8800GT weird image problem

[aussie greg]

I have a Asus 8800GT 1gb card, now installed for about 3 months. Recently when playing COH [yes I know it's not quite up there with Crysis etc] the gaming area ofthe screen would go black and only very bright areas such as flame around flamethrowers would be visible. I ran memtest and found errors in all 4 sticks of memory so replaced them with new. I also went into video options and reset to 'default settings'. This setting uses more memory than my customised settings. Now, the game area does not go black, but I get what I would describe as images within images, when a flamethrower is used...the problem only seems to be associated with the brightness of the flames. To describe the image more; more than one image of the same section appears, each one up to about 1 inch square, so if a vehicle is on fire, you see 3 or 4 images of the part of the vehicle which is on fire.I have updated drivers etc. This problem occurs after about 1/2 hour or so of playing.
I have a a very well ventilated system in a large [gigabyte aurora] case, 3 X 120mm fans
My system is P5E mobo; Q6600 with mini typhoon cooler; 2 X 37 gb Wd Raptors in Raid 0; 4 gb Kingston ddr2 1066; Vista Ultimate. Nothing is overclocked
Any thoughts please.

 

[airhendrix13]

Although your system is well ventilated, I would check your core GPU temps. Sounds like some type of artifacting to me.

 

[aussie greg]

Thanks 'airhendrix13'. I'm not very good at this stuff, what do I need to be able to measure the core temp? and what is artifacting? Hope you have the time to reply, thanks.

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: aussie greg
Thanks 'airhendrix13'. I'm not very good at this stuff, what do I need to be able to measure the core temp? and what is artifacting? Hope you have the time to reply, thanks.

If you Right-Click on the Desktop screen, goto Properties, Settings, Advanced, and then select the NVidia GeForce tab.

Under Additional Properties there should be a Temperature tab.


Edit: Sorry, I was Dyslexic last night

 

[airhendrix13]

Artifacting is best described as a graphics glitch. When the GPU gets too hot, it fails to render images properly, thus creating "artifacts". Artifacts are basically unintentional, graphical errors.

 

[aussie greg]

Thanks to both of you, I will give it a go and find out what the temp is reaching and post my results:thumbsup:

 

[aussie greg]

hello . thanks for the edit wanderer27. I have tried several different things since my last post. Firstly, when I right click my screen, I don't get a 'properties', I get: View; Sort by: Refresh; Paste; Paste shortcut; NVIDIA control panel;New; Personalise. Anyway, going into NVIDIA control panel, was my next move....and in that there is absolutely no mention of temperature...even when you type it into 'Help' there is no listing for anything with 'temperature'.... you can imagine I'm beginning to think I've got a bit of a dud.
Anyway, I then tried reloading Asus OSD and Smart doctor and updated them with downloads...which finally succeeded in showing the GPU temp at idle [41 c] but whenever I tried to play COH and check the smart doctor panel, COH would stop running. I also downloaded latest NVIDIA drivers, hoping that would add temp. into the control panel...it didn't and worse still, something amongst all this created a black screen on startup!!!!!!!!!! Finally I got visual and started in safe mode and removed all the new stuff. 'Windows' analysis tells me there is a video card problem but can't tell me what it is. So back to square 1. I don't expect you guys to reply, I appreciate your time already. Of course if you do reply I would be very grateful and eager to read. If I do sort this out I will post in future. Many thanks.

 

[Quiksilver]

0) Uninstall those Asus utilities.
1) Download Driver Sweeper (http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/), Crap Cleaner(http://www.ccleaner.com/), and The Latest Drivers.
2) Install Driver Sweeper and Crap Cleaner
3) Reboot your computer into safe mode (F8 on boot or Start > Run >msconfig > boot.ini > /Safeboot)
4) Uninstall old drivers in control panel reboot if asked (be sure to reboot into safe mode).
5) Run Driver Sweeper.
6) Reboot PC Normally (undo /safeboot in msconfig if you used this method).
7) Now run Crap Cleaner registry scanner/fixer and scan/fix multiple times until there is nothing to fix.
8) Install latest drivers, reboot when asked.

That should take care of the black screen issue or whatever.

To check your temps, you need nVidia nTune available for download on nVidia's site.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Originally posted by: Quiksilver
0) Uninstall those Asus utilities.
1) Download Driver Sweeper (http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/), Crap Cleaner(http://www.ccleaner.com/), and The Latest Drivers.
2) Install Driver Sweeper and Crap Cleaner
3) Reboot your computer into safe mode (F8 on boot or Start > Run >msconfig > boot.ini > /Safeboot)
4) Uninstall old drivers in control panel reboot if asked (be sure to reboot into safe mode).
5) Run Driver Sweeper.
6) Reboot PC Normally (undo /safeboot in msconfig if you used this method).
7) Now run Crap Cleaner registry scanner/fixer and scan/fix multiple times until there is nothing to fix.
8) Install latest drivers, reboot when asked.

That should take care of the black screen issue or whatever.

To check your temps, you need nVidia nTune available for download on nVidia's site.

I recommend Rivatuner instead of nTune, it has less chance of screwing up your computer.

Or you could use ATiTool, it can display your GPU temp in the system tray.

 

[aussie greg]

Thanks to all who helped, I got rid of that Asus rubbish, cleaned things up, downloaded a stress test ran it and the card failed.
Can't mess around anymore, a card like that should easily handle COH so have taken it back to the store...now all I have to do is wait about 4 weeks!
Seems, when asking around and looking at the forums, there's a lot of problems with the 8800 series, can't imagine the strategy behind NVIDIA releasing product that isn't right, must cost a fortune in RA.
Anyway, thanks again. Aussie Greg