6600GT Artifacts only in PC Games

[Tavaruas]

need help with artifacts that have recently appeared ONLY in pc games. The artifacts look like very small squares and rectangles -- sort of like bad pixels. They also look like distorted wording. See two images at the bottom of this post, as an example (SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN FOR SECOND IMAGE).

There are no artifacts in other applications or on the Windows Desktop (although at one point there was -- see below).

Could my Nvidia 6600GT video card have gone bad, or is this some other problem.


BACKGROUND/WHAT HAPPENED:

I was playing Half-Life 2:Episode One, which I've played many times before in the past year without issue. Every time I start this game it says I need to update my video card drivers, but I never do because the game runs fine. However, this time after about 30 minutes the game crashed.

I re-booted Windows. Upon re-boot, the Windows desktop had artifacts which looked like very small rectangles and squares -- like bad pixels.

I uninstalled the old Geforce 6600GT driver and then installed new driver version 169.21. This new driver eliminated the artifacts from the Windows desktop and all other applications, except for artifacts that continued to show up in all pc games as well as other video intensive applications like screen savers and Google Earth.

At Nvidia's suggestion, I uninstalled driver version 169.21 and installed new driver 169.44 (for Windows XP 32-bit). This new driver did not solve the problem. This is the current driver I have installed.

Next, at Nvidia's suggestion, I performed a video card hardware stability test using downloaded software from http://www.sharewareconnection.com/video-card-stability-test.htm. After 3 seconds of running this test, it said that video card "Stability Test Failed - Artifact detected".

Nvidia says that because the Stability Test Failed my video card is dead, and I need a new one.

Since I only see artifacts when running pc games, but not in other applications, is it possible that my video card is okay but this is a software problem or some other problem?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I'm not computer savy, so please be thorough in your reply.

THANK YOU!

My computer's specs:
Dimension 8400 (PURCHASED IN 2004)
P4 540 with HT
3.20GHz, 800 FSB
Windows XP
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
Video Card: Nvidia 6600GT - 128MB RT (Not over clocked)

 

[jay2tall]

Is the card Overclocked?

Sounds like the RAM is starting to go. I've gotten these artifacts if I clocked ram to high. I hear they also appear on OC cards after a few years. Some cards have issues as they get older.

 

[basketcase]

Sounds like overheating (assuming it just isn't dying, like Jay said). Clean the dust out of your case and make sure that the fan on your video card is still spinning. If the fan is still spinning, and cleaning the dust out doesn't help, it is probably dying. You could try underclocking the card a bit and use something like Rivatuner to make your fan on the video card go at 100%.

But, Jay is right, these cards just die sometimes.

 

[jaguarskx]

Most likely it is simply overheating.

Clean out all the dust bunnies for all the components, and leave the case open. Then fire up a game and check if there are any artifacts.

 

[jay2tall]

Did you ever remove the cooler and put thermal paste on it yourself? I know they say you should reapply the Arctic Silver paste once a year. Some others are once and done, some aren't.

Either way, maybe you can try removing the cooler, putting down some good paste and reinstalling the cooler. Make sure to blow it out with some air as well to clean out the fins and fan.

 

[betunn]

Or maybe the fan on your GPU is dead or dying. Check and see if it's spinning.