Is my GPU dying?

2006-07-22 21:35:54

#1

Phrozenbot: Member; +632|6916|do not disturb

As of today, my display has been very odd. I was playing Kubra Dam and suddenly, all sorts of black things that looked like "~" were displaying all over my screen. The sound and video frame would stand to a halt, then resume, then halt, and do this for a while and then freeze without unfreezing. As I would reboot, the windows load time would then start showing the same affect, with basically columns with boxes that would change colors. I turned off my PC for a few hours, and right now things are ok, but I'm afraid that launching a GPU intensive game would suddenly return this monster.

So... are things going to get worse? I've had weird stuff happen and it went away, and my PC has been cleaned of dust. I have a 6800 Ultra GPU, since its first release. Is this card fairly young, because I'm not sure how long a GPUs life expectancy is?

2006-07-22 21:39:52

#2

[TUF]Whiskey_Oktober: mmmm...Toasty!; +91|7023|Oregon

no, im not shure what the issue is, but my friend had the same thing...he reformatted his computer and voulla, it fixed it....i think he siad it had something to do with a driver update gone wrong or something...anyway.

2006-07-23 00:01:15

#3

Phrozenbot: Member; +632|6916|do not disturb

Well, it boggles me as it came out of no where.

2006-07-23 00:11:13

#4

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6868|NYC / Hamburg

usually this points towards overheating. try placing a fan close to the gfx card to help its cooler to keep the card cool, or replace with an aftermaket one such as the Zalman vf-900. before you do this, check however that the driver is updated and that you return any oc to their stock settings. also try monitoring the temp of the chip during gameplay with riva tuner or similar.

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2006-07-23 00:19:26

#5

Phrozenbot: Member; +632|6916|do not disturb

Well, I cleaned out my PC spot clean about a month ago, so maybe one is in order again. The fan may be dieing or something. Right now it's idle temp is 60 C. I'm going to try playing BF2 on lower settings so it doesn't freeze on me.

2006-07-23 00:56:02

#6

[TUF]Whiskey_Oktober: mmmm...Toasty!; +91|7023|Oregon

thats pretty hot....my x1900xt runs idle around 40-50 C and when worked maxes out at 80 C

2006-07-23 01:43:44

#7

ShotYourSix: Boldly going nowhere...; +196|7020|Las Vegas

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gffx/nv40-5.html

In this article they were testing a 3rd party fan on a 6800 ultra and the card froze up at 85c. With the stock cooler it peaked at about 72c under load (scroll down to the black and green graphs). Not sure if yours was the same brand tested tho.

You could be pushing that 85 where their's froze at, might wanna look into a better cooling solution.

2006-07-23 10:55:56

#8

Phrozenbot: Member; +632|6916|do not disturb

Well, when it booted it up today, it was at 55 C core. Yea, I remember it being usually around 45-50. It would get around 75 when on an intensive load, but I need to check it again. By default, the core threshold is at 135 C. I enabled it to notify me when it reaches it, but should I lower it to 90?

2006-07-23 14:49:09

#9

ShotYourSix: Boldly going nowhere...; +196|7020|Las Vegas

Yes. It would be toast well before it could reach 135c (that's 275f)

2006-07-23 17:49:54

#10

Phrozenbot: Member; +632|6916|do not disturb

Well I did that, and I played BF2 on the lowest possible settings. I played for about 5 minutes and then it froze with all the weird -=_- characters all over my screen. I let my PC rest for about 2 hours, rebooted, and the entire screen was littered with weird blocks and characters. After restarting my PC to see if it would somehow fix anything, it became worse until I couldn't read the boot up screen. I should add that after the Windows XP screen was gone, I got a no input signal from my screen, and the little on light turned from green to orange.

I don't think there is much I can do. I've got a shank fest I got to be in by Augest 12th. I wonder if I can order a decent PC in two and a half weeks. Should I build my own? I've never built my own, but how long can it take?

2006-07-23 21:38:38

#11

ShotYourSix: Boldly going nowhere...; +196|7020|Las Vegas

Build your own is the best bet in my opinion but the drawback in your case is that it will take time to decide on components, have them shipped to you, and then build and set up. If all goes well, no prob, but occasionally, problems will surface and take additional time to solve.

Not my current rig, but the one before, I had to RMA 2 mobos and a GPU before it was all sorted out what the problem was. The whole process took 10 weeks and was a complete nightmare. Tough call. If everything goes well, you have enough time but you never know....

2006-07-23 22:12:13

#12

[TUF]Whiskey_Oktober: mmmm...Toasty!; +91|7023|Oregon

if you still have your windows disk, do a full wipe of your harddrives and reinstall windows...if you need help with this, pm me, or google it. then you can go ahead and buy a new system...but wait a few days and get the new intel processor (Conroe/Core 2 Duo), supposed to be out "the end of this month" there is also a sticky tutorial on how to build your own in this tech forum that is quite good. (kudos to the writer of the article, cant remember who)...thats the way to go.

2006-07-24 07:32:36

#13

Phrozenbot: Member; +632|6916|do not disturb

Well, I can barely see any of the boot up screen, but I think I can reformat without seeing much (it's terrible though). It might be a software issue, but I don't see that as the case.

I haven't been reading much on the new Intel CPUs, but I know they kick a lot of butt. What's going to concern me is trying to make my new PC a lot cheaper, and consume less electricity. I'd like the performance or near performance of my 6800, and was wondering if an ATI equivalent could do the job better. As long as I can play BF2 on medium settings, I'm fine.

2006-07-24 07:34:31

#14

{B-T}<babacanosh>: Member; +31|6903

i think you have been playing too much games

2006-07-24 09:42:55

#15

Sain^APEX: Member; +0|6788

I'm getting something similar to that on my card. I use a EVGA GeFroce 7900 GT KO (128mb), and when I try to play BF2 in single player mode, it plays fine, then freezes in a way.. it'll play one frame of animation.... then about 10 seconds later, another one... all the while, in the backround, the sound is still palying normally and fine.

I also have problems with counterstrike 1.6 with some bad artifacts (I think I'm using the right term... like a round hits the wall and all I see is a big black box there instead of a ricochet animation?). I'll try putting the factory heatsink back on it instead of my liquid cool system.

2006-07-25 11:51:04

#16

Phrozenbot: Member; +632|6916|do not disturb

Mine was a PNY 6800. It would sometimes act up in the past, but it would always straighten itself out.

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