Asus GTX 460 Broken?

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luxe

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Hi,

As some of you know, I built a new pc just over 2 weeks ago. I pulled my "old" Asus GTX 460 into the new rig, as it was giving me problems in the previous rig, thought I was bottlenecking it, but it seems its even worse now.

Bought the card just over 2 months ago, have never been able to play BF2BC on it, game just stalls, or immediately crashes. Put my old 9800GT in, and the game works fine. Installed MAFIA II this weekend, i can move about 5 steps and it stalls. I have to alt+cntrl+del, click cancel, alt-tab back into game and its fine again for another 5 steps, the bang...stall. Very Strange.

I have tried OC'ing it, i have had it stock, i have swapped PCIe slots, i have oc'd the processor, i have had it stock, but this GFX card just wont last more than 5secs in mafia II. I have turned off physx, lowered all the detail to lowest - even the benchmark gave me a B, then promptly crashed.

I have a feeling that this card is just basically struggling with anything 3d - should i take it back to the shop and get a replacement / RMA?

I have gone as far as swapping power rails into the card - needs 2 x 6 pins, but i notice that it seems the display driver seems to stop working for a split second, then recovers. Some games get over it and carry on, but Mafia 2 and BF2BC just crash immediately. I have used updated non WHQL drivers from Guru3d as well as the current 258.93 (i think) off the nvidia site.

Is it possible that its still a power issue / driver issue ? Would really appreciate some fresh ideas on troubleshooting. The MSI afterburner clearly shows how the card drops for a split second in all areas, then recovers...ARGH.

Help me stop being retarded...please.

(i7 950, 3.7ghz, 8mb dd3 ram, 900w psu, 64 bit win 7) rest in sig.

Thanks,
 
Sounds like it is bust. Just to be sure get furmark (to check stability) and MSI afterburner (to check temps, clocks and fan speeds). That will give you more insight to your problem.

luxe said:
Help me stop being retarded...please.

(i7 950, 3.7ghz, 8mb dd3 ram, 900w psu, 64 bit win 7) rest in sig.
Click to expand...

Though 8 megabytes of RAM could also be a problem ;) :p
 
I have run the stability and benchmarking test in furmark. Which test and for how long should i run it?

Afterburner is running all the time ,so i can watch what bails when the pc crashes - unfortunately most times it restarts, so i dont get the info - other times its the usage which just hits between 0 - 3% for a split second, then pops back to normal.

edit - lol, just saw the ram 8mb fail....you know what i mean :)
 
Any test will do in furmark. I run it in windowed mode so that you can still keep an eye on temps/clocks/etc. What you should get is all clocks go to max, temps rise, fan speed increases, temp levels out.. If at any point during the test clocks drop then send the card back. If you can run furmark for 15min then its fine.
 
Thank you sir - i will punish it tonight.
 
Puniiiiiish!!! Now I'm picturing Gir running around in Dungeon Keeper :D Anyhoo, let us know what happens.
 
Hi - ran the tests - results below:

1280x1024 no MSAA - test made it to 2:10, then hung.
1920x1080 no MSAA - test lasts 4s then hangs.
1920x1200 no msaa - test lasts 3 seconds and hangs.

I am using the stability test, with no other changes from the vanilla startup , no overclocking in afterburner either.

Methinks i have a dud card.
 
Strange how it manages some things...and others not even close.

Will return it to the asus scrap heap in the sky tomorrow...wonder how long it will take to get a new one....lol

back to the 9800 in the meantime.
 
Sure I would have told you to buy a 5850 instead :p hahaha

But return it! No point struggling for months to find a fix if you've tried mostly everything
 
What are normal temps on Furmark? I've run my 9800 for about 20mins at 105'C, and it was quite stable on that. I'm not sure, however, if 105 is normal, high or maybe even decently low (considering that it is unbearably hot outside).
 
Update:

It was in fact the card - I got a straight swap replacement, popped it in, and WOAH.

The card immediately hit over 100fps in Kombustor and Furmark, and once i OC'd the hell out of it, it just got better and better.

Flicker is gone, stalling is gone, driver errors and rebooting is gone.

Thanks for the advice, really happy that I replaced the GPU before i started fiddling with new Mobo's and PSU's.

Edit: Tacet (above) - i ran it for 20 mins on full with post and i got the 460 to max out at 72 C, with the fan at 60%.
 
dudewotevr said:
Good stuff!

What clocks are you running at?
Click to expand...

Hey...i dont have afterburner in front of me at the moment - will edit this when i get home.

but from memory from the top (not remember which number goes with what, just top down.

voltage was max
then 900 ( Core)
1800 (shader)
2100 on memory clock

(confirmed)

Thanks for the linky dudewotever, will check it out.

descriptors are probably wrong, but almost sure the numbers are right. i got those off overclock.net, and they were polled as the most stable, and least likely to blow up your house.
 
Last edited:
luxe said:
voltage was max
Core: 900
Shaders: 1800
Mem: 2100
Click to expand...

Cool.

FYI the memory clocks help very little, no need to push it beyond 2000 really, in this article, you can see that even down to 1800 that it's mainly the core affecting frame rates.
Maybe see if you can take the voltage down a notch..
 
Last edited:
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