Was unsure where to post this as I believe it could potentially be a MB bios issue. But anyway here is the deal...

here is my equipment:

- PC Power & Cooling S610EPS 610W Continuous @ 40°C EPS12V Power Supply
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
- 2 sets of Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
- GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Rev 2
- EVGA 512-P3-N862-AR GeForce 9600GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

The trouble I am having is that when I try to play a game the video goes out on me. If I stay away from games she works fine. 3dmarks works fine, but specifically WOW does not, As soon as I kick up WOW just prior to login screen the monitor goes dark.

Things I have done:
- Reloaded Vista Ultimate twice with no luck
- Loaded XP Pro twice
- tested Video in another PC works fine
- Tested PS in another machine with same video, different MB, memory and CPU but it all worked fine.
- Tested a NVidia 7800GT in my machine and it worked fine. I then placed the original 9600GT back in my machine and loaded drivers under XP pro and WOW loaded up fine. I then rebuilt PC back to Ultimate and I am back with my black screen issue.
- I have loaded the stock video drivers on the 9600GT that came on the CD, I have loaded the latest from Nvidia and the latest on the EVga site with no success
- I have loaded the latest bios and firmware for my Motherboard from giga-byte with no luck.

Pretty much will take any ideas someone may have to resolve my situation. I firmly believe it is a driver issue with my motherboard's bios and the 9600GT driver based on the above tests. If anyone has this combination and or ideas on a solution could you please let me know.

Maybe it is some sort of setting in my bios that is not playing nice with my card I am not sure, but it has me pulling my hair out.

Thanks

have not checked out the motherboard if its pcix 2 there is a problem wiff version 1 not having enough power to the pcix slot for the 9000 gcards

I looked up the board and its not a pcix 2 I suggest you buying a pcix version 2 motherboard
here is an example what your looking for

Asus P5E3 Premium/WiFi-AP @n Socket 775 Intel X48 + ICH9R Chipset Dual-Channel Dual-channel DDR3 2000/1600/1333Mhz 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x16 Dual GigaLAN 8-Ch HD Audio 6x SATA 3.0Gb/s Support 1600Mhz FSB

my PCI-E 2.0 8800GTS 512 works just fine in my PCI-E 1.1 slot thank you very much.i think my card pushes a bit more badwidth than the 9600 too. And my point? its fine on the DS3L

Is it locking up? when it goes black try hitting alt+f4, see if it comes back.

No she locks tight. I have to do a cold boot to get it back. I have not specifically hit Alt-f4 but I will try that tonight after work.

You know that for sure or just guessing because your 88 works, the faq, in the hardware section of nvidas and asrock and asus, peps had similuar problems and their solution is getting a pcix2 I'm not saying thats the problem but it could be.

PCI Xpress 1.1 vs 2.0 makes no difference, as 2.0 is compatible with 1.1 and vise versa. Its nothing but a bandwidth difference in the 2 specs. I think Tom's did a test and found that 8x PCI Xpress is fast enough for the time being with the current crop of video cards. The cards draw power mainly from the 12v power cable plugged into the card.

- PC Power & Cooling S610EPS 610W Continuous @ 40°C EPS12V Power Supply
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
- 2 sets of Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
- GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Rev 2
- EVGA 512-P3-N862-AR GeForce 9600GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Parts look good. Nothing that would cause me say thats crap. Are you running 4 sticks of ram?

- Reloaded Vista Ultimate twice with no luck - probably not the issue
- Loaded XP Pro twice - probably not the issue
- tested Video in another PC works fine - good trouble shooting
- Tested PS in another machine with same video, different MB, memory and CPU but it all worked fine. - did you use your new memory and CPU in this test?
- Tested a NVidia 7800GT in my machine and it worked fine. I then placed the original 9600GT back in my machine and loaded drivers under XP pro and WOW loaded up fine. I then rebuilt PC back to Ultimate and I am back with my black screen issue. - so WoW loaded in Xp but Vista black screened?
- I have loaded the stock video drivers on the 9600GT that came on the CD, I have loaded the latest from Nvidia and the latest on the EVga site with no success - make sure you are using the correct drivers for the OS, may also be worth your while to try other driver versions direct from Nvidia
- I have loaded the latest bios and firmware for my Motherboard from giga-byte with no luck. - good trouble shooting

Am I right when you say that the PC will boot, but as soon you try to run a 3d app, it black screens. Make for certain you have the video card power cable plugged in. Check your driver versions and make sure its the correct one for the OS version.

One other thing: Friends dont let friend play WoW!

yes 4 gig total on memory.

I just tested power supply in the other machine not mem or CPU. By checking the 7800GT in my machine I figured my mem & cpu were ok. The thing that confused me some is after I tested the 7800GT and then replaced my 9600GT with latest drivers from Nvidia site Wow worked fine. Then a fresh copy of Ultimate and new drivers from NVidia it blacked screen on Wow.

Does not matter what OS I have my 9600GT black screens in games. However on my last test 3dmark benchmark worked fine.

Yeah I know I am using the correct drivers for the OS. I have tried many versions of them as well. EVga site seems to keep on top of drivers and usually one step above NVidia site as far as blessed drivers.

Yeah PC functions just fine without using 3d apps.

Thanks for all the responses, all good information. I am going to hit EVga and Gigabyte up tonight after work to see what they think of the troubles I am having.

THANKS!

To clearify better....XP typically does not work either. It just worked after I replaced the 7800 GT with my 9600GT with latest drivers. Then I re-imaged the box as it stood with Ultimate and latest drivers for all and she is back to black screen in Ultimate.

The problem could be the graphics card.Have you checked any other games other than WoW?You could also check internal temperature of the graphics card with nv monitor, whether it is overheating.

Im leaning toward a graphics card issue. If you can run 3d apps with the 7800 in both XP and Vista, but the 9600 crashes the PC everytime and your drivers are good, the 9600 is fubar. RMA!!

Youve eliminated all the other possible issues. It is most likely the video card.

Well I would agree with the if it wasn't the fact that the so called bad 9600GT works fine in another PC. Very strange issue for sure.

Yes, I have tried HL2 and that as well crashes just after the valve boot up screen.

I am going to reload fresh Vid drivers via Nvidia preferred method of loading them, load fresh DX flavors, pull card and kiss twice, pull two mem sticks, fart twice sitting down and pray for a good load.

This one has me baffled.

I know for sure, That PCI-E 2.0 cards work with the GA-P35-DS3L, No guessing. Sure some people have had issues with PCI-E 2.0 cards in some motherboards, and i've even heard some cards arent compatible with PCI-E 1.0a slots. But the PCISIG site states its backwards compatible and vice versa
http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs/pcie2.0_faq/

a little digging on that site, finds they claim 3.0 will be compatible with 1 and 2.....