Suspected GPU issue.

[Edgar Ville]

So let's start off with the specs.

Win 10 Home 64 Bit

i7-3770

16GB RAM

Corsair CX750 PSU

Nvidia GTX660ti

Advent Baseboard

The issue, which has come on rather suddenly is upon any significant graphical load, my display drivers immediately crash, sometimes reloading afterwards, others completely crashing forcing a restart.

One of these crashes led to a system repair loop I could not cancel, and when disabled I recieved the error code 0xc0000221 for file: \WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\ksecpkg.sys

Okay so at this point, it's a boot driver issue, so I create a trusty ISO boot drive and away we go, reformatting entirely and starting fresh with a new build of windows. I then procede to download the latest drivers again, ensure all settings are correct and then...

crash, again.

Up to this point I have tried; uninstalling and reinstalling display drivers,

Fresh install of Windows

Physical cleaning of my GPU

Memtest86 (No errors at all)

I have also installed MSI afterburner to do a little testing and a consistent result of increasing the GPU core clock speed and or the memory clock speed results in instant a fatal graphics driver crashes that once again send me back to a restart.

I'm 90% sure my GPU is fucked and possibly unfixable, but i'd very much appreciate any input anyone has before we go down that costly process.

Edit: Tagging some wonderfully skilled people @Zeito @lionel @CMO Marc Smith

 

[Lemmen]

Let's see with my mediocre tech skills:

Have you ensured that inside your computer everything is plugged tightly in? the smallest loose connection could possible be the trigger

Does this still happen when you open up windows in the error free mod thingy?

Have you downloaded anything lately that might have caused harm to your GPU, or did you mess with any GPU setting that might have done it?

Let's hope the best! 

 

[Washington]

Make sure you have reset your OC settings back to their defaults, a display driver error means your GPU isn't functioning, you may have overclocked it too far and burned it out. The GTX 660 Ti doesn't give a very stable overclock if you don't have the PSU/Cooling to support it. 

When overclocking you should always increase ever so slightly in increments and watch for any signs of screen tearing or bleeding. 

If you have another graphics card laying around you can always try that and see if your PC runs, if not then it's another issue. 

I just upgraded from a GTX 660 Ti to a GTX 980 Ti so I have a spare 660 laying around if you want to give it a clean and use it (Providing I don't have to ship too far). But my advice at this point would be just to upgrade, the 660 Ti is slowly become low-tier. 

 

[Edgar Ville]

Let's see with my mediocre tech skills:

Have you ensured that inside your computer everything is plugged tightly in? the smallest loose connection could possible be the trigger

Does this still happen when you open up windows in the error free mod thingy?

Have you downloaded anything lately that might have caused harm to your GPU, or did you mess with any GPU setting that might have done it?

Let's hope the best! 

Yes, removed the GPU itself and all wires to or from it. Should be snug as a bug.

Safe mode makes no difference.

Not to my knowledge, couple of fallout 4 mods. No software changes at all.

 

[Zeito]

Yes, removed the GPU itself and all wires to or from it. Should be snug as a bug.

Safe mode makes no difference.

Not to my knowledge, couple of fallout 4 mods. No software changes at all.

Can you test the same GPU in another machine? The elimination test is always a good one.

 

[Edgar Ville]

Can you test the same GPU in another machine? The elimination test is always a good one.

Sadly I don't have access to another machine.

 

[Imstyle]

or have you got acheap gpu you can test in yours see if thats a issue

 

[Edgar Ville]

I think somewhere at the bottom of a pile of junk I have an old AMD card. Will give it a try and see what happens.

 

[Zeito]

I think somewhere at the bottom of a pile of junk I have an old AMD card. Will give it a try and see what happens.

If you do this - be sure to use Display Driver uninstaller - DDU from Guru3d i think to remove all your other display drivers, to prevent any clashes between them

 

[lionel]

not going to lie, it doesnt sound great

Can you check temps whilst its running ?

 

[Edgar Ville]

not going to lie, it doesnt sound great

Can you check temps whilst its running ?

Temps were acceptable, not great but less than maximum, can't remember off the top of my head now.

Anyway, I have now replaced my GPU with an old (Very old) AMD HD 7700 (Kill me now, this shit is loud)

And the good news is that it works!

If you call 30fps maximum on Arma 3 low graphics working.

So the bad news is that my old GPU is somehow damaged.

Time to break out the old wallet it seems.

 

[dzul]

Temps were acceptable, not great but less than maximum, can't remember off the top of my head now.

Anyway, I have now replaced my GPU with an old (Very old) AMD HD 7700 (Kill me now, this shit is loud)

And the good news is that it works!

If you call 30fps maximum on Arma 3 low graphics working.

So the bad news is that my old GPU is somehow damaged.

Time to break out the old wallet it seems.

Oi,30 fps in A3 is amazing! You tried OCing the gpu,have you tried downclocking it? It could also be just the circuits screwing around,try cleaning the crap out of it (adviseable to take off the cooler),unless there's this lovely ozone smell by it it shouldn't have burnt transistors.Also,as it really sounds like fakd circuits,you could put the damn thing into an oven and resmelt the circuitry inside,this ain't hard,Slav engineering working at its best to help western burgeoise.

 

[lionel]

Oi,30 fps in A3 is amazing! You tried OCing the gpu,have you tried downclocking it? It could also be just the circuits screwing around,try cleaning the crap out of it (adviseable to take off the cooler),unless there's this lovely ozone smell by it it shouldn't have burnt transistors.Also,as it really sounds like fakd circuits,you could put the damn thing into an oven and resmelt the circuitry inside,this ain't hard,Slav engineering working at its best to help western burgeoise.

I have done this  

and you get a great pun when somebody asks what the Fuck is that smell, you can say I just put some chips in the oven