mike87

I just bought a GTX 285 and have left ATI. I uninstalled all ATI drivers and then did a sweep with Driver Cleaner in safe mode. I installed my eVGA GTX 285 SC with the latest nVidia drivers. Card is not overclocked, but is factory overclocked in its stock form with the core at 675 MHz.

Weird thing is, I run all the games I have on max settings at 1600x1200 resolution perfectly fine (well, currently Wolfenstein, Counter Strike Source, HL2, HL2 Lost Coast since I just came from a clean format very recently). The only game I can't run well is the Left 4 Dead 2 Demo. I don't think it's a defective card... because I do not get any artifacts and the other games I currently have installed run perfectly fine.

The game will run extremely smooth at 1600x1200, and then hiccups/stutters/freezes/hangs once in a while. My screen freezes, and then it becomes smooth again. This will happen every few seconds (about every 20-30 seconds of smooth gameplay, it will freeze for 2-3 seconds or more). I used GPU-Z to check my temps and it was around 40C around idle and 65C during load.

Also, under the Advanced Settings section in L4D2, I have the multiple core GPU setting set to disabled.

My computer is the same one listed in my sig. My E6400 is overclocked to 2.8 GHz with a vcore of 1.235, FSB of 350. My memory is DDR2 2.0V with 4-4-4-12 timings, running at 700 MHz. Idle temps for my CPU are around 50C idle and 60C load (keeping in mind this is the 65nm wafer). I have a better cooler coming in to replace my stock cooler, but I do not believe my CPU is the problem here because I still experience the same problem even when I'm not overclocked (albeit a little smoother).

I came to think that the problem might be my PSU not pumping out enough wattage... but I have a Thermaltake 650W. This should be enough juice for the GTX285 and a mildly overclocked E6400, no?

I also talked with an ASUS hardware support person on their live chat line and they said that it most likely was not a motherboard problem, because my PCI-E slot is version 1.1, and the board is version 2.0.

Maybe it's a DirectX problem? I currently have DX v9.0c installed on XP... should I bother upgrading to Windows 7?

Can anyone render any help?

TFL Replica

That's the most likely cause of your problem. Grab the 186.18 drivers and see if they don't fix things for you.

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kenpachiroks

Most likely the drivers. Go for older drivers.
Do lower setting make a difference. It shouldn't, for this card. Try defragging the game(Slight chance). I've played the demo on my 9600gt on highest and i didnt face any fps drop. Try increasing the "per-rendered frames" in the nvidia control panel.
Since you're getting freezes. try re-installing the game(u ust've done this too).

mike87

Interesting.. I've read that the v186 drivers are favored, and this was the last thing I was going to try before I went to bed late last night. But I thought to myself... why should I roll back drivers? What is the reason for this? IIRC, I'm currently running the latest v191 drivers off the eVGA website, which are the same off the nVidia website.

I guess I'll just go through the whole driver bit once I get home later tonight and post back if it was a successful fix or not.

mike87

UPDATE: Decided to try the new beta v195 drivers instead of rolling back to the v186. L4D2 demo is now VERY smooth. Thank you all for your help.

epitek

always install provided software then check compatibility and upgrade if needed D:

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