Bitdefender Causing Nvidia Gtx 260 Issues

earnolmartin

BitDefender 2010 interferes with the operation of Nvidia Drivers

and my GTX 260 video cards on Windows XP x64 SP2. Game mode was set

to automatic, so I doubt that was the issue. Drivers would work fine

for a period of time. Then, whenever I'd try to launch an application

that used the video card, my computer would freeze with a black or

white screen. Restarting my computer, the OS would boot fine, I'd see

my desktop, but as soon as I would launch an application that called

upon the video card, the same thing would happen. My desktop just

froze. I've been trying to track down this issue for over a year, as

I have to uninstall and reinstall drivers up to four times before I

can get my video to work again without crashing. The video works

flawlessly for about a week, and then the bug / error kicks in again.

I have only seen this affect Nvidia cards, as my ATI CrossFireX setup

has no problems with BitDefender or weird glitches.

I know it's not my video cards, as I had my video cards RMA'd only to

find the same issues plaguing my new cards. So, I did an experiment.

I encountered the video freeze-up which crashed my computer, so I

restarted, loaded the OS, had a successful boot, saw my Desktop, ran

another game again, had the video freeze, restarted my computer,

loaded the OS, successful boot, uninstalled BitDefender, and

restarted. Notice, this time I did not ever uninstall my drivers. I

just uninstalled BitDefender. After rebooting to make the changes

take effect, my video cards once again work without freezing.

I thought this was a driver issue, and I even opened the following

ticket / forum threads with more information which you may view here:

http://www.dinofly.com/misc/nvidia/nvidia.htm

http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/644439-msi...0-216-core.html

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1484926

However, I was wrong. It's been BitDefender for a over a year! Not

sure why BitDefender does this, but I've never had issues with my

video once BitDefender has been uninstalled or has yet to be

installed. Coincidence? This is a serious issue, and I'm glad I

finally tracked it down. BitDefender has been great, but until this

application stops interfering with my drivers and making me track down

and try everything, I can't use it on Windows XP x64 SP2 (with all

updates).

If you need any information from me, I'd be happy to provide it. If anyone else has noticed something wrong as well, now is the time Not sure what's up with this text either

Thanks

Eric

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earnolmartin

Anyone?

L.o.D.

Do you get the same effect without using game mode?

I don't have any issues with my nvidia drivers nor have I ever seen any reports of any AV interfering with graphic drivers. So this is a new one.

alexcrist

There might be some interference with BitDefender Active Virus Control.

Please open BitDefender Security Center (Expert Mode), go to Antivirus -> Shield -> Advanced settings and disable AVC. Then test to see if the problem persists.

If the problem doesn't appear anymore after AVC is disabled, please post all details (such as OS version, BitDefender type and version, graphics adapter model, driver version + additional graphics software, and what games/software have problems running) in this topic: http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=16865 (this is a special topic dedicated to this kind of problems)

Please also post here the result of the above test.

Cris.

earnolmartin

I'll do it this weekend and get back to you with all the info you need.

earnolmartin

Seems it was the Active Virus Control. So far, I haven't experienced the issues since disabling AVC.

Here's the info you wanted:

NVIDIA System Information report created on: 04/09/2010 22:52:12

System name: PWN

[Display]

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz (3352 MHz)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP, 64-bit (Service Pack 2)

DirectX version: 9.0

GPU processor: GeForce GTX 260

Driver version: 197.13

CUDA Cores: 216

Core clock: 655 MHz

Shader clock: 1408 MHz

Memory clock: 1050 MHz (2100 MHz data rate)

Memory interface: 448-bit

Memory: 896 MB

Video BIOS version: 62.00.49.00.00

IRQ: 16

Bus: PCI Express x16 Gen2

GPU processor: GeForce GTX 260

Driver version: 197.13

CUDA Cores: 192

Core clock: 576 MHz

Shader clock: 1242 MHz

Memory clock: 999 MHz (1998 MHz data rate)

Memory interface: 448-bit

Memory: 896 MB

Video BIOS version: 62.00.65.00.60

IRQ: 16

Bus: PCI Express x16 Gen2

[Components]

nvCplUI.exe 2.8.313.07 NVIDIA Control Panel

nvWSS.dll 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Workstation Server

nvViTvS.dll 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Video Server

nvMoblS.dll 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Mobile Server

NVMCTRAY.DLL 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Media Center Library

NVOGLNT.DLL 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Compatible OpenGL ICD

nvDispS.dll 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Display Server

NVCPL.DLL 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 197.13

NV4_MINI.SYS 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Miniport Driver, Version 197.13

NV4_DISP.DLL 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 197.13

PhysX 09.10.0129 NVIDIA PhysX

NVCUDA.DLL 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA CUDA 3.0.1 driver

nvGameS.dll 6.14.11.9713 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server

As for the games it conflicts with, it's every game when my drivers crash because of a conflict caused by Active Virus Control. I was experiencing it in Medal of Honor Allied Assault on my Windows XP x64 SP2 machine. SLI IS enabled (but when I only ran a single card, AVC also conflicted with it). One of my GTX 260's is an MSI while the other is an EVGA. I had problems on every single Nvidia Driver Version no matter if I had SLI enabled, SLI Disabled, or only one video card in the machine. Hence, that's why I blamed Nvidia until I discovered the problem is BitDefender's Active Virus Control!

alexcrist

Have you tried manually adding one of those games to the AVC exception list, to see if it makes any difference?

On the AVC Settings dialog, click the + button, browse for the main executable of a game and add it to the list. Make sure that AVC is enabled, and run the game.

Most of the games are ”caught” by Intrusion Detection System (a separate part of the Behavioral Scanner, which works as a firewall component, but which uses the same exception list as AVC), maybe because of the hooks that games do inside a system (for instance, they hook the keyboard). Usually, BitDefender should show an AVC or IDS alert whenever a game starts. But if the videocard doesn't allow the fullscreen game to get minimized, then the BD alert remains in the background and you can't see or click it. This is just a theory, but manually adding a game in the exception list should confirm or contradict it, because if I'm right, the game should start without problems. Otherwise, it will still freeze.

The results of the above test are somehow important, because if the theory is correct, then it means that AVC is conflicting with the game, not with the video drivers themselves. So please try the above suggestion and post here the result.

Cris.

earnolmartin

Normally I do run IDS. Right now, both AVS and IDS are off, and I haven't had a single problem. I don't think that's the case. If it interferes with any game after my computer crashes, and I completely restart it, BitDefender is affecting my drivers. Though BitDefender may lock up the game because of one of these modules, it locks the rest of the games after that as well. Not sure, but I will now see how it works with IDS enabled and AVS off. Then, I'll try it the other way and post the results.

Thanks for your help on this Cris.

unknown

Hello Eric,

We received an email from you that these issues were solved after you had reinstalled the BitDefender product. Please reply to our email or post here if you encounter any other issue or the old ones reoccur.

Thank you.

earnolmartin

Hello Eric,

We received an email from you that these issues were solved after you had reinstalled the BitDefender product. Please reply to our email or post here if you encounter any other issue or the old ones reoccur.

Thank you.

No, not really. I'm pretty sure it was an update to AVC that may have addressed the issue. However, I have not had sufficient time to test my machine with BitDefender AVC and Intrusion Detection active. I will let you know. I'm experiencing other problems now which can be seen here:

http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=19419