GTX 260 Fail. A lot.

[DogMeat]

......

[DannagE]

Could be a few things.

Undervolting. Has it got enough power for 3d coming from psu?
Are there 2 connectors for power going to the card??
Bad drivers, be it nvidia or directx or windows!

Could just be something simples like a faulty card
but you could check that by installing it in another pc and test it,
sure someone on here will let you drop it into their pc to test it if you say what area you are in.

Good luck

[kregoron]

what windows are you running?

nVIDIA GTX260 cards are a bit touchy when it comes to power, what PSU is it getting its juice off? and does it have 36amps on the +12v ?

Try removing the nvidia display drivers with Driver Cleaner or something similar, then updating to the newest from nVIDIAs site

[T-Bag]

Reseat card and try again. I imagine it's power even though it's on a separate psu which would make this unlikely the symptoms fit.

I assume you've tried different drivers etc.

[kregoron]

Reseat card and try again. I imagine it's power even though it's on a separate psu which would make this unlikely the symptoms fit.

I assume you've tried different drivers etc.

If hes running it on a old 400watt with crappy +12 amps it could very well be it..

He tried reseating already

[Claw]

If hes running it on a old 400watt with crappy +12 amps it could very well be it..

He tried reseating already

yes it is. the gtx 260 require atleast a 40 amp 12 volt rail.
and atlaest 600 watt psu

- claw

[T-Bag]

Oh yeah  I didn't read reseating for some reason. Still worth try other drivers. Uninstall completely, not roll back. Not sure if there are catalyst drivers for your card, but they'd be worth a try if there are.

[Padding]

Im thinking about buying a GeForce GTX 295, i suppose i shouldnt be scared by this article?

[Tutonic]

I would suspect a voltage problem too. If you've got a PSU tester, plug it into the 12V rail and see how many amps its pushing out.

[Claw]

Im thinking about buying a GeForce GTX 295, i suppose i shouldnt be scared by this article?

depends on if you have a 62 amp on your 12v rails then no else.. maybe

-claw

[DogMeat]

The card's PSU is a 600W with both 6-pin leads going to the card.  Not sure about voltages till I get home, but I assumed they were adequate as it's a new PSU.

Drivers were uninstalled then reinstalled.
Issue present in XP and Fista.

 

Not sure if there are catalyst drivers for your card, but they'd be worth a try if there are.    

Excellent. :g:  Do you have a link for the latest release compatible with the GTX 260?

Will check amps later.  Thanks for the helpful suggestions.

[kregoron]

Drivers were uninstalled then reinstalled.
Issue present in XP and Fista.

 

Use a driver cleaning program like Driver Cleaner, normal uninstall leaves a bunch of old config / dll files hanging around, driver cleaners remove those also

[sulky_uk]

Oh yeah I didn't read reseating for some reason. Still worth try other drivers. Uninstall completely, not roll back. Not sure if there are catalyst drivers for your card, but they'd be worth a try if there are.

 
isnt catlayst for ATI cards? that woudlnt help your cause at all try the latest ge forece drivers here
 
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
 
just pick the 260 and your operating system
 
as for the psu if it is an cheap one it is unlikely it will be pushing out enough juice. Check on the side of the psu and there should be a plate like this old one i dug out of the garage
 

 
What you are looking for is the 12 v rails amps, this old one it has 20 amps on the 12v. More modern PSU's have multiple rails, say 12 vd1- 20 amps 12vd 2 - 20 amps, that would give a combined of 40 amps on the 12 v rail. But some psu's even if the have 3 rails each rated at say 25 amps to give a total of 75 BUT IT will have in the specs saying continiuos 12 volt rail output is 60 amps. So 1st you need to get all the info you can for the psu you have. then work out the total amps your computer is using, Ive used this in the past
 
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp
 
the free one is good but the $1.99 versuion actually works out the ampage required as well. If you use any free ones remember most work out in wattage so according to toms hardware the best way to work out ampage from wattage is to divide by 12. so if you use a calc and get 590 watts/ 12 = 50 watts on 12 v rail (always round up)
 
now looking round the internet the concenses is that a psu with 40amps in the 12v rail should be enough for a 260 plus a few hard drives and opticals, but remember to factor in everything else as well so 50 would be a better number.
 
1 last thing if the psu cant handle it rma it saying it didnt have enough power for your system then look around for one which says sli ready, i know you dont have sli but it means the company has tested the psu with 2 gpus and a full sytem and is happy it will provide every bit of power it needs and it will be included in the warrenty, so if it doesnt power your system there support should help you out
 
here is an example
 
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-031-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
does this help?

[T-Bag]

isnt catlayst for ATI cards? that woudlnt help your cause at all try the latest ge forece drivers here
 
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
 
just pick the 260 and your operating system
 

I thought they were called Omega catalyst for both, but it seems catalyst was a prefix to the ati driver name. This is what I meant:

Link

Can't find out if the chipset is supported, if the 129.21 build does then these will as they're simply optimised versions. However, the fact that it crashes in both OSs rules this out for the most part.

[kregoron]

the Omega drivers no longer gets updated, and the latest is over a year old..