Every single game has "stopped working" since installing GTX 660

[Colin.B]

Did a google search for this and a lot of talk was floating around about messages concerning driver crashes but I haven't been getting that. I just swapped out my GTX 260 for a GTX 660, uninstalled all drivers, installed the GPU, installed the latest nvidia drivers and every game I go into crashes and I get a message saying "Far Cry 3 has stopped working". (Or whatever game I may try.) I have a 500W Antec Earthwatts PSU, minimum requirement is 450W. I'm also running a Q6600 OC'd to 3.4Ghz on a Gigabyte motherboard with PCI E 2.0. I've tried a couple driver reinstalls and reboots but no such luck. I'm trying a reinstall of DX now just in case.

EVGA GTX 660 SC

Q6600 @ 3.4 GHz

Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU

I should also note it seems to always happen right after the intial logo screen for the game or a developer logo screen, never during any gameplay. I've also run the EVGA stress test on the GPU with no crashes or issues. Could it be my OC?

[DavidM]

You might try Driver Sweeper and see if that helps, but I'm betting the main power rails aren't giving enough juice.

Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU lists this: +3.3V@25A, +5V@24A, +12V1@22A, +12V2@22A, [email protected], [email protected] (Newegg)

EVGA GTX 660 SC needs this: Minimum of a 450 Watt power supply. Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amps. (EVGA)

So it seems, both your +12V rails are 2 amps too low, and I'm guess as power hungry as nVidia cards are, that's the problem.

Grab another PSU (keep your receipt) and see if that solves the problem, if so card is good need to keep the PSU. If no change card is probably bad.

[primexx]

it's Driver Fusion now http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

DavidM is right. It's your power supply. When you launch a game, a video card draws more power. In your case, not enough electricity is being moved from your PSU to your video card because of the lower amperage (22A vs. the required 24A).

[+PeterUK MVC]

If the GTX 260 worked fine it needed Minimum of a 500 Watt power supply

(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 36 amps).

http://www.evga.com/support/faq/afmviewfaq.aspx?faqid=58061

So before you get a new PSU which wouldn?t be a bad thing reset your CPU to stock reinstall the OS if needed and try that.

[Tuishimi]

Could you have bumped something in there? Or maybe even ... some bad VRAM so when games load, hits a certain point in the RAM and *boom*? Probably not... I think Peter has the right of it, start by resetting everything.

[f0rk_b0mb]

1. Is your BIOS up to date? If not do so now.

2. Clear your bios with cmos jumper. Set everything back up, but don't overclock for the time being.

3. Try your games again. If they crash, try running Furmark. Does it crash on you? Does anything seem out of the ordinary?

4. If Furmark crashes, Try to get a better power supply. You are stressing it with that setup.

5. Still crashing? RMA the card.

Edit: Can't hurt to do a memtest too.

[Colin.B]

Thanks for the replies! I went ahead and just decreased my OC. Well, took it back to stock and everything works fine. I guess I figured if it worked fine with my OC before it would now but perhaps the increased voltage combined with the different PSU requirements caused the issue? Either way, I'm happy. I mainly kept the OC at 3.4 - 3.6 to help prevent bottlenecking but honestly, if there is a bottleneck I sure didn't notice it. This thing flies! Still tempted to take advantage of the step up program in the next 90 days and get the 660Ti...

I will be investing in a new PSU though I think since I plan on getting a new CPU, motherboard and ram in the next couple of months.

[f0rk_b0mb]

Thanks for the replies! I went ahead and just decreased my OC. Well, took it back to stock and everything works fine. I guess I figured if it worked fine with my OC before it would now but perhaps the increased voltage combined with the different PSU requirements caused the issue? Either way, I'm happy. I mainly kept the OC at 3.4 - 3.6 to help prevent bottlenecking but honestly, if there is a bottleneck I sure didn't notice it. This thing flies! Still tempted to take advantage of the step up program in the next 90 days and get the 660Ti...

I will be investing in a new PSU though I think since I plan on getting a new CPU, motherboard and ram in the next couple of months.

Awesome! Glad it worked for you! :)

[Astra.Xtreme]

I will be investing in a new PSU though I think since I plan on getting a new CPU, motherboard and ram in the next couple of months.

Yeah definitely get something with a little more headroom. Probably at least a 750W. By running it at it's threshold, you're probably lowering it's lifespan, so you'd hate to have it die and then be out of commission while you wait for a new one to ship.

If the PSU has plenty of overhead, you should get a nice long life out of it. And it'll be a lot more future-proof too for future builds. :)

[brn]

Swap power supplies, remove drivers, re-install.

[Colin.B]

Might have spoken too soon. After playing some Far Cry 3 and exiting to the desktop, the game froze on a loading screen. Then a few minutes after running a stress test in Furmark everything stopped responding in Windows and I had to force restart. Looks like I should be checking out a new PSU...

[Invizibleyez]

Power supplies also do gradually lose capability over time. You didn't mention how old your power supply is, but no matter what, it seems to be the most marginal, so replacing the power supply should solve your woes.

[Phouchg]

It's most likely a faulty card. Update your board's BIOS. I've had it like this except that system would crash turning on Aero.

If no joy, test the card in another computer to be sure and that's it.

As for PSU, it might be going south and is of suboptimal brand as it is, but even then it's not marginal at all, having run GTX 260 without a hitch. Which is a big giveaway, actually. While higher wattage PSUs tend to be several percent more efficient, people are obsessed with their kilowatt PSUs as if it's horsepower of a car or something.

Also, I wish I could downvote people talking out of their ass about amps. Driving 22 amps through a single 6-pin PEG GTX 660 has (given that small part of the required power comes through the other +12V rail routed through the slot itself), with 18 gauge wires packed so close together would not only crash the game, but burn your house down.

[xendrome]

Power supplies also do gradually lose capability over time. You didn't mention how old your power supply is, but no matter what, it seems to be the most marginal, so replacing the power supply should solve your woes.

They either work, or they don't.. so they are either good or faulty. There is no "gradually lose capability over time" with hardware...

[FiB3R]

They either work, or they don't.. so they are either good or faulty. There is no "gradually lose capability over time" with hardware...

Not actually true. Leaky capacitors can be a bitch.

[f0rk_b0mb]

Might have spoken too soon. After playing some Far Cry 3 and exiting to the desktop, the game froze on a loading screen. Then a few minutes after running a stress test in Furmark everything stopped responding in Windows and I had to force restart. Looks like I should be checking out a new PSU...

Aww...well that's a crock. :( What PSU are you going to get? Do you have another machine you can at least test and benchmark the card in?

[Phouchg]

Everything degrades in time and with use. So do electrolytic caps. Especially bad quality ones.

And while we're on the subject, so does magnetic field of hard disk platters, charge in flash drives decreases, if unused, and, in fact, semiconductors do degrade, albeit very slowly.

Caps do fail gradually, inhibiting their performance. Rest of things mentioned work until they fail.

[Luc2k]

I'd test the card on a friend's PC before buying the PSU, just to be sure.

[Invizibleyez]

They either work, or they don't.. so they are either good or faulty. There is no "gradually lose capability over time" with hardware...

Here's a footnote from a power supply calculator site.

Electrolytic capacitor aging. When used heavily or over an extended period of time (1+ years) a power supply will slowly lose some of its initial wattage capacity. We recommend you add 10-20% if you plan to keep your PSU for more than 1 year, or 20-30% for 24/7 usage and 1+ years.

http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

[Colin.B]

Well silly me, I forgot to change my voltage on my CPU back down to stock after decreasing my OC. Running at stock speeds with stock voltage and everything is fine. I'll gradually overclock my PC and test for issues but for now all is well. I had it stable at 3.2 with stock voltage before the GPU upgrade so I'll try that again and see. Maybe it was just my voltage all along. I guess I should pay more attention :p.

[f0rk_b0mb]

Well silly me, I forgot to change my voltage on my CPU back down to stock after decreasing my OC. Running at stock speeds with stock voltage and everything is fine. I'll gradually overclock my PC and test for issues but for now all is well. I had it stable at 3.2 with stock voltage before the GPU upgrade so I'll try that again and see. Maybe it was just my voltage all along. I guess I should pay more attention :p.

haha, Alright. Tell us if you run into anything else. Glad it's working for you. :)

[Colin Bisson]

So I was playing some Diablo 3 tonight and my computer froze. I rebooted and saw these two lovely screens.

[Colin.B]

Sorry about that - I was logged in to an out of use FB account on my phone and didn't realize it. Plus, I wasn't able to upload those images.

I guess the whole reason I was thinking PSU (and forgive my ignorance) is things just started crashing..For example, I opened Chrome and it just ran sluggish and unresponsive. Even trying to pull up the task manager to end the task was delayed and after the system "caught up", I had to restart to have any type of performance I could use. I just didn't think a GPU could cause those issues. Again, my own ignorance.