Sigh, another fried card?

S

shadowbreaker513

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 15, 2005
Messages
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Ever since my video card died (Silly 7900 series), I've been on my dad's computer, and as such, it has seen FAR more use than it ever did since I built it. (Used from parts from my old computer, so it was fully capable of running games still. The problems have been mostly severe artifacting, usually to the point where the computer would lock up. I called BFG's tech support, and they said the usual "reinstall drivers" routine, and to both mine and the tech's surprise, it worked, if only for a time. A week or so later, it happened again, so I installed the older, more stable version of the drivers. This held fine until earlier today. I was playing WoW and suddenly started to get SEVERE artifacting, and the computer locked up within 2 minutes of it appearing. I rebooted into safe mode, and began the usual routine to reinstal drivers. However, this time it hasn't worked. Now the computer works fine, save for a few odd color spots here and there, until I boot into WoW, which I assume would mean that it's shot for all 3d applications. There is severe artifacting in game, that, for some reason, disappears whenever I press print screen, but it then continues to follow to the desktop, and this white box has artifacts as I am writing it. The screen also blinks from time to time (the computer still responds during this 1-2 second blink however). So, do I have another dead/dying card on my hands? Or is there some solution I am missing? Temperature is not a problem as the card is sitting at 62C. On hotter days and when it needs cleaning, I've seen it bump up to 72C after several hours of WoW, but never higher. Is this fixable, or should I begin the process to RMA a second card in 2 weeks?
 
No chance it could possibly be something else like RAM or the CPU? I noticed the processor was running a bit hot at 58C immediately after a reboot just now.

Picture I meant to post last night -http://shadowbreaker513.freepgs.com/example.jpg

Ugh, if I do have to RMA this, no way in hell I'm touching another nVidia card for a while. That will make it 2 broken cards, from different manufacturers within 2 months.
 
Is something that you're running overclocking your GPU?

You could try to install the coolbits mod and underclock it. IIRC, BFG overclocks all of their cards. If you've got memory on the card that can't handle the overclock, it could start artifacting.

If you have overclocked it, I would recommend running it at stock speeds. I've got a 7800GT that I tried to push a little further than the stock speeds and it runs fine for about an hour and starts artifacting. Those are with OC settings suggested by coolbits. Setting it back down to stock speeds takes care of it.
 
Best of luck if you do have to RMA it. My experiences with BFG's RMA service were absolutely awful. I had a 6800GT start artifacting (both 3D and on the desktop), sent it back to BFG for an exchange. They sent me back either the same card, or one that had the same problem as the original. Four times. I thought perhaps it was my machine, but it behaved the same way in every machine I tested it in. Anyways, after the 4th RMA with (I think the same) card being sent back, I ditched it and picked up a HIS x1950 Pro :(
 
Card has been at factory speeds since I got it. Asked about overclocking last time i called tech support, and they said the only thing that will do is void my warrenty and not solve anything. I could check the length of time a newegg RMA is valid for, should I try that over one with BFG?
 
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