Is my 8800GT dead?

[teddy11]

Hello everyone

It all begun when I updated my drivers because metro2033 wouldn't work with old drivers.
So I launched metro2033 and after a few weird artifacts my screen went black and my pc restarted. While windows7 was loading i saw a few dots and other artifacts and it would black out eventually. My pc would only work in safe mode. I uninstalled the new drivers and installed older version,but not the version i used before because i don't remember what version it was. My pc loaded without any artifacts and when i tried running a random game I saw insane amount of artifacts and it restarted after a few moments. Once again i saw a lot of purple dots on loading screen but i managed to get into safe mode. And now I'm making this post in safe mode.
My temps are fine and i didn't OC it or mess with bios or anything like that.
I have a feeling that its just a bad card. My warranty is probably over since i have it for 2 years i think, and I have no money so I'm pretty much screwed.
I'm really frustrated and I just want to be sure if its dead or should i try older drivers or should i try to reinstall windows7. I'm sick and tired of this card.

 

[r_manic]

Whoops, it does sound like your GPU failed. I remember the same things appearing when my GPU went kaput

 

[nforce4max]

Pop the card out and clean the dust out of the cooler (if it looks like crap your not done) and replace the compound with arctic silver 5 if still in the dog house with it get a new one and dump the old one on eBay you will make upto to $60 for it.

 

[teddy11]

Thanks for the replies.

The temps are fine(52c on idle). Theres no dust.

60bucks for a card which doesnt work? seriously?

To be completely sure that its not a driver issue I formatted my hdd and installed windows and saw artifacts the first time i ran it, and a BSOD moment later.

Im actualy not an expert in this and i want to make sure that its my video whats causing it.

It also would be cool if u guys advice me what card should i buy.
I dont know the exact specs of my mobo lol. Im making this post thru my laptop. My cpu is q6600 2.4ghz.
I need a card which is as fast as 8800gt(or faster) and my budget is low (no ebay or used cards).

 

[nforce4max]

Well since you limted your options to out side ebay it is going to be more difficult to purchase a good card with in a small budget. Turn the fanspeed to max if any thing else.

 

[teddy11]

Well since you limted your options to out side ebay it is going to be more difficult to purchase a good card with in a small budget. Turn the fanspeed to max if any thing else.

Turn the fanspeed to max? dude what are you talking about. my pc wont even load. after a dozen of artifacts it shuts down.

Im going to buy a 9800GT.

I just want to be completely sure that my video card is causing this. I cant test the card on a different pc.

Can it be anything else? PSU, ram, motherboard? I would feel pretty stupid if I buy a new video card and the problem persists..

 

[nforce4max]

Turn the fanspeed to max? dude what are you talking about. my pc wont even load. after a dozen of artifacts it shuts down.

Im going to buy a 9800GT.

I just want to be completely sure that my video card is causing this. I cant test the card on a different pc.

Can it be anything else? PSU, ram, motherboard? I would feel pretty stupid if I buy a new video card and the problem persists..

It could be the psu but either than that its the card, people should look for any thing that could be a problem down the road and in this case it was heat.

 

[notty22]

You could take the card out an physically inspect it. I just had a similar experience with a 8600gt. bsod playing a movie. restarted computer, all good until I tried playing a video again. Next restart saw the flickering speckles in windows logo, bsod. Thought maybe fan stopped. Knew it was dusty in there to. So took apart, cleaned everything, then noticed that 3 capacitors had burst.

 

[nforce4max]

You could take the card out an physically inspect it. I just had a similar experience with a 8600gt. bsod playing a movie. restarted computer, all good until I tried playing a video again. Next restart saw the flickering speckles in windows logo, bsod. Thought maybe fan stopped. Knew it was dusty in there to. So took apart, cleaned everything, then noticed that 3 capacitors had burst.
http://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr185/notty222/504595967_1775481994_0.jpg

Those bad caps can easily be replaced, the new caps have to be the same voltage but is safe if they are of a higher rating. Had to fix my 8800gtx when it came in missing 3 caps ended up using electrolytics 1200UF.

 

[teddy11]

You could take the card out an physically inspect it. I just had a similar experience with a 8600gt. bsod playing a movie. restarted computer, all good until I tried playing a video again. Next restart saw the flickering speckles in windows logo, bsod. Thought maybe fan stopped. Knew it was dusty in there to. So took apart, cleaned everything, then noticed that 3 capacitors had burst.
http://i482.photobucket.com/albums/rr185/notty222/504595967_1775481994_0.jpg

will check tommorow. Thanks for the advice.

It could be the psu but either than that its the card, people should look for any thing that could be a problem down the road and in this case it was heat.

im not sure about heat. Ive had alot of bad experience with this card like freezing, artifacts in games(never outside of games though) cleaning the card or reinstaling drivers fixed everythind all the times.
But the temps rarely went above 75c in games with good graphics. i think thats not enough to damage the card...
My psu sucks alot but i think its enough, worked fine for over six months with no issues.

 

[nforce4max]

will check tommorow. Thanks for the advice.



im not sure about heat. Ive had alot of bad experience with this card like freezing, artifacts in games(never outside of games though) cleaning the card or reinstaling drivers fixed everythind all the times.
But the temps rarely went above 75c in games with good graphics. i think thats not enough to damage the card...
My psu sucks alot but i think its enough, worked fine for over six months with no issues.

75c can slow kill some cards depending how well they were made and the individual sample in question as for the psu you need a quality unit regardless unless the box is ancient which yours isn't. You can play with drives all day but it doesn't fix hardware related issue. I would at least get a 400w unit from antec or enermax that isn't ass wipe or better. 650w antec ea650 isn't to bad got one and it holds up to my sli rig and all 11 fans.

 

[teddy11]

75c can slow kill some cards depending how well they were made and the individual sample in question as for the psu you need a quality unit regardless unless the box is ancient which yours isn't. You can play with drives all day but it doesn't fix hardware related issue. I would at least get a 400w unit from antec or enermax that isn't ass wipe or better. 650w antec ea650 isn't to bad got one and it holds up to my sli rig and all 11 fans.

mine psu is 400w. i dont know the brand but as i said it worked fine for a long time.
im a poor student lol. i cant afford expensive psu if its not a must.

 

[nforce4max]

mine psu is 400w. i dont know the brand but as i said it worked fine for a long time.
im a poor student lol. i cant afford expensive psu if its not a must.

I am in the same shoes and jobless being forced onto the government teat aka student loans so I know very well about being piss poor. Ok here is what you can do is buy used it has risk but every thing in life does, eBay is a good place to start. On eBay (auctions and country/ local region) you can usually find some being sold for a fair price lets say $40 usd which can buy your self a decent quality unit, it did for my $51 bought me a antec neo 550he. Or you could if there is one in your local area in the US a Goodwill (computer works) sell just about every thing and often sell at a fair price. Some times I have in the past got lucky and gotten crazy deals like a $30 chipset cooler for only $1 (thermaltake) and yesterday 17.6GB worth of vintage SDR ram (137 sticks of it) for only $10.83.