GTX 580 crashing in BF3 only, weird symbols on screen

[lwgnlseven]

Hey guys I've been having this problem with BF3 for about 3 weeks now since I restarted playing. To begin, I've got an i5 2500k, gtx 580 and 16gb ram with an 850watt psu. I logged 100 hrs of BF3 maybe 8 months ago when I first got the game, never had a crash or an issue. Now I started playing again 3 weeks ago and I've noticed the game crashing at times. I found a picture below of exactly what I see when it happens.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9287/greenart2.jpg [img171.imageshack.us]

The game will just freeze with these green $$$ looking symbols on both of my monitors and I have to use task manager to close down BF3.

I was playing on high settings when I noticed it happening 3 weeks ago. I was told to lower some graphical settings and I did, it did not crash for about a week and I thought it was all done, however tonight it crashed twice within 20 minutes. I've done research and have found many others are actually getting this problem as well. Is it something wrong with my graphics card or is BF3 related? I have never encountered this in any other game.

I have the latest nvidia driver 301.42 and my gpu temp in bf3 is 58c and my cpu temp while playing is 49c-51c. Its not a heat issue. I'm not sure how to go about this or if there is anything I can do to fix it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

*Edit*
My gtx 580 is all stock with no overclock. 772 core clock, 1544 shader clock, 2004 memory clock.

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Check your voltages. See if they are still within +/- 3% of its rated voltage when on load (fire up IBT and Heaven Bench on extreme at the same time)

[OneMoar]

card is toast rma it
the green dollar sign means just that time to drop some $$$$$$ on a new gpu
all the 580's ex-bit that issue when the vram starts to go

[pantherx12]

That is the weirdest GPU artifacting I've seen. Subbed so I can find out what it is.

[OneMoar]

Originally Posted by pantherx12

That is the weirdest GPU artifacting I've seen. Subbed so I can find out what it is.

just a guss but I am pretty sure its s a fail-safe warning coded into the drivers letting you know something is fubard Iv seen a few posts about nvida cards doing this shortly before the gpu self destructs

[puma99dk|]

Originally Posted by pantherx12

That is the weirdest GPU artifacting I've seen. Subbed so I can find out what it is.

weird yes, i wanna follow aswell to see what this ends out with.

but as Bjorn_Of_Iceland i would check the powersluppy to see and remember to update to the newest driver they have fixed a lot of BF3, D3 and so on in the last couple of drivers.

[pantherx12]

Originally Posted by OneMoar

just a guss but I am pretty sure its s a fail-safe warning coded into the drivers letting you know something is fubard Iv seen a few posts about nvida cards doing this shortly before the gpu self destructs

Aye it certainly looks deliberate.

But I want to know what it actually means.

V-ram on the way out? Uneven voltage? Gpu clocks to high?

[OneMoar]

Originally Posted by pantherx12

Aye it certainly looks deliberate.

But I want to know what it actually means.

V-ram on the way out? Uneven voltage? Gpu clocks to high?

checkerboard patterns are normally vram
this looks like the core is having a meltdown

[_ALB_R3D X]

Very interesting,subbed to know how it will end up!

[the54thvoid]

Just read up on some similar issues and the median response was update the 580's bios. It might be too low a voltage for certain situations. Could also be memory based as others have said.

If the card is dying and not returnable, if all else fails, try a bios flash (if there is a manufacturers more recent version).

Though I'd also maybe try rolling back drivers first.

[lwgnlseven]

Hmmmm....well now i'm not sure what to do....I've been in evga's step up program for 3 months now waiting on the gtx 680. I'm in que number 231. If I RMA the 580 for a new one, that will void me step up because its a new 580 with different serial number etc won't it? How can I check the voltages to the card and also how to update the card bios?

I have an XFX pro850 watt PSU and both the psu and card are only 5 months old.... What are the chances that I've seen others with the same exact problem in BF3 only and none of their other games? I mean this is the only game that I've ever seen it on and it happens randomly. I've played BF3 for 4-5 days without a single crash after hours of playing. Yesterday I played BF3 3-4 hours without a crash, took a break and came back later that night and played another hour or so and got my first crash within a week. Then crashed again 20 minutes later.

I checked EVGA precision and at the time of the crash it registered 0% usage, fan speed, temperature and RPM. Almost like it turned off or reset however I heard no change what so ever. I tried installing an older nvidia driver but i'm getting a bug that tells me everytime "nvidia driver install failed". I looked it up and others as well are getting it. I don't know if its a bug or something. Am I gonna have to worry about the gtx 680 not working either when I eventually get it? This sucks.......... :-\

[puma99dk|]

Originally Posted by lwgnlseven

Hmmmm....well now i'm not sure what to do....I've been in evga's step up program for 3 months now waiting on the gtx 680. I'm in que number 231. If I RMA the 580 for a new one, that will void me step up because its a new 580 with different serial number etc won't it? How can I check the voltages to the card and also how to update the card bios?

about the EVGA Step-Up program email them if u can't call them. I am sure they will help you out if they can, i found that out with the registration of my dad's GT 520 and buying for 10years warranty they helped me in less than 2days with several emails back and for ^^

[gopal]

Very Weird, Well try to use your GPU on another computer and see if it hangs or not if it does then your GPU needs RMA, If it works fine then ????? or uninstall BF3 and install it again and see what happens.
It's a real head scracher!

**EDIT: Well you could try to flash your bios and check the voltages are normal or not and maybe try to under clock it

Q1:Why i am suggesting him to underclock?
Ans.:Well there was and old thread on TPU who has almost the same problem he underclocked his card and it work fine.(he has an 570 or something forgot the model)

Note. UnderClock will decrease your performence.**

[the54thvoid]

Hmm.....

You'll always get a tonne of advice here - that's a good ting but it does mean you're still stabbing about in the dark.

It sounds more and more like a driver issue. Possibly a conflict with other hardware/software?

Do you have a discrete sound card? They can sometimes be a pain.

[gopal]

Originally Posted by the54thvoid

Hmm.....

You'll always get a tonne of advice here - that's a good ting but it does mean you're still stabbing about in the dark.

It sounds more and more like a driver issue. Possibly a conflict with other hardware/software?

Do you have a discrete sound card? They can sometimes be a pain.

No, I don't have a GPU but that does not mean i can't help, do you have an P4

If you don't like my suggestions just ignore me

[the54thvoid]

Originally Posted by gopal

No, I don't have a GPU but that does not mean i can't help, do you have an P4

lol, what?

My post had nothing to do with yours.

I was telling op it's a good forum for advice but it takes some time to get to the root problem.

If i was having a dig at you I'd have quoted your post.

[Crap Daddy]

NV driver install issue should not have anything to do with the card showing artifacts randomly and just in one game. You're on Win 7 I assume. Might try to install new driver with clean install option from NV driver install settings or reinstall Windows. Or just reinstall/repair the game. BF3 is sometimes strange and crashes to desktop are not out of the ordinary. Since it's just this single game I'd rather reinstall the game and check again.

[TheMailMan78]

Originally Posted by Crap Daddy

NV driver install issue should not have anything to do with the card showing artifacts randomly and just in one game. You're on Win 7 I assume. Might try to install new driver with clean install option from NV driver install settings or reinstall Windows. Or just reinstall/repair the game. BF3 is sometimes strange and crashes to desktop are not out of the ordinary. Since it's just this single game I'd rather reinstall the game and check again.

BF3 is also an excellent indicator of system stability. Mine hasn't crashed in months. Hell since I did a clean install of windows about 4 months ago. If your BF3 is crashing you have a stability issue.

[lwgnlseven]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm not really sure what to make of this issue. Just digging around the internet I've found others with this exact problem and they too have either gtx 580 or 560. I'm not sure if its related to the 500 series or what. Its only this game too. Others with the problem also report only having the issue in BF3 and no other games.

Keep in mind that when I first got BF3 roughly 4 months ago, I logged 104 hours of gameplay and never had a single freeze or crash or artifact issue. I took a 2 month break from the game, they had a couple patches, I've since started playing 3 weeks ago and have had 3 artifact freezes in the first week alone. Lowered some graphical settings and it was crash free for a week, and then last night crashed twice. I can't even recreate it if I wanted to, seems to just happen at a random time. I'm not sure if a BF3 patch messed with something, I mean those 104 hours of original gameplay in the beginning was using the same exact voltage as it would be using now. I haven't changed a thing, if I was undervolting the card, shouldn't I have seen this problem a long time ago?

Here is a list of all the games I have played on this system in the 5 months I have owned it.

Amnesia, APB Reloaded, Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 3, Company of Heroes, Skyrim, F1 2010, FIFA 12, Fuel, Killing Floor, Magicka, Metro 2033, MLB 2K11, NBA 2K12, Orcs Must Die, Plants vs Zombies, Saints Row 3, TF2, The Walking Dead, Worms Reloaded.

All of these games played and BF3 is the only one to have ever crashed, frozen, artifact, whatever you wanna call it. It just seems like a very strange coincidence that I have found others with the same issue and in the same game only. All of our GPU's couldn't have died at the same time -.- I'm really beginning to hate technology....

[Crap Daddy]

Try another thing, totally non-tech, reseat the card. If it works I'll tell you my experience with my EVGA 570 although not related to only one game, if not then forget what I just said.

[mad1394]

Oddly enough, reseating the card fixes graphical corruption in games for my gtx 460. For a while anyways, the problems come back in 2-3 months usually. Really freaking weird.

[lwgnlseven]

I will try to reseat the card then and test. On a side note, I've stumbled upon voltages within EVGA Precision. On idle, at the desktop, voltage is around .963 and I believe under full load its set to 1.038. I'm not sure what I should be looking at for voltages, I'm completely lost with real technical things like that. But at full load on a gtx 580, is 1.038 volt where it should be at?

**Edit**

Card is reseated. I will test out some BF3 tonight and post results. Only problem is the crash is completely random so until/if it happens again, I'm in the dark if its working or not. So now that I've posted the voltages at idle and at load, I will wait for a response on where I sit with those figures. Thanks a ton guys!

[lwgnlseven]

Okay played tonight for a few hours, had no lock up or freezing. Can't say a reaseat fixed it however since I'm not sure if/when it could happen again. I will have to keep an eye on it and report back if it happens again. Can anyone give me some input on the voltages that I've posted? Are they where they should be? Thanks.

[gopal]

You reseted it so the volts will be also reseted so nothing to worry

[lwgnlseven]

Originally Posted by gopal

You reseted it so the volts will be also reseted so nothing to worry

Right but if my 1.038 volt when under load isn't enough to power BF3 then I'd have to manually adjust it a bit higher. I think the volts are right where they should be though. I've read that every GPU comes with different voltage set on the card.