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Well, heck.

After the update, I played my Burglar for an hour or so and then got the danged Power Saver Mode activated thing. Only thing I could do was power down the PC and reboot. Then I remade my dwarf as a Minstrel, entered the game... Power Saver Mode. Every since, after I get to the select a character screen, the PC/Monitor goes into Power Saver Mode. That is, IF that's what's actually happening.

• The monitor goes into standby mode. I can get the power light to turn green by pressing a certain button on the monitor, and that's when it says the thing about sleep mode, press any key or move the mouse - which doesn't do anything.
• The game sound continues for a few seconds, then stops (although previously it kept going).
• They keyboard is dead.
• Nothing to do but Power Off.

I updated my video drivers but it happened again. No clue what to do. But - it has never done this in any other game.

Have you tried updating the monitor drivers? (Yes, some monitor manufacturers have newer drivers) Or the obvious, changing the power settings in the Control Panel? Maybe your monitor is dying? Also, check your cable connections. Just some thoughts...

Do you have another monitor you can plug in and see if the same things happens?

I did change the power settings to disable sleep/power saver mode - no joy! I don't think it's a problem with the monitor, as it doesn't do it anywhere else except in LOTRO.

I'll check for an updated monitor driver.

Didn't see any updates for the monitor driver. Funny thing, though - the other day when I looked at my video settings, it showed the model number of my monitor: Del e196fp. Now it just says 'default monitor'. Weird.

Updating sound card drivers from Creative Labs.

I believe that means it's using a "generic" monitor driver. If you know the Model number of your monitor, go to the manufacturer's web site, DL the latest driver for it, and manually install the driver through your Windows Device Manager.

The latest drivers for this monitor were from 2005 and 2006. I got the monitor in 2006, so it's evidently as up to date as its gonna get.

Wierd...

After updating the sound drivers, I started LOTRO and it's downloading and installing 'required' DX9c.

And it just did it again.



The Turbine tech guys claim it's caused by factory overclocking on some nvidia cards, and that setting the clock speed to 'normal' will mitigate the problem. Downloading what I hope is an updated nvidia control panel that will let me try that - if it proves to be factory overclocked, that is.

split this from the non-related thread and created a new thread.

might be video card issue as well. loss of video signal could be causing it.

do you have another monitor or video card to test with?

is it only in this game? what about other games?

Only LOTRO.

Here's what they say over at the LOTRO forums:

Black screen issue with "Factory Overclocked" cards

"Black Screen" while playing with a "Factory Overclocked" Nvidia card

Black screen issue with "Factory Overclocked" Nvidia graphics cards

There is a very specific crash situation that occurs with some models of "Factory Overclocked" graphics cards in Lotro and other games:

• * The game enters a "black screen" but the sounds etc still are playing
  * Alt-tabbing or otherwise changing the games focus causes the crash

This is an issue related to the Factory Overclocking settigns of the cards, known fixes or workarounds are:

• * Lowering the games "Engine Speed" and/"Graphics Quality" settings mitigates/eliminates this
  * Reducing the overclocked card back to "stock" speeds mitigates/eliminates this
  * Replacing the failing card eliminates this

The card is entering a fault state due to heat/voltage and attempting to reset but fails and causes a crash, reducing the "stress" that the game places on the card can mitigate or outright eliminate occurances of this.


***

But then again, that's not QUITE what's happening.

The monitor goes black.
The power light on the monitor turns orange.
Sometimes the sound keeps going for a while and then stops, sometimes the sound stops and then 'echoes' until I shut down the PC.
The keyboard loses all function.
If I press the configuration button on the monitor, the power light will turn green and a message will come up saying the PC is in power saver mode and to press a key or move the mouse to return to normal, but this doesn't work. After a while, the light will turn orange again.

And that's it, until I shut down the PC and reboot.

Anyway, got this new stuff installed, let's see what it can do.

Okay, my card is NOT overclocked.

Tach Said: "I don't think it's a problem with the monitor, as it doesn't do it anywhere else except in LOTRO."

I don't think I've ever heard of any game forcing a monitor into sleep mode. Something (possibly video card or monitor related as Hammer stated) with the game is trying to load or function and thinks your monitor wants to goto sleep.

What I meant by installing the drivers manually, is that Windows appears to be using its "generic" video driver, and NOT loading the Manufacturer's driver. You should try loading the manufacturer's driver manually until it says the name of the monitor with a model number in the "Device Manager". What OS are you running? Win XP or Win 7?

I highly recommend removing / cleaning ALL video drivers completely from your system and then re-install the latest drivers. After that, re-install Direct X 9.0c (latest version). There are some driver removal utilities out there, depending on the manufacturer of your card. A clean driver install is the best way to be sure it's not the drivers that are causing the problem.

Softball wrote:I highly recommend removing / cleaning ALL video drivers completely from your system and then re-install the latest drivers. After that, re-install Direct X 9.0c (latest version). There are some driver removal utilities out there, depending on the manufacturer of your card. A clean driver install is the best way to be sure it's not the drivers that are causing the problem.

I did a clean reinstall of the video drivers (used Drive Cleaner Pro) - it didn't help.

Haven't tried reinstalling DX9, although the the time before last when I launched LOTRO it said it was reinstalling DX9. I'll download it from Windows and install it again.
I'll also try reinstalling the Dell driver for the monitor.

I have WinXP Pro, btw.

Heh, the game will do this thing while I'm still on the character select screen.

it is an interaction with the new code and the video card and /or drivers. this is not a monitor issue. the reason it says power save mode is because that is all the monitor can figure out - there is no signal from the video card, so it thinks it is in power save mode.

this is probably an Nvidia driver issue. as soon as i get a chance i will test mone, but my card is a mobile version in a laptop - so my guess is that it will not have this issue. trying latest directx is a good idea too - my update did the same thing about downloading and installing latest directx 9.

you could see if the latest beta drivers will help, or go back to an old version. what exactly is your video card? is it a BFG overclocked card or something like that? meaning you did not overclock it, but it is overdriven by the manufacturer.

I found an article where someone had a similar problem as you are experiencing; he had his monitor replaced and the problem went away. *shrug*

LINKY

Hammer wrote:it is an interaction with the new code and the video card and /or drivers. this is not a monitor issue. the reason it says power save mode is because that is all the monitor can figure out - there is no signal from the video card, so it thinks it is in power save mode.

this is probably an Nvidia driver issue. as soon as i get a chance i will test mone, but my card is a mobile version in a laptop - so my guess is that it will not have this issue. trying latest directx is a good idea too - my update did the same thing about downloading and installing latest directx 9.

you could see if the latest beta drivers will help, or go back to an old version. what exactly is your video card? is it a BFG overclocked card or something like that? meaning you did not overclock it, but it is overdriven by the manufacturer.

It's an NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS. I checked using NVIDIA's Performance utility - it's not factory overclocked.

Okay, I've reinstalled DX9 from Microsoft, and reinstalled the Dell monitor driver (it says the monitor is a Dell E196FP again). Gonna try again. Here goes nuttin'!

well Tach i got one thing to say- time for a new video card!

any luck? do you have another video card or monitor to test with?

if you have a clocking tool for it you might try dropping the vertex frequency to match the core frequency to see if that helps.

BTW - that is BS about it stressing overclocked cards too much.

do you have REALLY good cooling in your case? is the fan on the video card working?

Hammer wrote:well Tach i got one thing to say- time for a new video card!

any luck? do you have another video card or monitor to test with?

if you have a clocking tool for it you might try dropping the vertex frequency to match the core frequency to see if that helps.

BTW - that is BS about it stressing overclocked cards too much.

do you have REALLY good cooling in your case? is the fan on the video card working?

Nope, no other card - I do have several monitors lying around, tho, so I might try one later - but I'm pretty much convinced it's not a problem with the monitor. The fans are working and the vents are clear.

Factory shipped frequencies:

Core Clock: 450 MHz
Memory Clock: 660 MHz

I don't see a 'vertex frequency'. Cooling is on Automatic Control at 40%.

Any recommendations on a new video card? I have

1 PCIe x 1 slot
1 PCIe x 4 slot
1 PCIe x 16 (graphics) slot

yeah - i bet i have something laying around if you do not want to bust the bank on the latest and greatest. brb.

i have:

8800gts/512MB - $50 shipped USPS priority
8800gtx/768MB - $80 shipped USPS priority

or i can loan you either one until you decide what you want to do if you pay shipping. ;)

otherwise i would probably recommend an ATI HD 5800 or 5850. probably better bang for the buck vs a 59xx.

Would those require a new power supply? Checking to see what's in here... 375 watts.

you would need a supplemental power connector, or two spare hard drive power connectors with an adapter (comes with the card) for each power connector on the vdeo card. the gtx needs two 6 pin power connectors, the gts needs one. so if using hdd adapters you need 2 connectors for the gts and 4 for the gtx.

they are also double wide cards.

the gts is 9" long, the gtx is 10.5" long so ensure you can get them into your case in the x16 slot.

btw - you do not ever want any video card that does not use the full x16 pci-e slot.

Based on what I'm reading here...

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/17557 ... age-system

"The 375 watt power supply can provide up to 30amps of 12v power, that's more important than wattage recommendations and more than enough for the <7 amps needed by a 9800GT. ( The machine above has been running a 9 amp 8800GTS 640 on the stock power supply for over 2 years ) "

...my stock power supply should be okay for the 8800gts.