Boring PC advice weekly: White screen and long shutdown times

[Oliwerko]

Hello all,

After some time of peace regarding my sw/hw, I again cry for help.

Issue No.1:
I bought an Nvidia GTX 280 half a year ago. Everything's fine, except that sometimes, the screen goes all-white and I must reboot. It goes white on random, once every few days. Programs continue on running, knowing the shortcuts, I can easily reboot - and upon booting, it's all ok. I don't remember the card doing this when it was new. I tried running stress tests/benchmarks, and it's OK when under load.

Another thing is that this apparently does not happen when in fullscreen (games), but only when in XP environment on desktop.
I have reinstalled the OS, updated everything to top and the trouble remains.

Is the card faulty? Or is it something someone here knows of?
Oh, could it be caused by Winamp Visualization plugin running on my desktop?

Issue No.2:
I've never had problems with long shutdown times, but now, when I reinstalled the OS, updated it and all, it sometimes takes the computer a minute or so to shut down. All programs close and it seems nothing is happening - this lasts for about a minute or two - and then it shuts down. Sometimes it's normal, sometimes it's like this. No clue. I've tried all google solutions including turning off pagefile clearing on shutdown (which was off by default).

Please, if anyone has any experience that could be helpful in my case, share it.

Thank you! 

[Jim Reed]

Maybe some background service is not shuting down when windows are. In that case, windows have a 30 second (default) countdown untill it shuts them down forcefully. Changing this setting may help you shut down windows more quickly. This setting is somwhere in the registry. You can type regedit in start>run to find and change it manually, but I warmly suggest that you make a restore point before that and use a specialised program for changing registry values.

[SSH]

You have a virus called "Windows". Remove it and install Ubuntu.

[Khris]

Note, however, that Ubuntu is hassleware. Because it can be a real hassle to get your WLAN stick (8.04) or graphics card drivers (9.04) to work without a degree in computer science.

Fifth grade humor aside, try to kill every process that's running in the background, then see if you still get the white screen.
At the command prompt, enter msconfig, then uncheck everything in the second to last tab you don't need (you need to reboot afterwards).
If the problem persists, it's likely to be a hardware issue. Since everything keeps running in the background, it might be the video card's RAM. Check the fan and clean it, or better yet, try a different graphics card.

[Jim Reed]

I've heard that the most widely spread and played point and click adventure game is called Windows made by a mostly unknown developer Microsoft. =D

[NsMn]

Yeah... It's familar to Sierra games: Many dead-ends, many deaths 

[InCreator]

Naming your Windows version could be useful here: and ignore SSH. Switching to linux over few Windows problems sounds like going jogging in spacesuit just in case it'll be raining. Especially if you're a gamer.

White screen? To deny reality, I'd say either drivers or heat. I had my share of Geforce cards over time and strange things usually happened when quadruple drivers were installed or card heated up.

Heat: Is your card cooled properly? Computer not near heat source of against wall? All ventilation openings clear of obstacles & dust and have some space around them? How much room is inside computer, around the card & its cooler?  No fat wires obstructing airflow?

...because of overclocking: Is your card overclocked? With cheaper versions of NVidia cards, they're often overclocked (at factory) and you don't even know about it. This causes heating and lessens card life too.

Drivers: When was last time you reinstalled windows and how many versions of video drivers could be between? You might have some old, non 280-compatible drivers left and they sometimes kick in?

But to accept reality, most likely your card might simply be faulty. Loads of stores sell hardware that has some tiny, unnoticeable problem. Like out of billions of calculations, GPU gets one wrong or something. That's quite common and keeps smaller hardware stores in business, since those cards go into trashcan normally or cost considerably less. Might be something you never notice, simply reboot every once in a while and blame it all to Microsoft, aliens or whatever.

[Oliwerko]

Naming your Windows version could be useful here

It's not heat. I ran benchmarks yesterday. The card is completely stabile at 90°C when under full load (which does not normally happen) and nothing goes wrong.

White screen? To deny reality, I'd say either drivers or heat. I had my share of Geforce cards over time and strange things usually happened when quadruple drivers were installed or card heated up.

Heat: Is your card cooled properly? Computer not near heat source of against wall? All ventilation openings clear of obstacles & dust and have some space around them? How much room is inside computer, around the card & its cooler?  No fat wires obstructing airflow?

...because of overclocking: Is your card overclocked? With cheaper versions of NVidia cards, they're often overclocked (at factory) and you don't even know about it. This causes heating and lessens card life too.

It's not heat. I ran benchmarks yesterday. The card is completely stabile at 90°C when under full load (which does not normally happen) and nothing goes wrong. And also, it's not overclocked.

Drivers: When was last time you reinstalled windows and how many versions of video drivers could be between? You might have some old, non 280-compatible drivers left and they sometimes kick in?

Two days ago I reinstalled Windows with complete drives formatting and updating everything from windows itself, through DirectX, to the nvidia drivers.
The weird thing about the white screen is that it didn't happen in a game or so. I'm beginning to think maybe the winamp vizualization is the cause, I'll cease to use it and see what happens.

try to kill every process that's running in the background, then see if you still get the white screen.

Yeah, more blind-process-killing in task manager 

Jim - I know that program killing issue, but yet the time is longer than 30 seconds. I'll continue the trial-and-error technique when determining if it's not the case. I've checked the Event Viewer, and (maybe it isn't associated with it) I've seen some Userenv 1517 and 1524 errors which have a suspicious description. But as I've said, maybe it doesn't have to do with it. I'll check next time it happens.

[Jim Reed]

Yeah, 30s for one process. If two processes hang it goes to 60. As for the white screen...if everything works behind it as you mentioned it, i suspect that some app is displaying an empty white screen. Winamp, as you say, probably. Try plugging the computer into 650 volt outlet, it may not solve the problem, but it will work faster =D. The smoke coming from the case is just a side effect.

Cheers!

[InCreator]

90°C ?!

Water boils at 100°C... I had GF5700LE once that went haywire just after it reached over 61°C. Had to unscrew my case and open window to play HL2 normally. Card didn't have a radiator or cooling fan, strange card that was. There was a sad thread here at AGS too...

But then again, I have no clue what's "normal" for newer cards. Are you completely sure 90 isn't too much?

[Ishmael]

I'd think 90 degress is a bit much for any piece of computer hardware. Check the card's cooling for any masses of dust or such, and also make sure the case is cooled properly, just in case.

[Huw Dawson]

Ah, you have the 280 overheat problem. Note that those card (the 280, 260 etc) run perfectly fine at those temperatures other than the occasional hiccup. I'd personally go onto a more techy forum and ask around there to see if there's anything you can do to lower the

OH OF COURSE

It's because the fan isn't spinning at top speed or something like that, I'll go research it. (The whiteout is caused by your GPU, by the way.)

The slow to close down thing most likely is because there is a background program that's running and refuses to shut down when Windows is telling it to.

- Huw

EDIT: What you could try:

1) Get the latest firmware. (Just saying this for the sake of caution - and people on the net randomly stumbling on this thread.) Check your temps again after the computer's been running for a while.
2) If it's still running v. hot while under load, you're going to need to be a little cautious. With the newest nvidia drivers installed, install their customisation tool nTune. http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html (latest version at time of writing)
3) Go into your graphics options, then you need to search around inside for options to turn up your fan speed. Turn it off automatic and then up to 100% (ie the max) speed.
4) Cooler GPU! (Just as a warning, it may also sound like a plane is taking off. Customise your fan speed to where it's quiet but no longer whitescreens.)

Of course, it could be a case that the card has been overclocked...

[InCreator]

I'd suggest to benchmark it both at 90C and whatever lowest temperature you can get (open window, open computer case, put a fan near computer, increase fan speed, etc). I'd say 60-70, no more.

I believe you possibly cannot directly check if white screen re-occurs, but benchmarking should show if temperature makes any change. If the change is noticeable, keep it cool until either white screen occurs or hasn't happened anymore for considerable amount of time so you'll know you got rid of the problem.

[Oliwerko]

90°C ?!

Water boils at 100°C... I had GF5700LE once that went haywire just after it reached over 61°C. Had to unscrew my case and open window to play HL2 normally. Card didn't have a radiator or cooling fan, strange card that was. There was a sad thread here at AGS too...
But then again, I have no clue what's "normal" for newer cards. Are you completely sure 90 isn't too much?

I've checked some hardware forums out there, and all said that 90°C is the upper "OK temp" for GTX280. I mean, it gets to 90 only with benchmarking software squeezing the hell out of it.

Also, the card does no weird rendering things in-game.

It's because the fan isn't spinning at top speed or something like that, I'll go research it. (The whiteout is caused by your GPU, by the way.)

Did you read what I wrote? Fan is OK and when under load, it spins at full.
Why are you so sure that whiteout is caused by the GPU?

4) Cooler GPU! (Just as a warning, it may also sound like a plane is taking off. Customise your fan speed to where it's quiet but no longer whitescreens.)

I repeat, the whitescreens happened when NOT under load, only when totally idle.
Btw, when idling on desktop, the GPU has 55°.

The 55/90 temps for GTX280 are all around web, many many people have them and are reffered as to normal.

I'd suggest to benchmark it both at 90C and whatever lowest temperature you can get (open window, open computer case, put a fan near computer, increase fan speed, etc). I'd say 60-70, no more.

I believe you possibly cannot directly check if white screen re-occurs, but benchmarking should show if temperature makes any change. If the change is noticeable, keep it cool until either white screen occurs or hasn't happened anymore for considerable amount of time so you'll know you got rid of the problem.

Again, I tried Furmark, got at ~90°C and running for an hour, stabile and without whitescreens. They happen(ed) on random, only when idling on desktop (which leads me to the thought that it might be caused by the winamp visualization plugin)

And I've got over-average airflow in my case (ThermalTake Shark - all aluminum, 2x12cm fans - front and back). I've read more about the high CPU temps, and there are people who idle at 40-45 and are on 60-70 under load, with stock BOX cooler (which I have). I'll try to reaplly the thermal paste, that may be the problem.

Regarding the slow shutdown - I reinstalled once more. And first slow shutdown occured when I installed ONLY XP SP3 and all newest drivers for my hardware. So the problem may lie in incompatibility between updated windows and either of the drivers. And I'm not downgrading there. So be it, I'll wait the minute.

Thanks for your time, guys.