Graphical Issues

[JimmyLeg]

I've got an old 6600gt that i've been dying to replace but I'm waiting till the 15th to check out the new ati cards. Today I was playing bf2142 and my card was failing. I was getting recovery messages from windows. When I try to boot my computer now the screen has weird marks on the backgrounds of the mobo and post screens and even the windows startup screens. Some are white blocks some are green dotted lines. When it comes time to load the OS i get a black screen which leads to a bsod. I've tried booting into both xp and vista and got the same issues. I've rolled drivers back to no avail. I can boot into safe mode but that's about it. It seems pretty obvious that this is a dying card but i just want to get another opinion. I was thinking motherboard or virus maybe?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Artifacting is caused by one of 2 things especially when it happens even in the bios. You either are overheating or have bad memory. Make sure the fan is spinning correctly and the heat sink is making good contact with the gpu. If thats ok, then you have bad memory on the card and it needs replaced

 

[robisbell]

I'd check to make sure the video card fan is running, and you can also check the temps with http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php and if you could, post the temp and voltage screen.

 

[JimmyLeg]

The fan is running, I reseated the heatsinks and let the thing cool for several hours with no effect on the artifacts. They appear in the same simple pattern every time which leads me to believe it's not a heat issue. Is it possible this is a motherboard issue? I don't really have the means to put it into another computer right now to test.

 

[robisbell]

I'd say the cards dying, but without seeing the voltages and temps. that's a guess.

 

[daveybrat]

Originally posted by: JimmyLeg
I've got an old 6600gt that i've been dying to replace but I'm waiting till the 15th to check out the new ati cards. Today I was playing bf2142 and my card was failing. I was getting recovery messages from windows. When I try to boot my computer now the screen has weird marks on the backgrounds of the mobo and post screens and even the windows startup screens. Some are white blocks some are green dotted lines. When it comes time to load the OS i get a black screen which leads to a bsod. I've tried booting into both xp and vista and got the same issues. I've rolled drivers back to no avail. I can boot into safe mode but that's about it. It seems pretty obvious that this is a dying card but i just want to get another opinion. I was thinking motherboard or virus maybe?

Those kind of artifacts, most notably the ones you are getting in the bios and load screens are caused by the video card. The ram sounds like it's gone bad on the card.

Time for a new video card.