Lost my monitors

[bussgarfield]

Hi Bob.

I only use the default FSX transponder at the moment so all settings are done through FSX. Thats what is puzzling. FSX tells me the squawk code but refuses to change it's own settings once I confirm them through the radio.

My COMM radio is an Opencockpits which I can set manually and the transponder is next on the list so in the mean time I still use FSX for the transponder.

Gary

[Emesis]

Hello Gary,

I've been following your dilemma since you started this post, but now I'm confused. I was under the impression that your left and right monitors and video cards were not working at all, but from your previous post it seems you're able to pull the EICAS and ATC box into the left and right monitors and it works fine. So that tells me that your video cards and monitors are functional. Unless I missed something?

I assume that when your system was running you were using windowed mode and pulling your views into the left and right monitors, is that correct? But now you are unable to do that without freezing or crashes?

Maybe I'm a little slow, but just trying to sort out what is exactly happening.

Cheers,
Rand

[NeoMorph]

Hi Neo and Hi Charlie.

Calmed down a bit now from my previous rantings.

Lots to discuss really.

Neo - I whole heartidly concur with you as I also tried a search for the W7 drivers. This 'expert', whilst a very friendly chap leaves a lot to be desired. I may firstly get a copy of W7 and go my own way with the drivers. I tried another flight today and same thing happened. The right and left screens played up but I had no problem with the centre (main) screen, so was able to fly. I moved the EICAS to the right screen and apart from the blacknesss all around it, it performed fine - so the screen and card appear to be ok - unless they are put under load - so to speak - when they flash and freeze like nobodies business.

BINGO... It actually is your graphics chip that has blown. That is the final bit of the puzzle.

Think about it... your visual (out of the window) bit is 3D... your EICAS is actually 2D... so it's the 3D rendering part of the chip that has blown which is what I have seen on a couple of graphics cards and my Xbox 360 that blew. I can actually use my 360 for anything but play the games because its the 3D part that has died on the chip and not the 2D (seperate bits apparently).

So yeah, try and find a replacement graphics card is your best bet... it's NOT the motherboard and it's NOT your OS that is at fault.

Here is a way to test my hypothesis... Take the problem card and put it into another PC. Boot it up and it will work OK... run something 3D on it and I bet you any money the thing will freak out again. As the only problem bit is the 3D on the card on that setup it will definitely show that is where the problem lies.

A quicker way to test would be to make a new outside view in a box on your main screen... outside view... move that box to the left window and I bet that box is empty as well... move it back and it will be fine. But the final test would be the above way (moving the card to the other PC).

It took you mentioning that the EICAS works on it to kick my memory into gear... 2D works... 3D doesn't. I'm sorry it took so long for my brain to kick in mate.

[Emesis]

Neo,

Sounds logical, but I thought he was using 3 video cards, one for each monitor. So are you saying that 2 of the 3 cards blew out the 3D rendering?

Cheers

[NeoMorph]

I was sure I read that he supplied left and right views from the lower card... but looks like I read it wrong.

It's really doubtful that two cards would develop the same fault at the same time...

Gary, can you please give my your full video spec (I know it's a pain) with what is connected to what graphics card. I just need the graphics wiring with what was originally connected to what card. For example you have 3 widescreen monitors... are they displaying the outside views AND the gauges as well or are there separate displays for the gauges. Each card has 2 outputs you see so I have to wonder why you have 3 cards.

We'll figure it out Gary... unfortunately fault finding via forums is a bit hard. I've been guilty of assuming a bunch of stuff but you know what assuming does... makes and ass of u and me... me definitely in assuming that I read that the bottom card handled left and right views heh. Another assumption was that when you tested the cards in the other PC that you tested it for 2D and 3D. I never asked whether you did that or not. My fault for not asking you to test both.

Once I've got the correct layout in my head I'll put together a bunch of tests (which I should have done in the first place tbh) that should track down the fault. I still feel it's graphics chip related but whether it is because the PSU not giving enough amps to the cards because a power channel is dying or whether the motherboard power distribution is going gaga or whether the cards themselves have lost 3D capability I don't know yet. There are so many things that it could be.

Hold on... just thought... Are you running your rig in SLI mode or as seperate cards? I've got to admit that I don't know much about SLI you see.
Ignore that last... 3 card SLI would mean only 2 monitors supported apparently so you can't be running them in SLI mode.

[bussgarfield]

Hi Guys.

I will explain how I have my monitors set and what I have displayed on which one.
Given that I have a 737 pit under construction, I have at present 3 monitors for the outside view and 3 seperate monitors in my MIP. In the MIP, only the left one (Captains side) is actually connected up so forget the other two.

At the rear of the computer case I have the connections from the 3 GPU's. Each GPU has 2 outputs. For arguments sake, No 1. GPU is at the top (the PSU end), No 2. the next one down and 3 is at the bottom.

No 1. GPU is connected to the centre monitor on the right output and the left MIP monitor is connected to the left output (when looking down from above).
No 2. GPU is connected to the right monitor from the right output.
No 3. GPU is connected to the left monitor from the right output.

When setting up a flight, I turn on the computer (it is a stand alone system - no internet) and all four monitors come alive, all showing the desktop background picture that I have - 2 pretty young ladies sitting on my police motorcycle - but I digress.

I will first activate the two sioc programmes for the Opencockpits radio COMM and the MCP. I also have the CDU, EFIS and NAV radio but they are not up and working yet as I only fly the default 737.

I will then activate FSX Booster and from there will activate FSX. The FSX window is on the centre monitor and all the other three are still just showing the desktop background.

Once I have the loaded in my flight plan I will press the 'fly now' button and get the main 737 cockpit view on the centre monitor. The other three monitors are now black - which is normal.
I will then open up another virtual cockpit window which appears in reduced form on the centre monitor. I then drag this window across to the left monitor and re-size so it fits the whole screen. I will do the same with the right monitor and then under instruments, will open up the PFD and MFD which I drag and resize to the left MIP monitor.

When all goes to plan, I have a panoramic view outside through the cockpit windows and use the PDF and MDF for navigation. I activate the ATC message window which I also drag to the left monitor so it is out of the way so to speak.

Now, virtually as soon as I drag the virtual cockpit view across to the right or left monitor, that new window will flash, the cockpit window frames disappear and return and I get different shapes and colour flashing before that window seems to freeze - this is whilst it is in it's reduced format and not re-sized.

Whilst having a flight yesterday, I could only use the centre monitor but I thought, I will try dragging the ATC message window to the left monitor as I usally do and it worked fine - but on a black screen - as I had not opened up a new cockpit view. I then thought, if the ATC window works on the left monitor, I would try the right one, so I opened up the EICAS window and dragged that to the right monitor and it too was fine.

So, Neo and Rand, it may well be the 3D chip but would both chips on seperate GPU's fry at the same time ?

I hope that this goes someway to explaining (at length) how I have my system set up and what problems I have.

As an after thought, the computer guy in town would not have put the system under load so to speak so in his mind, the system would have been up and running correctly. He only had the box so would only have been connecting one monitor to one GPU at a time.

Thanks ever so for the continued interest and help.

Kind regards
Gary

[bussgarfield]

Now here is a very strange twist to the proceedings.

I have been doing a bit of experimenting given that there might be an issue with 3D.

I went into the Nvidia display software and under the 3D heading turned anything that was showing off - on. No difference but whilst in the display software I thought I would try something else.

And here is the twist - I caused the right monitor to become the primary display instead of the centre one and fired up FSX. Given now that the right monitor working through GPU 2 is the primary display I had the cockpit view with no flicker, flashing or distortion. I opened up a new virtual cockpit view and dragged that to the centre monitor (that we all thought was the 'good' one and low and behold, that one flickered, flashed and froze causing all screens to black out.

Now it would appear to me that there must be a software problem as when the right monitor is set as primary it is perfectly fine.

When I exited FSX and went back to the desktop, there was a message in the task bar which told me that the display driver had stopped responding and had recovered.

Now when I initially started having problems, I downloaded a new driver and installed it but met with the same problem. The driver I have on at the moment is from the original disc that came with the computer and was installed by the repairer after he had formatted the hard drive and re-installed Windows.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Gary

[Bob Reed]

I am willing to bet the tech installed the latest driver.. Did you check the version?

[NeoMorph]

If it were me I would install the latest reference drivers from nVidia... I couldn't remember if you run Vista 32 or 64 so have included both.

32bit...
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/win7-winvista-32bit-266.58-whql-driver-uk.html

64bit...
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/win7-winvista-64bit-266.58-whql-driver-uk.html

Now if that doesn't work then I need a few more bits of info. Are the cards receiving a separate power connection from your PSU or are they powered from the motherboard? I still think that there is a possibility that there is a power problem you see. Do you have another PSU that is comparable to your existing one? I'm wondering if the system is struggling power wise and isn't giving the right juice to the GPU... Hmmmm, we need a GPU monitor...

Well after totally crashing two of my computers (typical eh ) I found a stable GPU monitor.... http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

Download GPU-Z and it should show you the history of your cards as you use them. Have it running 3 times and select the three cards in the dropdown selector at the bottom of the board. Tick the "Continue refreshing this screen" on all three instances of the program and then switch to the sensor tab. Then run FS... Now all three should show the same values... but if the voltage drops on two of them its a possibility that it's a power issue.

God I wish I was over there... I hate doing remote problem solving because I just KNOW there has to be something causing this... I thought I had it when the 2D worked but 3D didn't... Oh well, soldier on...

Anyway, if nothing above does anything helpful, grab your replacement PSU and connect the whole thing up. Try that.

[NeoMorph]

All the GPU's work. All the power supplies are good so it is not the PSU.

Just re-read the above... when you tested did you do 3D tests as well as 2D ones (ie did you run a 3D game or something to test the card?). You say the PSU's are good but did you run 3D for those tests as well or did you do what I thought and when you got Windows pop up you thought the GPU was OK.

It's got to be something we have overlooked... My brain is melting! 

[Emesis]

Gary,

Out of curiosity did you try running without FSX booster? I know when I used FSX booster it created a memory shortage that caused flashing and artifacts, then eventually crashed. Also I would start reverting back to old Nvidia drivers and work your way up to the latest. There might be an issue with running multiple monitors and your video card drivers. I run TH2GO and it does not work well with the latest Nvidia drivers. I think Ver. 182.50 is the one that works best for my system.

Personally I think it is a software issue with drivers or something and not a hardware issue. Though I've seen strange things with power supply's and motherboards.

Cheers

[CeeGee]

Hi Gary, in brief try this for the transponder problem:

1. Check that this red entry is in your FSX.cfg file:

MaxHeadOffset=0.300000
HeadMoveTimeConstant=1.000000
[VirtualCopilot]
VirtualCopilotActive=1
[USERINTERFACE]
ShowAllACPaintSchemes=1
SelectAircraftManufacturer=All

2. Unplug your Opencockpits radio stack.

3. Save a new flight in saved flights [same start as for your IFR flight plan] using the 737-800, set radios, fuel, nav data etc.

4. Create a new IFR flight plan and save with a new name.

5. Load your new IFR flight plan from Flights/Flight Planner/load button - yes to reposition, set 5555 as your squawk.

6. Request IFR clearance and after readback check that the transponder code has changed.

If you are still being hoofed back to VFR [1200], we will review the situation - you have just reinstalled FSX when the repairer

finished with his work, so there could be a duplication error methinks. Charlie.

Moderators please move this to a new thread if required.

[NeoMorph]

Gary,

Out of curiosity did you try running without FSX booster? I know when I used FSX booster it created a memory shortage that caused flashing and artifacts, then eventually crashed. Also I would start reverting back to old Nvidia drivers and work your way up to the latest. There might be an issue with running multiple monitors and your video card drivers. I run TH2GO and it does not work well with the latest Nvidia drivers. I think Ver. 182.50 is the one that works best for my system.

Personally I think it is a software issue with drivers or something and not a hardware issue. Though I've seen strange things with power supply's and motherboards.

Cheers

FSX Booster sounds like a memory leak problem... I doubt that would happen right away, especially with the amount of RAM he's running. Also TH2GO verses 3x nVidia cards is a lot of difference. TH2GO is Matrox (which have always had problematical hardware I seem to remember) while the 9800 GT is a pure nVidia based chipset. As the docs say the 9800GT is specifically supported then I doubt that it would be a problem running the current drivers.

I think it's more likely to be a hardware problem because a clean install did nothing to fix it... I did computer consultancy for a number of years and you should have seen the number of really wierd hardware issues I came across so something like this is like a blast from the past. One of the reasons I got out of the support business was because some of the problems took days to nail down (intermittant faults were a bane of my existence). One of my bits of kit even tried to kill my electronics teacher when I took it in to be checked out... It fired a can capacitor that went right through the false ceiling about 3 seconds after he had moved his head out of the way to show me a meter reading that showed me that something was draining power lol... Another guy gave me a PC to check that burst into flame when I plugged it in... lucky I insisted we check the PC before I took it away or he would have sued me for setting his PC on fire (turned out to be a mains wire rubbing on the case).

So yeah... PC's can throw wobblies at you right left and centre. Doesn't help when software faults can mimic hardware faults and vice versa.

[Emesis]

Neo,

Well the reason I'm thinking driver or memory issue is because he said this, "When I exited FSX and went back to the desktop, there was a message in the task bar which told me that the display driver had stopped responding and had recovered."

Gary have you gone into task manager and looked at your performance monitor while you're running everything?

Cheers,
Rand

[CeeGee]

Gary, to cheer you up, this is the latest homebuild with wonderful graphics to be released soon at a peanut price - enjoy, Charlie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm8FJ8la2VU

[NeoMorph]

If a graphics board throws a wobbly it doesn't respond to the device driver as it expects it should it causes said device driver to hang... which then causes the error in question... so that's why it can be hardware but throw up software errors. All the device driver is the chinese whisperer between your PC's software and hardware.

If you have a corrupted device driver it can throw up that message... if you have a dead graphics card the device driver won't connect to the card (which causes the greyed out screens). Basically in that case the card won't show anything 99% of the time. The communications just cannot reach the card at all.

But if the controller part of the card is working yet part of the rendering system is failing (as in the 2D is working but the 3D is not) then the card is saying "Hey, I tried passing your message on but all I'm getting is a dial tone from the 3D guy at the moment... " which is the "the display driver has stopped working" part... So when he went back to the desktop it realises there is communication with the card again and that is the "... and had recovered" part.

I'm not being sarcastic btw... just putting it in terms most people will understand. I have a GF2MX that blew its 3D brain and yet has worked for many years in one of my home servers as a plain 2D card. Try to run anything 3D on it and it is like it's the 60's again and everyone is tripping on LSD (or in this case LCD hehe). What we need is for Greg to first try the latest reference drivers and then if that fails to put the cards into another PC and run some 3D game on it to check.

I'm not saying it isn't a software problem because it could be... I just don't think it is likely. Every time I've come across a situation where 2D works but 3D doesn't has resulted in it being a hardware issue... ever time. If the entire card is non-responsive it was around 30% hardware fault and 60% software... that extra 10% of the time it was stupid stuff like loose cards or customers plugging the monitor into the wrong port. I still remember getting called out to fix an audio problem... they hadn't even plugged in the power supply for the powered speakers and it was still in the box. I know for a fact that this isn't Gary's case because it was all working.

Edit: DOH!... I say it can't be software and then something happens to me... 

Now there is another possibility that nudged me tonight (but I can't see it happening) but it has to be included in the "possibility" list. Ironically I had to fix my system tonight because my FSX went all nuts because Avast ran out and stopped working for some reason. It caused a bunch of stuff and then when I rebooted Win7 it refused to boot up. I had to do a system restore just to get in (even safe mode didn't work).

Now in Gary's case I suppose FSX booster could be causing a problem with his setup... I think in my case I would think of doing a vanilla install of FSX to see if it still works OK. FSX booster could be affecting the driver adversely. So yeah, humble pie time... It COULD be software if he reinstalled all the FSX addons without testing plain vanilla FSX first.

DAMNIT!... Memory like a sieve. After you run FSX and have the flashy lights and the error message about the graphics driver, did you ever think to check in the Event Manager (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer). It might tell you what is causing the problem if it is software. That was where I found the problem that happened to me tonight.

Oh and CeeGee... ROFLMAO

[Emesis]

Wow CeeGee funny video, and a great message along with it! Never seen that one before.

Cheers

[bussgarfield]

Neo, Rand and Charlie - hi.

So much has been written here I will have to take a step back and digest it all and today will try a few of your suggestions out and get back to you later.

Neo, I take it when you say 'do a vanilla install of FSX' you mean just do a basic firing up of the programme without FSX Booster or anything else. I did do that when I initilly installed FSX when I got the computer back home as I needed to do quick flight before installing FSUIPC. Now it is me that has the memory loss as I can't remember whether I had problems or not but I will try that first.

Charlie, thanks for the info regarding the transponder, I will also try that out later - video was brilliant by the way and it did cause a giggle even at 7.30 in the morning.

Rand, I will check the performance manager later too.

Thanks guys. The problem will get sorted one way or the other I am sure.

Gary

[NeoMorph]

Yeah... Vanilla install is just what you get when you install FSX on its own... no boosters, no extra planes, no mods of any kind.

The real way to go for problem testing is to reduce everything to basic and see if it works... then add one thing at a time until the problems present usually. You aren't the first to have problems like these Gary... PC's can throw really weird faults at you all the time. Comes of being so damned modular, both software and hardware. You would have thought someone would write a diagnostics system that instantly reports any hardware or software error.

Here's something to make you laugh... Microsoft systems are so full of bugs that they  think it's an error when it actually works...

[bussgarfield]

Neo, I assumed that was what you meant so I did that. No FSX Booster and the same thing happened.

Since the installation of FSX, I have not put any additional planes, scenery or other software on.

I also had a look in the events manager afterwards but could find nothing relating to the GPU's or graphics. I have downloaded the new Nvidia driver and will put that on today and see what happens.

Previously when putting the new driver on I followed some instructions from the Nvidia forum see here -
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=169555

This completely removed the old driver. I used Driver Sweeper to get enable a complete uninstall.
I will go do this again to get the new driver installed.

Watch this space.

Gary

[bussgarfield]

First off, the new drivers had had no effect on the graphics at all. I still achieved the flashing and freezing on the right monitor (left monitor-see below)

I then decided to do some experimenting. I moved and switched the video cables fron one GPU to the other to see if there was any change between monitors. I found that where as I would normally get normal graphics on the centre monitor on the top GPU, I achieved the same results on the right monitor on the second GPU with the centre monitor disconnected. I had no flashing or freezing with just using the right monitor.
I haven't mentioned the left monitor as I can't get it activated since the new drivers were put on. I can put the cable into the top or second GPU and the monitor works fine however, when I plug it into the bottom GPU it comes up in the Nvidia control panel as there as it does in device manager but the activation square remains greyed out and can't be ticked.

I went into the control panel/power options and set the power from balanced to high performance. Then since loading the new driver and not having the left monitor activated, I have tried a couple of flights using the centre and right monitors. I can now fly and the cockpit window frames remain intact but on both the centre and right screens, I have blocks of clouds and multicoloured scenery from time to time.

None of the monitors work now when plugged into the bottom GPU - which was I believe suspected at the start of this thread.
So - I think I will try and get hold of another 9800GT and see how we go from there. Is it possible that one GPU will cause the other to malfuction with their displays?

O'h and Charlie. Thanks for the tip regarding the transponder. The default one works fine when not having the Opencockpit radios connected. I never had this problem before and the tansponder is not part of the sioc codes that I installed but I will uninstall then re-install and see if that makes a difference.
Had a job finding the FSX cfg by the way as there were so many hidden files and yes the details were there.

Many thanks guys. If you do have any ideas on whether one GPU will affect the role of the other two, I would appreciate your thoughts.

Cheers for all your help and taking the time to stay with me on this.

Gary

[NeoMorph]

Sorry I haven't replied... been a bit poorly...

I'm really gobsmacked...

One thing... did you install the up to date motherboard drivers at the same time as you installed the new gfx driver... might be something to try.

The answer to "Can one gfx card affect the others" I have to say I have no clue but would have thought yes... I once had an audio card in a 3 audio card system die (it was for music mixing) and it affected the other two... removed that and the other two worked fine. As I have only run with a single gfx card though I have never come across it personally but have seen other people who have had 2 gfx cards and one died and DID affect the other one...

Did you try the power method btw... oh and you never answered if the cards have a separate power cable.

[bussgarfield]

Hi Neo.
Hope you are feeling a bit btter now.

No I didn't install the up to date mobo drivers as I wanted to try to do one thing at a time if you see what I mean.

The GPU's all have a seperate power supply plug. This is where I came across a bit of a problem as I unpacked a new PSU (which I have waiting for the overhead power) and it is not only less powerful (700 W) but only has one PCI-E plug on it so I have not been able to change the PSU as hoped.

The current PSU is 780 W.

Tomorrow, I will install the new mobo driver and see what difference that makes. I then might swap the GPU's around again to see what happens.

Gary

[NeoMorph]

You can buy Molex to GFX card power supply leads.... those would be the cheapest solution (your "expert" from the shop might sell them )

Before you swap the gpu's around have you tried swapping those power leads around... ie the one from the working top lead to the bottom card that is playing silly idiots?

[bussgarfield]

Tried swapping the power leads round a lot earlier. Due to the configuration of the wiring harness- professionally bound and all wires neatly housed so none flap about - I can't get the top GPU power lead to reach anything but the top GPU. I will have a look at the Molex to GPU leads though.

I will have another play tomorrow.

Gary