The PC Snobbery Thread

[Blinx123]

That's the problem right there though. With so much dicking around and messing with shit, its next to impossible to diagnose any actual problems.

I mean, since August, I've probably put together 40-45 machines. Half of those with nVidia cards, and probably at least 5-6 with 560Ti's. I never get any of those problems. Put it together, install Windows, install latest drivers for everything, run stress tests, sell to customer. That's IT! No bullshitting around, no monkeying with the registry.....I don't think I could even CREATE all those problems even if I wanted to!

How come I'm not the only one with those issues then?
By the time those issues first appeared, others were becoming aware of them as well.

Not to forget. I didn't "dick" around with anything before it was necessary. I did a clean driver install.

[CorruptedDragon]

I'd rather try to upgrade to a Radeon, if possible.

Since it seems to be a combined driver/GPU bios issue (which is what other people are constantly telling the -- blind and deaf -- technicans at NVIDIA, as well), I'm not sure exchanging it for another 560 TI is solving anything. It probably needs some more time before NVIDIA and their board partners finally figure they screwed up with the recent bios and release cards with a proper bios or drivers bypassing the faulty bios*.

*The recent beta driver was promised to be just that. Seems they failed horribly.

If you do get a Radeon, try and get a reference 6950 2gb model. Most of those can be flashed to 6970 so you can save some cash. Or try and get that Sapphire Toxic model which already comes with both bios on it.

[Badger3920]

I'd rather try to upgrade to a Radeon, if possible.

Since it seems to be a combined driver/GPU bios issue (which is what other people are constantly telling the -- blind and deaf -- technicans at NVIDIA, as well), I'm not sure exchanging it for another 560 TI is solving anything. It probably needs some more time before NVIDIA and their board partners finally figure they screwed up with the recent bios and release cards with a proper bios or drivers bypassing the faulty bios*.

*The recent beta driver was promised to be just that. Seems they failed horribly.

<Shrugs> the 560ti is a highly recommended card.

Sometimes, because of the endless combinations and permutations of PC hardware, shit just doesn't play nice together. Othertimes, you just get a bad piece of hardware. Other times, the mistake is something you've done - but it's pretty impossible to figure out exactly what, or how to fix it.

Who knows what yours is - but if you don't RMA, you'll never know. However, who really cares so long as you get it working. If you feel outraged and want an ATI card - by all means, go for it. You should get whatever will make you happy. The 67## series is awesome and absolutely what I'd get if the GTX 570 didnt exist.

[Blinx123]

If you do get a Radeon, try and get a reference 6950 2gb model. Most of those can be flashed to 6970 so you can save some cash. Or try and get that Sapphire Toxic model which already comes with both bios on it.

That's exactly what I was looking at.

I just got that 560 TI working again, btw. But we all know what that means, lol.
Chances are, shortly after I have posted this the system needs to be rebooted again.

I think I found another source of interference though. It was definitely interferring with my own software. Not sure if or by how much it was interferring with the NVIDIA drivers.

The software I'm talking about was programmed by a certain Microsoft. Perhaps you guys know of that company. Lolz.

[Blinx123]

<Shrugs> the 560ti is a highly recommended card.

Sometimes, because of the endless combinations and permutations of PC hardware, shit just doesn't play nice together. Othertimes, you just get a bad piece of hardware. Other times, the mistake is something you've done - but it's pretty impossible to figure out exactly what, or how to fix it.

Who knows what yours is - but if you don't RMA, you'll never know. However, who really cares so long as you get it working. If you feel outraged and want an ATI card - by all means, go for it. You should get whatever will make you happy. The 67## series is awesome and absolutely what I'd get if the GTX 570 didnt exist.

It was highly recommended.
From what I found out though, NVIDIA massively screwed something up with the latest drivers and bios. Both, owners of the 550 and the 560 TI are currently facing massive driver issues.

NVIDIA is aware of that since one week after the last WHQL (280.xxx) was released but, so far, has done nothing to solve this issue. And that, alongside the way EVGA is now handling the warranties*, is what enrages me.

*560 owners get a limited life long warranty, while everything us 560 TI customers got is a lousy 3 year warranty that doesn't even make us applicable for the step-up program, since EVGA only offers that one for cards with 5 years or more.
If I wouldn't know that Kepler isn't due until next March (thus no step-up for me. Even if I had the chance to), I would be even more pissed.

[Badger3920]

It was highly recommended.
From what I found out though, NVIDIA massively screwed something up with the latest drivers and bios. Both, owners of the 550 and the 560 TI are currently facing massive driver issues.

NVIDIA is aware of that since one week after the last WHQL (280.xxx) was released but, so far, has done nothing to solve this issue. And that, alongside the way EVGA is now handling the warranties*, is what enrages me.

*560 owners get a limited life long warranty, while everything us 560 TI customers got is a lousy 3 year warranty that doesn't even make us applicable for the step-up program, since EVGA only offers that one for cards with 5 years or more.
If I wouldn't know that Kepler isn't due until next March (thus no step-up for me. Even if I had the chance to), I would be even more pissed.

I tried to google where everyone is talking about 560ti/560 driver problems. The best I could find was one guy in a thread with 5 replies. His issue was fixed by downloading the BF3 drivers. Have you tried that?

[Kenshiro]

I tried to google where everyone is talking about 560ti/560 driver problems. The best I could find was one guy in a thread with 5 replies. His issue was fixed by downloading the BF3 drivers. Have you tried that?

There are no issues with 560s that I ever heard of. Its a very popular card and I never heard anything on any of the forums. Getting a bad GPU out of the box is pretty rare also. I never heard of anyone trying to use both intel and nvidia video drivers at the same time so its more than likely a user error going on here.

[Badger3920]

There are no issues with 560s that I ever heard of. Its a very popular card and I never heard anything on any of the forums. Getting a bad GPU out of the box is pretty rare also. I never heard of anyone trying to use both intel and nvidia video drivers at the same time so its more than likely a user error going on here.

I would think so too, but I'm only throwing out the suggestion of trying the BF3 drivers because it's easy/quick to do.

If I were him, I'd reset everything to factory settings and reload my OS.

[Blinx123]

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=210338
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=213143
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=213567
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=193106
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=213090
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=213498
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=192020
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=211128

And yes. I have already tried the recent beta drivers. In fact, they crashed just as often as the others. After tinkering a bit more, I've got them to run (see my last post). For how long, we will see.


@Kenshiro

It's definitely not a user error. Aside of the fact that one can't fully disable the iGPU on a Z68 board, I tried just running the discrete graphics card. Which failed as well.

[Blinx123]

I would think so too, but I'm only throwing out the suggestion of trying the BF3 drivers because it's easy/quick to do.

If I were him, I'd reset everything to factory settings and reload my OS.

Oh golly! 20 years of heavy computer tinkering and I never thought about this

I'm sorry, dude. But this isn't the first time I'm setting up a computer.
Considering that I give courses on internet security, hardware/software issues, programming and theoretical computer science, I better damn know what I'm talking about.

Re-installing Windows didn't solve anything and isn't going to do so in the future. Not when the issue lies with a Windows software component or faulty drivers.

For everything else, I would agree. I tend to do a clean install every 1.5 years for maximum performance and proper safety.

[Kenshiro]

People have individual issues all the time. If there were a widespread driver issues you would see reports on websites.

Weren't you having a lot of problems though long before you even installed the GPU? Did you ever uninstall the intel video drivers before installing the nvidia drivers?

I agree with Badger that a factory reset, HDD reformat/OS reload might be your best bet with the GPU already being installed.

[Blinx123]

People have individual issues all the time. If there were a widespread driver issues you would see reports on websites.

Weren't you having a lot of problems though long before you even installed the GPU? Did you ever uninstall the intel video drivers before installing the nvidia drivers?

I agree with Badger that a factory reset, HDD reformat/OS reload might be your best bet with the GPU already being installed.

Again: Done that, been there.

Also. I did uninstall the Intel Video drivers before installing the NVIDIA ones. Didn't help either.

BTW: You guys do realize that this isn't Windows 9x, do you? Having more than one kind of graphics device running at a time shouldn't be an issue at all, lest interfere with each other. There are plenty of Radeon people running an NVIDIA Geforce just for PhysX.

[Badger3920]

Oh golly! 20 years of heavy computer tinkering and I never thought about this

I'm sorry, dude. But this isn't the first time I'm setting up a computer.
Considering that I give courses on internet security, hardware/software issues, programming and theoretical computer science, I better damn know what I'm talking about.

Re-installing Windows didn't solve anything and isn't going to do so in the future. Not when the issue lies with a Windows software component or faulty drivers.

For everything else, I would agree. I tend to do a clean install every 1.5 years for maximum performance and proper safety.

Unsure why the condescension.

[Blinx123]

Unsure why the condescension.

I wasn't trying to sound that way.

But "re-install the OS" just seemed to be the most silly reply I would have ever dreamed of receiving.

I wouldn't study the kernel for the last two days if it was that easy to fix.

Well. Be it. Running stable for the past 8 hours.
Another 5-8 days and I'm fairly convinced I fixed the issue.

Until then, I'll have it running in i-mode, just to make sure it doesn't crash my whole system when I'm in bed or outdoors.

[Blinx123]

Crashed again. This time while attempting to play Trine.

I think of going for a Sapphire 6950 FLEX 2GB (with that flash switch) and an inexpensive GTX 2xxx (for PhysX) now.

Not sure how long it will take though.

I don't currently have the money and, according to the law, I need to give the reseller three chances of supplying me with a working product before I can exchange it for something else.