if you think that this is from the card you can flash it with the new Video Bios for 9800M GTX ID: 0617 this bios is much better than 0608

 

0608 and 0617 use different PCBs, maybe only small change. But at least for me they both overheat in M86 chassis.........

 

But the 0617 BIOS doesn't have HDMI support, correct ?
This is why I am still using the 0608. And the new 0608 is still supported by Nvidia, but not all susystems .

Correction: I mean in the new Nvidia drivers there still is support for 0608.

 

new 0608? isn´t 0617 newer than 0608? And i saw several drivers but only 0617....

 

Ah sorry, yes, I meant new "drivers for" .

In 179.48 there is support for several 0608 subsystem versions.

 

Thanks for the replies,

The 179.48 drivers don't support the 0608 9800M GTX, as I've tried them and they fail to install.

Furthermore, I'm sure it's the graphics card, because if I uninstall the drivers for the graphics card and drop the VGA drivers, then the problem disappears. Likewise, if I disable the graphics card or run in VGA safe mode, the problem disappears. The problem only occurs with any nvidia driver.

 

stupid suggestion but just it's a case.

go to http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ and get there modified inf file. then get 185 beta or 182 official and try to install them.

 

I know for certain the device ID is supported, the 0608 is mentioned 3 times in the inf but with different susbsystems. It is likely that your subsystem is not supported just like mine isn't. But the device is there and I am sure some people are able to install the drivers.

Where did you get your laptop? What subsystem do you have?

 

Still, does anyone know if there is a 0617 BIOS with HDMI support ?

 

Have you tried rolling back drivers? (To about, say, November 2008)? I've had severe issues with drivers latter than 178.xx, no matter if they were official nvidia (these did worse! in multiple OSes) or not. I don't think anything past 178.30 is well made for notebook cards _at all_ based on 3weeks+ of running a few of them (all with random freezes, no event log errors).

Roll back to old drivers and run something like furmark to test the card's performance and temps (and drivers - I had graphical glitches with 179.xx, 185.xx drivers (depending on the OS)). I'm pretty annoyed at nVidia's incompetency with drivers lately

(Note: I'm currently running 178.13/Dox's modified, from the sticky, and anything further or from other sources has produced eventual errors). Boot in safe mode, use driver sweeper to yank out all nvidia drivers, open device manager, uninstall the video card, reboot into safe mode, install the 178.13 (or similar 178.xx) drivers, reboot into normal and see if that helps.

 

Taken all you said into consideration and assuming you did not overclocked your video card.... I think it's time to call your reseller and ask for a replacement.

I have no such issues with my GTX and I am running it at the clocks you see in my signature. I have no artifacts or any sort of issues unless I start overclocking to high that is above 620 core or 860 on the memories. Currently I am using DOX optimised 182.05 on Windows 7.

You could try to run a video memory test to check if the memories are alright. Those are usually the first to go on a video card.