GFX Card Failing? (Pictures Inside).

[Coldkilla]

Nearly all my games are displaying things like this:

Images taken with camera:
Crysis: (High/Medium Settings)

Fallout 3: (Medium Settings. Any higher and game locks up after a few moments).

System:
i7 920 2.66ghz
6GB Corsair Ram
eVGA 280 GTX 1GB
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Temps:
Room Temp: 29'C/84'F
GFX Temp Idel: 65'C
GFX Temp Load: 81'C Stable

Drivers attempted:
257.15 BETA
197.45 WHQL
196.21 WHQL (Current)

The screen "flickers" with hundreds of these minor graphical "hiccups", almost as if it were like a strobe light at times. Notice also that both these images are viewing expansive terrain, usually when patrolling caverns or smaller areas there are no issues. Game crashes are happening when I increase game graphical settings but am unsure if its related.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Reincus]

I would suspect drivers first.

Is your card overclocked? If you are still in the RMA window I would look into that, you may be able to get it replaced.

 

[mfenn]

Does the issue appear in screenshots? It could be either the shaders or VRAM.

Would not surprise me as Nvidia's recent GPUs do not have a reputation for long-term reliability.

 

[PottedMeat]

I haven't played fallout3 in a while but I have seen corruption similar ( bigger and sort of grainy ) to the ones in your Crysis shots on my Radeon HD3850. Dunno if they were present in screenshots. I think they went away with new drivers or really old drivers, try that on your Nvidia card.

 

[Coldkilla]

I will continue to experiment with additional drivers (ontop of the three I've tried) to see if that makes any difference. The card is not overclocked (nothing on my system is). I will also take some Fraps screenshots and video to see if it displays through there.

 

[AlgaeEater]

Nearly all my games are displaying things like this...

Fallout 3: (Medium Settings. Any higher and game locks up after a few moments)...

System:
i7 920 2.66ghz
6GB Corsair Ram
eVGA 280 GTX 1GB
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Temps:
GFX Temp Load: 81'C Stable

The screen "flickers" with hundreds of these minor graphical "hiccups", almost as if it were like a strobe light at times. Notice also that both these images are viewing expansive terrain, usually when patrolling caverns or smaller areas there are no issues. Game crashes are happening when I increase game graphical settings but am unsure if its related.

Any help appreciated.

This happened to me long ago on the eVGA 7800GT. The thermal pads on the RAM on the video card dried out. Basically the onboard video card ram was getting fried and overheated, eventually to a point where it became corrupted and I had to RMA the card. I'm not sure about your cards, but if you see small little heatsinks on the RAM on the video card, check if they are using thermal pads. If you happen to just have one giant block cooler on your card, you're out of luck since you can't probably check it.

Because some of the RAM was corrupted, increasing large textures in games would cause slow down, corruption, or BSOD. However, since you only seem to be experiencing this during 3D rendering, there might be a small outside chance it is driver related. When I had my problems (the strobe light flickering - I had the SAME EXACT EFFECT), I immediately quit to desktop and saw the same kinda effect on my desktop icons for a brief moment before it "stabilized" again. I ran an obscure Japanese 3D game in Window mode on max settings which also showed graphic corruptions, so I knew it was the video card in the end.

Good luck. An RMA with your screen shots to eVGA is an automatic approval. They're great about these things. (Although personally I've had a bit too many RMA's in my day with eVGA - Just bad luck I assume)

 

[Coldkilla]

Some new info:
195.62 WHQL
196.21 WHQL
197.57 WHQL Current

All end up giving me the same results. There are a few varients though, for example: Now the screen blacks out completely at times, in previous drivers the game(s) crashed more and left hundreds of little "black flickering dots" on my desktop, the longer I waited the more dots appeared. I quickly installed new drivers and am starting a new run with 191.07 WHQL's.

How long does eVGA's RMAs take? I just got out of school for the semester and finally have some time to game.

 

[AlgaeEater]

Some new info:
195.62 WHQL
196.21 WHQL
197.57 WHQL Current

All end up giving me the same results. There are a few varients though, for example: Now the screen blacks out completely at times, in previous drivers the game(s) crashed more and left hundreds of little "black flickering dots" on my desktop, the longer I waited the more dots appeared. I quickly installed new drivers and am starting a new run with 191.07 WHQL's.

How long does eVGA's RMAs take? I just got out of school for the semester and finally have some time to game.

The sooner the better. They need to test it, verify it, and then send it back to you. Depending if you cross-ship or not if I recall, you can "pay" in advance to have a working card sent to you right away. They will release the charge on your card once the RMA is verified.

Since you are now seeing things on your DESKTOP, it's a dead card man. Sorry to hear it 🙁

 

[mfenn]

The sooner the better. They need to test it, verify it, and then send it back to you. Depending if you cross-ship or not if I recall, you can "pay" in advance to have a working card sent to you right away. They will release the charge on your card once the RMA is verified.

Since you are now seeing things on your DESKTOP, it's a dead card man. Sorry to hear it 🙁

Yep, I agree. Sounds like bad VRAM.

 

[Coldkilla]

I sent a tech-support request to Evga in order to initiate an RMA. I hadn't registered the card within 30 days of purchase so I may not be eligible for cross-shipping. We'll see I suppose.

Thanks all.