Suspected dying video card.

fordy9

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Jan 4, 2007
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Been having a couple of problems with my pc lately and im looking for some help or advice to get it working again. All help would be greatly appreciated.

About a week ago my computer could no longer run MW2, which i have been running fine since it came out. It would load into a game, maybe let me choose a weapon and then it would kick me back to my desktop, forcing me to quit the game through task manager. One time when this happened an error came up about directx.

Today i came home and things were a lot worse, as getting windows to work is now a problem. 1 of three things would happen.
1. Computer would load to the point where i could choose which user to log in as, and then once i chose one, screen would go black except for some random pixels.
2. Same as before, except screen would go completely black and the monitor would go into power saving mode (as if no signal from graphics card).
3. I would get into windows, maybe even load up firefox, but after a few seconds the screen would freeze and half of the pixels would jump a few cm to the left or right, looks really weird.

Also, everything is working fine in safe mode, which is how im posting this now.

System is:
Nvidea 8800GT
Intel e6750 dual core cpu (2.66gHz)
Abit ip35-e mother board
Corsair hx520 psu
Windows 7 64bit
Also my 500g harddrive is very near full if that has anything to do with it.

I've tried leaving the computer off for a while, and have taken out the video card and put it back in ensuring everything is connected firmly. There does seem to be a lot of dust in the heat sink of the graphics card, but im not sure i want to take that apart to give it a good clean and the fan seems to be spinning fine.

If you need any other info let me know. I suspect graphics card or directx/nvidea driver issues (haven't updated any of these drivers lately), but im not really sure. As said before, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
 
Solution
It does sound like a VGA problem , However if you could try the card in a friends PC to make sure, then you'd know if it is the VGA or not.

Your harddrive being almost full won't make this kind of error (if any at all).

Another thing it could have been is PSU, but your PSU is a quality unit so its doubtful that could be the problem.

Like I said try the card in someone else's PC and see if it works.
It does sound like a VGA problem , However if you could try the card in a friends PC to make sure, then you'd know if it is the VGA or not.

Your harddrive being almost full won't make this kind of error (if any at all).

Another thing it could have been is PSU, but your PSU is a quality unit so its doubtful that could be the problem.

Like I said try the card in someone else's PC and see if it works.
 
Solution

fordy9

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ok so i finally had a chance to run the card in another computer. we ran it for 5-10mins and it seemed to be working fine. Took home a 7600GT and it also worked fine in my computer. A bit confusing haha

Ive downloaded the latest drivers from nvidea, no difference.

The fact that everything works fine in safe mode makes you think its a driver problem, but if you leave it frozen for too long before resetting the computer, all of the post screen etc on load up have pixals all over the place as well, making you think that it would be the card.

Maybe my card is overheating? I took it apart and cleaned a butt load of dust out of it, and the thermal paste seemed pretty worse for wear, so ill probably re-do that in a couple of days. Cleaning the dust out so far doesnt seem to have made a difference. Next step after thermal paste is probably going to be a re-format.
 

fordy9

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Ran the card again in another computer and actually gave it a bit of work out, froze as soon as we went to play a game, so i finally know its definitely the video card. Now how do i know if its dead or overheating? Ive already re-done the thermal paste so it shouldn't be overheating unless i did a terrible job, was my first time.
 

fordy9

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Sits at around 58 Celsius under vert light load (browsing the internet, microsoft office stuff) but freezes under a bit more of a load (eg youtube, itunes, hit the 'show desktop' button repeatedly). From what ive heard 58 is ok for a gpu, so a new one it is i guess. Looking at a 5770 :)