Gothic 3, WoW, FarCry, BF2, GRAW... artefacts @ 8800GTX

try 97.44 drivers, if that doesn't help rma it.

http://codecentral.org/gfprobs/bf2.zip.zip
http://codecentral.org/gfprobs/graw1.zip.zip
http://codecentral.org/gfprobs/graw2.zip.zip
http://codecentral.org/gfprobs/graw3.zip.zip
http://codecentral.org/gfprobs/g3d.zip.zip
http://codecentral.org/gfprobs/wow.zip.zip

new links, I've messed up  

Drivers...It is unbelieve what bad drivers can do. They can make good hardware seem bad. I am now using year old drives on my SLI 7800 GT cards because something in the latest versions didn't like my Opteron upgrade. And for my cards the latest beta driver is just plain horrible even the control panel is all messed up. I guess Nvidia is putting all their resources into the 8800's drivers as I hear those releases are fairing better at solving peoples problems. Good chance the latest will help you. Now I know where all those reconditioned cards come from. They are probably perfectly good cards that are RMA'ed just because the drivers were bad, or rather the combination of the given persons componenets made them bad. Good luck!

> try 97.44 drivers, if that doesn't help rma it.

Didn't help  

:S Seems like it's a hard problem?  

What makes you think it's drivers?
Any indication of a driver fault?

I'm really pissed off and if it's a hardware problem, I should just RMA it asap.
It seems like it is hard to be a problem with the card from the article (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/200611061142...) above because I've bought the card few days ago...

Could it be the card was released long before?

Unfortunately driver issues can look exactly like bad card issues. I'm not familiar with The Point of View Brand. Looks like it is a European Brand, do they move a good number of cards? Check their Forum see if anyone else has what you are seeing. But yes a good trouble shoot will be to RMA the card and get another and see if you have the same issue. I'm just leaning more toward driver because so many people have issues, yet the last few driver releases have been taking care of most. Let us know how the new card fares.

It's a lot of hassle to ship the card to capital (my retailer) and back. Meanwhile I'm without my PC so...

What do you think? Is this a hardware or driver error?

I get this kind of artefacts in ALL games.

well, if you absolutely can't or don't want to wait for new drivers than try rma. if you can wait 'til next drivers than wait and see if that fixes your artifacts

By the look of those pics mate it looks like you have pixel problems and that could mean drivers but it is most likely got to do with card itself. Power supply can also cause artifacts like this. Make sure your PSU has at least 450w, dual 12v rails running at 18a each, need two 6pin connectors for the card as not only can lack of power supply to the card cause lower performance it can also cause artifacts and crashing. I suggest you find some good stress testing software for the card and system and benchmarking software that you can use to compare results with others.

But I do agree with waiting for better drivers before RMAing the card.

There could also be problems with your PC in the way of corrupt hard drive causing application problems. Try a recovery on your PC and reinstall games and test. If your willing to lose saved games and start again that is, but first wait for the drivers.

tas300zx, I would appreciate you reading my first post.  

I've already stated I have 750W 4 x 12V rails @ 18A each. Also, I've connected my card to 2 rails for each connection just to be sure.

All components are brand new and artefacts appear in ALL games there. Some more, some less, but there it is.

I think it is problem from your monitor that make your pixel suck.

i would say that its a heat issue....i have 8800gtx and use 97:92 drivers...although i dont use any of those games. mine runs doom3, quake 4, CSS source, quake 3, Day Of Defeat, and Race using the same drivers without issue. make sure you use driver cleaner pro when changing drivers just to eliminate driver problems.

hope this post helps in some way

Heat issue?  

But a stock cooler should work on stock frequencies.... :|

I have sort of the same spec's and I play some of those games without any issues. I used the 97.44 and now the 97.92 drivers without any issues. I dont get any artifacts or anything in game. I would try to uninstalled the drivers again then reinstall. If they do not fix anything then try some stress testing (like 3dMark06) and see if there are artifacts while running that test. If it does I'd contact the manufacturer and RMA the card. I've never heard of the brand though, sounds like a no name brand. If your going to cough out that type of cash should go with a recommended brand (EVGA, Asus, BFG). BFG has the best tech support.

i would say that its a bad card that is being affected by either bad power or a heat issue.

try taking the cover off your case just to see if it helps. then youll know for sure.

not all cards can tolerate the same temps, you might have a card wich falls below the bottom end of tolerable temperatures before artifacting occurs. i would deffo RMA it but you can still check if its heat thats causing the artifacts.

its the sort of thing that occurs when the memory or GPU is overclocked too much and gets too hot.

If possible, try narrowing down the issue a little bit further. Do you still have another graphic card you can use to see if the problem carries over. If not then it's gotta be the card IMO! Another thing is do you have the latest bios update for tha mobo?

I was just about to ask if the card was factory OC'd or not. By this it seems it is not?

Check in Nvidia control panel and ntune or whatever apps you have to check clock speed and make sure it isn't OC'd somehow without your knowledge.

Check PCI-E voltage in bios. Make sure it isn't higher than its supposed to be stock. Might not be a problem but if its too high it sure could cause some issues.

Its not likely but its possible you got a card that slipped through the cracks with the wrong resistor that was in the news at release? Most got their cards fine but I did hear of at least two people that "lucked out" and got a faulty one that slipped through.

If its not OC and the PCI-E bus is where its supposed to be RMA it. Could just be the card itself.

I've reproduced the problem in 3D Mark too:

http://codecentral.org/problem/3DMark06artefakti.zip

I've reproduced a problem here:

http://codecentral.org/problem/3DMark06artefakti.zip

(DivX 3 Fast-motion codec)

My apologies I was replying to a few posts at same time and got mixed up. If that is the case then it must be your card, RMA might be your best option. I am guessing you know how to install drivers properly so not going to suggest that like someone else did you most likely tried it already anyway. Since others have no problems with those drivers then its not the version or build. But your hard drive could have gotten to fragmented and become corrupt. Check it for fragmentation and also do a regestry check and clean up, may be a bung reg key. Also you should find out if there are any known software that can cause problems with nvidia cards and drivers. Seen this before too as I work for the Government in IT Support and some of the apps we use can cause problems with drivers and hardware. Patches can usually fix though.
I had another look through your post and heat could be an issue, I'm Australian and know exactly what 80 degrees C feals like "BLOODY HOT". Take the side of the case off and face a small fan at the inside of the PC and give that a try, it should keep the temp low enough to not cause a problem. If that does not help then you obviously got a dud card.
Contact Nvidia support directly and tell them everything they might be able to shed some light on it for you.

Well thanks for your advice. Yes I'm know how to install as I'm a programmer. :-D I actually did 3D programming also.

The point is, this started appearing on a fresh system; weather it be Vista or XP. I've tried several driver revisions even including the very first driver supporting my card.

On nVidia forums they say 80°C is perfectly normal for this card. I've used enhanced cooling and got it to 60°C. The problem persists.

From what I've seen by now, the problem is more often as the application is more intensive.

I'm also not the only one experiencing the problem:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=25754&st=0...

Seems like it just happens...

I need my card and I need it for 3D apps I work with (military) so I find RMAing quite frustrating...

I've found the possible cause.

When I force software vertex shaders in 3Dmark06, the problem is gone.

Now, if only I could know how to fix vertex shaders...