Pretty sure my Graphics card is fried but I need a second opinion

[mike12nite]

when I play games, every 2 minutes it lags really badly, no matter what the game or how good or bad the graphics are. It's definitely not a software problem because I've reinstalled windows a bunch of times (I've also tried 3 different hard drives), I'm gonna buy a new graphics card but I want to be sure it's my graphics card that's the problem.

I have an MSI 9500 GT (it's about a year old).

I also have an AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core processor and 4 gigs of ram (both a year old).

My Motherboard is still pretty new

I'm using Windows XP

Could this be a processor problem or a motherboard problem? I don't want to buy a new graphics card and it turns out it's not the problem.

 

[wa1]

The 1st thing you want to do is check your card temps, it could be an overheating...
IF it's an overheating then you can try to clean your card and re-apply the thermal paste, that should help a lot...

 

[mike12nite]

Okay! Thanks for the help btw! So how do I check my card temp and what would be good/bad temp?

 

[wa1]

Use this:
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
or
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Well, for me, above 80'C is HOT.

 

[mike12nite]

Well it says 46'C, I don't know if that's bad. Should I apply thermal paste? I don't have a fan in my computer btw so it might be the temp

 

[HostileDonut]

I do not think you should be at 46C idle.

 

[wa1]

46'C on idle right?
So, try do some gaming, after 5 or 10 minutes check again your temps...
About your card, is it passive cooler card (no fan)?

 

[mike12nite]

I do not think you should be at 46C idle.

It says GPU Temperature: 46'C

It's too hot? I don't have a fan of any sort in my computer so maybe it is? I have thermal paste in my house but I wouldn't know where to apply it on a graphics card.

 

[mike12nite]

46'C on idle right?
So, try do some gaming, after 5 or 10 minutes check again your temps...
About your card, is it passive cooler card (no fan)?

Yeah it has a fan. but my computer doesn't have any cooling system.

 

[wa1]

Try some games first, after that post again here your result...

 

[mike12nite]

Okay

 

[mike12nite]

Try some games first, after that post again here your result...

So far it's gone to 51'C while I was playing COD Black Ops

 

[wa1]

And the lags are there?
Have you tried the other games? Because CoD BO is not good game to test, lags are everywhere even with high end gaming PC...

 

[wa1]

And tell us your FULL specs in detail...
CPU-Mobo-RAM-PSU-Monitor? Detail please...

 

[mike12nite]

And the lags are there?
Have you tried the other games? Because CoD BO is not good game to test, lags are everywhere even with high end gaming PC...

Yeah it's the same lag pattern in all the games I play. The same way it lagged in this game is the same way it lagged on MW2 and Medal Of Honor. Lag-normal-lag-normal-lag-normal-lag and so on. it's like that through of the whole game (on everygame I play on any setting).

 

[wa1]

Okay, 9500GT is not a gaming card, if you want to gaming then get at least 9600GT/GT240 or HD5670.
What about the rest of your system? We should know that before suggesting...

 

[mike12nite]

And tell us your FULL specs in detail...
CPU-Mobo-RAM-PSU-Monitor? Detail please...

300 Watt Power Supply
3 GB kingston RAM
MSI 9500 GT 512mb
ASUS M2N68-AM SE2 Mobo
AMd Athlon 2X Dual Core 5200+

Btw this graphics card never used to do this it used to play games just fine (MW2 TF2 Crysis). But now it does this on all games.

 

[wa1]

can you upload your GPU-Z like this one:

 

[mike12nite]

http://img823.imageshack.us/i/pic20.gif/

http://img207.imageshack.us/i/pich.gif/

 

[wa1]

Okay, i can't find anything wrong with your card based on gpu-z.
Already tried re-install the driver? update it with the latest driver?

 

[Crashman]

300 Watt Power Supply
3 GB kingston RAM
MSI 9500 GT 512mb
ASUS M2N68-AM SE2 Mobo
AMd Athlon 2X Dual Core 5200+

Btw this graphics card never used to do this it used to play games just fine (MW2 TF2 Crysis). But now it does this on all games.

What's your OS? The first thing I thought of when you stated your problem was slow swap-file access and virtual memory being overly used, then you said 3GB...is this a 64-bit OS?

 

[tentaxlbunga]

Have you consider power supply problem. May be it start weakning.

 

[firebird]

Maybe you could run task manager (resource monitor if Vista/7) and GPUZ on the sensor tab (check refresh while in background) in the background while playing your games.

Then alt-tab out or use the windows key when you're experiencing the lag and see what your PC is doing.

It might be heavy HDD use by another program, or maxed out CPU....

I'm not sure if Nvidia ever had the issue, but I've noticed if I leave another application like UltraVNC running, my GPU clocks will stay at "desktop" speed. I have 2 monitors so I keep GPUZ up on the 2nd....

 

[mike12nite]

Maybe you could run task manager (resource monitor if Vista/7) and GPUZ on the sensor tab (check refresh while in background) in the background while playing your games.

Then alt-tab out or use the windows key when you're experiencing the lag and see what your PC is doing.

It might be heavy HDD use by another program, or maxed out CPU....

I'm not sure if Nvidia ever had the issue, but I've noticed if I leave another application like UltraVNC running, my GPU clocks will stay at "desktop" speed. I have 2 monitors so I keep GPUZ up on the 2nd....

Whenever the lag comes it goes up to 100% CPU usage. Then when the lag goes away it goes to about 87-97% PSU usage. And when I go to the main menu of the game (COD MW2) the PSU usage goes to around 50 percent.

So when the lag comes in it's at 100% PSU usage. So what does this mean exactly?

 

[firebird]

Try killing all unnecessary applications (via task manager if you have to) and run the game again. If you have the process tab opened you might be able to catch which process is using up your extra CPU and causing your lag.

Have you checked for a virus/spyware lately?