Crash dump in Windows 7 possibly caused by GeForce 9800 GTX

Question

I'm getting the BSOD fairly frequently in the last week, and I can't figure out why. The errors lead me to believe a memory failure somewhere (MEMORY MANAGEMENT, PAGE IN NONPAGE AREA), but they only occur under heavy loading of my video card (NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX) so far. Does this mean that the on-board memory of my video card is bad?

The only other explanation I've read is that the driver for this card isn't up to par for Windows 7 yet and is causing overheating problems in the card itself. I don't think this is happening to me, since I opened the case and watched the fan to make sure it was spinning up. I can't tell if it's actually going fast enough, however.

Any feedback is very much appreciated!

UPDATE: I ran memtest and it came back clean. To try to determine if it's the video card or some other part of the system, I borrowed a duplicate card and installed it. Now, I'm being told that there was a boot disc failure so obviously something happened to mess with the hard drive. I'll update again if/when I can get it booted.

UPDATE 2: Apparently rebooting again is all it takes to trick my magic box into thinking that it's fixed. The "new" video card seems to have taken care of everything, so I'll be shipping my old one away for a replacement. Thanks for the help! :D

Answer 1

This sounds like you have overheating issues. What are your temperatures running at on the card before such a crash?

You can try adding some cooling and see if you see reduced crashes. If it keeps acting up at the same frequency, then you might have bad video ram. You got any warranty left on the card? Otherwise, it might need replacement. But, before you jump to that, try monitoring your temps and get some extra cooling on that card. The 9800 gtx is a dual slot sized card if I am not mistaken and should have one or two built on fans. You might try one of the video card overclocking utilities to set the fans at a higher RPM.

You said you can see the fan running, but by default, many cards have fans set at a lower speed to reduce noise. With the fan utilities, you can manually ramp up fan speeds. Also, make sure the computer is clean. Run some compressed air through it and the video card to make sure those fans are clear of dust.

If it is not the video card, your main system memory may be failing or overheating. Memtest will help you determine any main memory issues. Also, make sure the ram is clean and fans are clear.

Answer 2

First, to rule out a problem with the memory of your machine (just to make sure), run memtest.

Apart from that, this usually happens when a card over heats - just because the fan is up does not really tell you much...

If your card / driver supports it, look inside the Nvidia control panel for the temperature. If it doesn't, take a look at GPU-Z.

Next, play a game for about 5 minutes - or for a shorter time than it takes to crash and take a look back.

If it is very high, then you have thermal issues in your case.

If it is not high, it is probably some other problem with the card, in which case, get it returned under RMA.

Before you do return it, it may be worth trying to update to the latest drivers just in case it helps!