GPU Fried?

[sincraft]

I have a 7600gt that I used mostly for Company of Heroes, A flight sim etc - that weren't that intensive on my card.

Never overclocked.

Found fear for cheap at BB and decided to play it because I heard the single player is pretty fun.

I am getting tons of blue dots (artifacts) all over the screen, more in some areas less in others but mostly always on dark features.

I had my gpu monitor running while playing and it never goes beyond 85c.

I've tried turning off write combing, nothing.

Is the card possibly bad?

Also - just wondering because I did just upgrade to the latest drivers...is it still the best method to run your card is to set everything to application controlled as for some reason, this driver set had settings on it clashing with application settings.

Suggestions please..

EDIT: I have a 400 watt antec ps.
Current readings from pc probe:
Vcore: 1.39 (hold here always)
+3.3 =3.3 (perfect, always here)
+5.0=4.84 (doesn't hit threshold warning of 4.5, but a bit low?)
+12.0= 12.10 (stays here or about 12.12 at all times)

I have the latest drivers and 2 gigs of good quality ram.

 

[Evilonigiri]

What about patches?

 

[locky28]

What is the airflow in your case like?

Flight sims put far more pressure on the CPU so your 7600GT might not have been getting pushed to hard in your flight sim. When you played F.E.A.E it could have overheated which does cause artifactslike blue dots and other colour mis-matches.

Also try any F.E.A.R patches as evil said and also make sure you have the latest drivers for your card.

 

[Ananan]

I don't know if it's the cause or not but 85 C seem really high for a 7600 GT.

My 7800 GT never went higher than 60 C (mostly hung out around 57-58 C), and although I don't remember the exact temps for my 7600 GT I do recall it ran cooler than the 7800 GT. I think even under load it never went higher than 55 C.

 

[systemlord]

Yea thats too hot, my 7800GTX never go's above 79c. Its almost always an air flow problem, what case do you have? Also is you GPU fan running at full speed? Turn on your PC and feel how much air flow there is, your might be card dieing. Time to RMA it.

 

[nukemaster]

Suggestions

1. Get the patches 1.08 full(seems to be the newest) install. This contains all patches rolled into one since the game came out. I know farcry looked messed until i patched it for my 8800gtx even tho my 1900xt was fine.

2. Clean out your video card fan. while 85 is still far from killing the card it "may" cause artifacts. I've had cards over 90 without problems, but those where all ATI...I assume Nvidia cards have similar heat tolerance.

3. If all this fails try the card on someone else's computer or try other games(or 3dmarks 2005/6 will push it nice and hard) to see if this happens

4. Still got problems? Upgrade time

 

[sincraft]

yea I just bought this system last year for under $700 to put me back into the swing of things.
I'm starting to thing xbox or playstation is the way to go anymore.
I just can't get over the clumsiness of using a game box over a pc though but I guess they have come a long way.

I upgraded to play the current titles like oblivion etc etc. I knew I would eventually give this PC to a family member to browse and do work on in a couple years or maybe 3, but not 1! lol.

Yea I have the latest and greatest drivers on everything. Gonna hop in and what for them to pop then go out and check my temps.
I have pretty good cooling in my case, and the card fan doesn't go to 100% ever, so I am assuming it's cooling to what it believes is ok.

The good thing is I have an xfx card. Double lifetime warranty - even if you overclock and cook it lol. I'll never buy anything but them for now on.