easy graphics question

Hi guys

I had a little problem with Interweb so this may be a double post.

Anyway, I will try to be brief...

I have a Asus 7900gt with no overcloking or anything like that. Temperatures are low 32C/55C and my system temps are all low. My CPU is a 3800 X2 at normal speed. Anyway...

I have had the card for 18 months and its always been a bit of a pain in the *&^. The problem is artifacting, texture rendering problems etc. This is mostly in games, which I dont do very much.

The problem has now become worse. When I boot I get about 10 "pixels" which are red green or blue. These stay in the POST screen, the windows XP logo and then are in the desktop. The "pixels" vary in size depending on the resolution of the display. In the POST they are about 5*5 monitor pixels.

They dont go away with...

- more cooling
- newer/older drivers
- no nVid drivers
- safe mode

etc etc

My questions is this..

As they are appearing in the POST does this mean its most likely a hardware issue. I dont know much about GPU's but I remeber being told that PCI-E cards have a basic chip that deals with POST/STartup before themain core deals with games etc? I could well be wrong.

I have no friends that have a PCI-E pc so cant check.

Any idea?

PS. I tried undercloking and no change what so ever.

thanks

Rob

no, they move about the place and there is prob about 20/30 in total.

thay also come up on screen-print. and on multiple monitors.

I would post a screen-print from the POST but cant do it. could take a pic i guess... will do that in a minute

Where did the 7900GT come from? did you get it used or did you have it and this just started to happen. Sounds like the memory is going bad. This is what happens in cards when you clock the memory to high. I have a feeling it may be going bad at stock rates.

Some of the 7900gt's were notorious for having bad ram. Could be it

I had similar issues with my sons X1900GT but could test it in my computer to check on power or card issues and since it brought all the problems with it, it is now being RMA´d although it is 18 months old. thank god for 2 year warranty.

Hi, sorry only just got back from work :-)

The card is 18 months old and comes with a 3 year warranty. Which I didnt know, the retailer told me, which is nice!

Only problem is that I need the PC a lot at the moment and would hate to send it back and to have no fault found.

Last night I unplugged all fans, cd's, spare HD and anything else I could find and gave the card a spin in a game, and still probelms.

Am I right in thinking that if this happens in POST it cant be a driver issue?

Should I try to update the cards BIOS?

Thank for helping guys, its super nice of you

r

Rma the card, pick up a cheap old card for $5 that fits your mobo slot (AGP or PCi, or e) to use in the meantime. You can't game on a 16 mb tnt card, but you can surf the web and email!

I keep a 16 mb PCi card laying around for that very reason.