My 6800gt is dead ?

damb, worth a try , sounds fried though..... damb

I had a bfg 6800gt start artifacting on me and about 10 seconds later the system locked up. I restarted and got artifacts at every screen. I then tried goin into the bios and still saw artifacts. I then tried my old gf5500 and there were no artifacts. Luckily my card was covered under bfg's warranty. My guess would be that yours is dead. I'd try another card first. If you get the same thing maybe a different power supply or monitor. I'm not an expert at this but elimination is the best thing i can recommend. Also, with the thermalpaste, that doesnt sound good as it should probably be on your core.

Thanks for the replys , someone bought it on EBay for £20 in hope that a firmware update would fix it. I bought a 7600gt to tie me over untill I go PCI which seems to be a better card ....

well id expect some negative response because i highly doubt that the card wioll ever work again but congrats for getting £20 out of a duff card

I stated on the Ebay description exactly what was wrong with the card so I have no problems if someone wants to buy it. I even emailed the guy personaly to ask him why he bought a broken card, he was happy !

thats awesome i may as well try to sell my duff card also (also happens to be a 6800GT PCIe version tho)

Well it would seem that people are interested in taking a gamble on broken cards. As long as you state in as much detail as possible what the problem is.