Can't game for more than 15 minutes!

[gramps]

Just wanted to know what problem the following symptoms might mean and why its happening:-

(often) a few pixels of random colors stay lit up, on desktop usually, sometimes on 'game-loading' screens, and rarely on the POST screen (pixel is size of current resolution, not native).

(almost always) within a few minutes of gaming intensive games (FarCry, Oblivion), some textures of say a rock or tree will be smeared across the screen to vanish into some point in outer-space, keep playing and usually computer will reset eventually (rarely crash to desktop). (are these called artifacts?)

I'm assuming vid card is going... but it's less than a year old!! Factory overclocked XFX 7900GT. (If it is vid card then hurry up R600/G81!!)

Thanks.

Giga DQ6, E6600, 2Gig 667, non-oc, H20 (not on GPU)

 

[gramps]

Only seems to be crashing on my 2 intensive, pretty games, Oblivion and FarCry, the other 2 (very basic) games, (an ancient!) Need For Speed, and GalCiv2 are very stable - but they would barley even use the vid card!!
Just tried Farcry - didn't even make 5 mins before reset - unfortunately no log in Event/Apps, but Event/System had "The Computer Browser service terminated with the following error: This operation returned because the timeout period expired" Whatever that means.
Searched Event/Apps - LOTS of logs AppError or AppHang in the past - but only says 'Hanging Application xxxxxx.exe' (oblivion/farcry/powerdvd/iexplorer.exe)
Found one instance of 'Faulting application nvcplui.exe, version 1.2.0.82, faulting module nvcpl.dll, version 6.14.10.9371, fault address 0x0019615d.' - my vid drivers, but only one instance...
I did un/re-install drivers a few weeks ago, problem solved for about 3 days, within a week it was fully back, might try it again though...
Would a hardware faluire that caused an immediate reset have time to be logged on this Event Log though?

Still, thanks for pointing out the event log, I vaguely knew it was there, but as to exactly what it was used for...? Now I know! It will help me narrow down problems in the future!

Cheers

 

[ajfink]

...ever cleaned out the inside of your computer?

 

[Grimmy]

Got the latest Nvidia drivers?

Have you check the temps for both the CPU and GPU on gaming?

 

[gramps]

My insides are as clean as a whistle (ie: very clean, not full of slobber).
Drivers are always up-to-date (nVidia hasn't released new XP ones for a while now... got everyone working on vista drivers?)
CPU temp is great - H20 with a C2D.
GPU temp is wierd tho - it gets up to 79+ (I only started checking temp once the problem started - I think its gone higher before but now I don't have long to stress it before it resets). What is a norm GPU temp anyway? nVidia's 'slowdown threshold' is set to 125c!!!!!! And it can't be changed!! Surely my house would be on fire well before the GPU reaches that?!?!

I'm afraid I might have baked it; in the summer here (just passed) it reaches 40c+ and my wife and I Oblivioned it up a lot then - no matter how many fans/rads you have, you can't cool things much if the intake air is like a blast furnace - and the problem started not too long after...

RMA, RMA, dammit, I never keep reciepts for anything... (and anyway, can you RMA if it works fine when NOT stressed?)

 

[Grimmy]

Might try to blow out the fan in the 7900 card with a can of air, if you haven't checked for dust bunnys in its stock heat sink. It may be suffocating for some cool air.

My old 6800GS has a threshold of 120C. Though my temps are normally in the 51-60C in some reg gaming, and I'm not using the stock cooler.

 

[gramps]

I decided to look up GPU artifacts - found(http://www.playtool.com/pages/artifacts/artifacts.html)

It looks exactly like the example of bad video RAM (not as bad as thier example though!!).
Tried cooling with a 60cm fan blowing in the air (if only my original case intake was that big!) and it does seem last a little bit longer, but still pretty unusable.

Great, now I have a sense of urgency, still waiting for the R600/G81...

Thanks all, I may have a dying video card, but at least I learned something today, and isn't that whats important boys and girls?

 

[4745454b]

I chuckled a bit when I read that you had an overclocked 7900GT. The 7900GT had a problem with the high clocked memory onboard that wasn't cooled at all. People bought many of these cards before the defect was found. If your card is still work, heres what I'd do. First, keep the heat down. Do this by keeping the side of the case off, and pointing a fan at it. (not a 60mm one, a house fan.) Second, enable coolbits and remove the overclock. Last, limp along until you make up your mind on the G80/R600 question.

 

[gramps]

Ha! Thanks $&$%$%$b - yes, I bought the 7900 about the week after it was released here (Oz), I haven't heard anything about that problem, and the reason I got the OC version was because it was the cheapest (and now I know why!)
Oh well, good to know anyway...

 

[ajfink]

To help pull some heat off of it if you have an available pci slot below the video card is to put in one of those pci slot fans. I used to use one with my older cards that only came with a heatsink to keep them cooler.

How loud are those things? I've thought about getting one for my folding machine that gets pretty toasty (P4) but I've heard they can get a bit noisy...and this thing is loud enough already.

 

[jamesgoddard]

Looks like a memory issue, I would try using rivatuner and take 50MHz off the memory and core speed, sure you will loose a little performance, but it will probably fix the issue.

 

[Eviltwin17]

sounds like your card is either dying or the overlcock is stable. Ive had some problems with overclocked xfx's in the past and the same problems happened to me. Try lowering the clock settings of the card to default and see if the problem persist. If it does then you probably have a bad card

 

[nukemaster]

I had that with my geforce 4 ti 4200

was bad ram....and it just got worse and worse and worse....

Just a note drivers can cause that kind of corruption. I have seen it on both Nvidia(Geforce 4go mx400, carom 3d) and Ati(x850, some silk road like game)

To this day i still see small bits of double texture corruption(2 textures on one another flashing) on some games in limited spots. How i miss the days where this did not exist. but games sure did look bad then