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Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games

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HawkOculus
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Sunday, February 06, 2022 2:58 AM (permalink)
I have been experiencing seemingly increasing instability and crashes when playing all games. I've also been experiencing weird issues when just using my PC for normal browsing, etc. Most notable are the full black screen flickers when using Google Chrome. That just started tonight, actually. I had previously experienced no issues when on previous Nvidia drivers, even with all of the recent buggy driver branches. 
 
My GPU is a 3090 FTW3 Ultra, with a Hybrid cooling kit installed. No overclocks, and in the past I have always run a mild undervolt on the card. I am still running an undervolt at this time.
I did a new PC build about a month ago (Alder Lake) and since then I have started having more and more problems. 
Most annoying are the random crashes where the game I'm playing just locks up or crashes to desktop with no error. Within the last couple of weeks I've started getting blue screen crashes with the error "VIDEO SCHEDULER INTERNAL ERROR". From what I've found, this is a GPU related crash and doesn't seem related to any other component. 
When these blue screen errors occur, I have noticed artifacts on my secondary monitor. Here's an image of what they look like: https://imgur.com/a/L7rNyRt
The artifacts do eventually disappear after a hard restart, but the fact that they're there makes me think the card is experiencing a major failure of some kind.
 
I have done multiple driver installs/reinstalls with DDU with no changes really.
I also had thought that the case I had the PC in was keeping my GPU from being fully seated in the PCIE slot (which I do think was actually happening). I rebuilt the PC in a new case where the GPU could actually be fully inserted into the PCIE slot and engage the latch. Things seemed to be all good until I started getting the same old crashes when I sat down to play some games about 25 minutes ago.
Anyone have any thoughts? I really don't want to have to RMA the card but it seems like it's beginning to have some sort of major problem. 
 
I should also mention that previously, I could actually get into a game and actually play it before any crashes occurred. Tonight, when I went to play Halo, I couldn't even get into a game at all. I had 3 complete crashes to desktop and then the blue screen crash with a restart. And then my desktop froze again when I was initially trying to type this all out.

Edit: I am also doing some registry and disk cleanup type checks and whatnot to see if that helps the situation. The full disk repair for the C drive did run itself entirely so it seems like there were some bunk files causing problems? Not really sure. I did have issues with Windows freaking out when I initially built the system (something on the board wasn’t plugged in and the computer got hung up multiple times when Windows was being installed) so I guess it’s possible that was causing problems. But the artifacts and other symptoms do seem entirely GPU related.

And just as another note - I haven’t tried testing with another GPU as of yet.
post edited by HawkOculus - Sunday, February 06, 2022 3:50 AM
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    Sajin
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 9:17 AM (permalink)
    Sounds like you need to go back to the older drivers that were working for you.
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    G H Z
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 11:12 AM (permalink)
    First thing I would do is remove the undervolt, then try an overvolt.  Don't worry, this is simply a test to see if there's any effect.  What PSU are you running?  Is the power supply from a previous build?  Any dust inside?  It's easy to overlook what's inside a PSU thanks to the steel box it's inside.  When in doubt blow it out, an airhose outside works great.  Verify the PSU is powering the system correctly at spec.  You can do software monitoring or physical monitoring of voltages.  If nothing's becoming clear after that, do a test of that beasty card in another system.
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    FAcree
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 11:52 AM (permalink)
    I am going jump on the power supply band wagon.  But I would also suggest checking to make sure that the GPU is seated fully.  You might just try to remove it and reinstall.  Maybe check the contacts on the mother board and card.  Clean with a little isopropyl alcohol.  If that doesn't work find and old GPU.  Take it out to the woods.  Place three black candles around it (they represent the three free electrons in a copper atom).  Pray to the god of electronics and smash the old GPU as an offering.
     
    Or contact EVGA customer support.
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    HawkOculus
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 12:48 AM (permalink)
    G H Z
    First thing I would do is remove the undervolt, then try an overvolt.  Don't worry, this is simply a test to see if there's any effect.  What PSU are you running?  Is the power supply from a previous build?  Any dust inside?  It's easy to overlook what's inside a PSU thanks to the steel box it's inside.  When in doubt blow it out, an airhose outside works great.  Verify the PSU is powering the system correctly at spec.  You can do software monitoring or physical monitoring of voltages.  If nothing's becoming clear after that, do a test of that beasty card in another system.




    Going to try running the card at stock settings and see what happens. I had crashing in Control about a week or so ago and removing all undervot settings and running at stock allowed me to play for a good amount of time. I'll see what affect it has.
    The power supply is totally new. EVGA 1000 watt P2. I am using the cables that came with the unit. I checked to make sure all cables were plugged in. I have been monitoring with HWInfo64 off and on since I've been having problems and everything seems to check out in terms of power delivery and power usage. I haven't done any physical monitoring on the card. 
     
    FAcree
    I am going jump on the power supply band wagon.  But I would also suggest checking to make sure that the GPU is seated fully.  You might just try to remove it and reinstall.  Maybe check the contacts on the mother board and card.  Clean with a little isopropyl alcohol.  If that doesn't work find and old GPU.  Take it out to the woods.  Place three black candles around it (they represent the three free electrons in a copper atom).  Pray to the god of electronics and smash the old GPU as an offering.
     
    Or contact EVGA customer support.

     
    I will take the card out and clean off the contacts and reinstall it after I test things without the undervolt settings. Thanks for the reply. 
     
    Sajin
    Sounds like you need to go back to the older drivers that were working for you.

     
    Going to try this too, but with all the new driver releases with fixes for new games, sometimes this creates problems. But I will go back and try one of the late 400 branches and see if there's any change. I may also try a clean install of the 511.75 hotfix driver.

    Edit: removing undervolt settings and running the card at stock settings seems promising to start with. Played Halo without any issues. Going to test some other games. If it really is the undervolt causing the issues, I’m just not really sure why the issues would crop up now and not before. Could it be driver related?
    post edited by HawkOculus - Sunday, February 06, 2022 1:14 PM
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    aka_STEVE_b
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 2:37 PM (permalink)
    you really should list your entire system specs  & whether you are using win 10 or win 11
     
    and if you were having build issues right from the start , it might just be that is making entire system go wacky.
    You might consider doing a full wipe of the OS , recheck everything hardware wise , .. and reinstall Win 10 , update BIOS  , get latest motherboard drivers , etc... all fresh .
     
     

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    #6
    HawkOculus
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 2:53 PM (permalink)
    aka_STEVE_b
    you really should list your entire system specs  & whether you are using win 10 or win 11
     
    and if you were having build issues right from the start , it might just be that is making entire system go wacky.
    You might consider doing a full wipe of the OS , recheck everything hardware wise , .. and reinstall Win 10 , update BIOS  , get latest motherboard drivers , etc... all fresh .
     


    Specs are:

    12700k (no OC or tweaks, stock settings)
    Asus Z690 Strix Gaming E
    Gskill Z5 32 gigs DDR5 5600 running XMP
    Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB boot drive
    Samsung 860 Evo M.2 SATA 1 TB
    Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB
    EVGA 1000 P2 PSU
    EVGA 3090 FTW3 Ultra (with hybrid cooling kit installed)
    Using standard PSU cables that came with the power supply for the GPU
    Running Windows 11 and most recent motherboard BIOS per Asus

    I did do some Windows registry checks and fixes last night. The Windows repair prompt for the C drive ran the scan and went through its paces so I wonder if the initial Windows install was funky somehow.

    I also do think that something with regards to undervolting changed on the Nvidia drivers side of things.
    post edited by HawkOculus - Sunday, February 06, 2022 2:56 PM
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    HawkOculus
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 10:42 PM (permalink)
    Update: played for multiple hours today across several titles with the GPU running at totally stock settings. Just a fan curve running.
    No issues or crashes at all. I honestly feel like this is an Nvidia driver based issue. Something with undervolting must be broken compared to the 400 branch drivers.
    #8
    Hoggle
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Sunday, February 06, 2022 10:51 PM (permalink)
    HawkOculus
    Update: played for multiple hours today across several titles with the GPU running at totally stock settings. Just a fan curve running.
    No issues or crashes at all. I honestly feel like this is an Nvidia driver based issue. Something with undervolting must be broken compared to the 400 branch drivers.




    Sometimes new drivers can result in overclocks having an issue but at least it doesn't happen that often and you are always able to find a good overclock using the PX1 software.

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    HawkOculus
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Monday, February 07, 2022 9:50 AM (permalink)
    Hoggle
    HawkOculus
    Update: played for multiple hours today across several titles with the GPU running at totally stock settings. Just a fan curve running.
    No issues or crashes at all. I honestly feel like this is an Nvidia driver based issue. Something with undervolting must be broken compared to the 400 branch drivers.




    Sometimes new drivers can result in overclocks having an issue but at least it doesn't happen that often and you are always able to find a good overclock using the PX1 software.


    I actually don’t use PX1. I use Afterburner and usually run a “daily drive” undervolt. I run a mild memory offset of +200.
    In the current scenario, I have to run the card at stock settings in order to have no issues. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and I suspect that something on the Nvidia driver side of things is broken on the new 500 branch of drivers. I still haven’t tried to run a similar undervolt now that I fixed the Windows registry issues on my machine, but I’ll be doing that soon.
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    kraade
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Monday, February 07, 2022 11:38 PM (permalink)
    HawkOculus
    Hoggle
    HawkOculus
    Update: played for multiple hours today across several titles with the GPU running at totally stock settings. Just a fan curve running.
    No issues or crashes at all. I honestly feel like this is an Nvidia driver based issue. Something with undervolting must be broken compared to the 400 branch drivers.




    Sometimes new drivers can result in overclocks having an issue but at least it doesn't happen that often and you are always able to find a good overclock using the PX1 software.


    I actually don’t use PX1. I use Afterburner and usually run a “daily drive” undervolt. I run a mild memory offset of +200.
    In the current scenario, I have to run the card at stock settings in order to have no issues. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and I suspect that something on the Nvidia driver side of things is broken on the new 500 branch of drivers. I still haven’t tried to run a similar undervolt now that I fixed the Windows registry issues on my machine, but I’ll be doing that soon.



     I would look at making a new undervolt profile now that you are working fine again, what  was your Voltage/clock? 
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    HawkOculus
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    Re: Increase in crashing and instability when trying to play games Wednesday, February 09, 2022 10:45 AM (permalink)
    kraade
     I would look at making a new undervolt profile now that you are working fine again, what  was your Voltage/clock? 


    I believe I had things set at 1820 MHz and 968 mV. Haven’t tried to run a new undervolt but I’ll be doing that now that I narrowed down at least part of this issue to the 511.65 drivers. I found multiple other people on several different forums experiencing similar issues with blue screens and whatnot. I ran DDU and rolled back to 511.23 and didn’t have any similar problems after a short gaming test run last night.

    Something is definitely broken on 511.65 and 511.75. If undervolting is still wonky, I may very well roll back to 497.09 from December.
    I have a feeling the reason I was having problems with undervolting is because the case I had the PC in was keeping the GPU from fully seating into the PCIE slot. I have fixed that issue now.
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