My XFX NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT is freaking out!

[cowboy_wilhelm]

I am having major issues with this graphics card. The screen occasionally flickers, pixels turn to random colors, and when I run a game it completely freaks out. I don't even know how to describe it, but here is a screen shot from Half-Life 2: Episode Two that sums it up. This happens with any game, not just Valve games. Eventually the lines start going everywhere and the driver crashes. I have the most recent driver release for Windows Vista 32-bit. This machine originally ran Windows XP, but this problem began before the upgrade to Vista, so it can't be entirely blamed on Vista. In fact, I had trouble with all the driver releases for XP, aside from the original that came on the software in the box. Still, this didn't develop until 1.5 years after building the computer. Can anyone help identify the problem and what I need to do? Maybe something with running two monitors? Is it a hardware problem with the card and it's more-or-less "fried," even though it works fine when I'm not gaming? Heat damage? Is it time to upgrade anyway? Many thanks in advance.

P.S. I also just downloaded and installed the new 178.13 driver. Didn't fix it.

 

[coozie7]

Sounds like a classic case of overheating to me...Runs fine on desktop, surfing,etc but when loaded for a game its freaks out?
Carefully,carefully remove the card and clean out its fan and the heatsink fins. I just blow into it and use DRY cotton buds to slide fluff out of the fan blades, but places sell cans of compressed gas cleaner which also does a great job, just remember to use it outside or pointing out of a window or you`ll end up with a room full of dust.
And it might be a good time to clean out the CPU cooler, case fans etc at the same time.

 

[kamkal]

yup looks like overheating

 

[cowboy_wilhelm]

Yes, everything is fine until I start a game and after a few minutes it starts acting up until the driver finally crashes.

I did a basic blow-out of the case not too long ago, but I'll take the card out and see how it looks. It's possible that there is some dust clumped up in there that I've missed.

 

[megamanx00]

Yup, I think a vile heard of dust bunnies has descended into you're GPUs cooler.

 

[cowboy_wilhelm]

OK, I blew to the point that I was getting dizzy (let's keep our minds out of the gutter on that one). Little bit of dust, but nothing too severe in the GPU fan and heatsink, as well as the rest of the case. Tried out Half-Life 2: Episode Two again . . . and the antlions are now psychedelic.

 

[alvine]

maybe its simply dying? get new graphic card d00d

 

[megamanx00]

Cool. Yeah since you're getting alot of texture errors it seems like your card is crapping out. Mighnt be heat damange. Try down clocking it for now.

 

[coozie7]

OK I know this is pushing the point, but it still sounds like an overheat on the GPU.
Try Rivatuner to check your temperatures and check that the fan is actually working, they`re often cheap, low quality units and will fail .001
hours after the one year warranty has expired.

 

[fallingcross]

hey guys, sorry to revive an old thread. i think i'm having the same issue as cowboy_wilhe. i can't confirm that since the image he posted is not available anymore, though. i tried taking a screenshot of my problem, but screenshots show a normal screen. actually, on second thought, this isn't the same problem.

my problem is that this (see this image it took from my phone: ) happens whenever i have something running in full-screen mode for longer than about 20 seconds. the colors of the streaks are based off the colors that it would be showing normally, so this shot from Sims 2 is brown-ish because of the sand in Strangeville, or Strangetown, or whatever (i just installed it today). it does this with all programs, too, not just Sims 2. it does it with GH3 for PC, HL2, HL2DM, CS:S, etc. (i have several steam games). anyway, when i alt+tab out of it and go back to it, it's fine. until another 20 seconds passes, that is. anyone know what's going on? when i first bought my computer from a gamer friend of mine (he was selling it to get money for a macbook, since this was his secondary machine), it worked fine. after i reinstalled windows, though, it started doing this. i have the latest drivers, firmware, etc., but nothing helps. i wouldn't mind if i could just get things to run in windowed mode, but i can't do that (not even DXWND works).

anyone got some advice or a solution?

 

[fallingcross]

nevermind, it turns out that alt-tabbing to and from it repeatedly fixes it. i still get some rendering errors, but the streaks are gone. besides, i forgot to upload the image of what the streaks look like. thanks anyway!