I s my card dying?

[ezdriver]

I have a Leadtek Geforce 6800 GT(agp) and started seeing some strange things happening today. It works fine when web surfing , word processing, etc., but when I start up a game and begin to "stress" the card, I get horizontal lines on the whole screen alike this:

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I tried to take a screen shot, but everything just locks up hard and I have to do a hard shut down with a reboot. It usually starts doing this about 10-15 seconds into the game, and I have tried different drivers, different games, etc. with no luck. Unfortunately, the card had a one-year warrenty that expired 10 days ago! GRRRR Just my luck.

Anyway, based on the above facts, does it look like my card is dying? Thanks for the help.

ez

 

[naruto1988]

maybe overheating.

 

[Regs]

Disable v-sync maybe.

 

[xtknight]

Unfortunately probably dying unless you mean tearing (you have probably seen tearing before: it doesn't affect colors at all, just that one part updates slower than the other). Since your warranty is out, you have nothing to lose by trying a new HSF for your GPU.

 

[ezdriver]

So it's probably not a driver issue? More hardware-related? I also checked and the fan is running on the card. Problem is...I don't have another card to swap out to see if it's the card that is the problem.

ez

 

[T101]

You might also have a PSU that is not sufficient to deliver enough AMPs to the card when it is working at full load.

 

[ezdriver]

I have an Enermax 485W PSU, so I don't think that's the problem. I also fired up the computer this morning and noticed that I am now starting to get anomalies on the web, desktop, e-mail, everywhere. Guess it's time to pull out the ol' wallet and purchase. Thanks for your input everyone.

ez

 

[otispunkmeyer]

check your temps

i had a 6800gt from leadtek and though it ran fine, when i eventually got round to taking the heatsink off they had done a pretty poor job. for some reason the back plate was laminated in plastic on the side facing the card, it also had big thick spongy pads on it where it made contact with the back of the card (ie back of the gpu and ram) actually makes me wonder why the back plate got so hot!

the heatsink on the front of the card literally dropped off when i took the screws out, it didnt have a lot of pressure what so ever and the thermal material used was balls.

some AS5 and a Vf700Cu later and temps have dropped by 20degrees under load. and the back of the card never even got warm...further adding to the mystery of the well insulated back plate getting hot.


so check your temps, should be idle round 40-50degrees and should load anywhere up to 80 degrees

if its higher than that, then that could be your problem, if so i highly reccommend the Zalman VF700Cu

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If it isn't heat, you can't RMA, and you would like to possibly salvage the card, you can use the clockspeeds tab to reduce the core and ram speeds and test until you find a stable combo. I had a ti4600 do much the same thing, bad ram, down clocked it from 300 to 150 and it is perfectly stable. Much slower card after that, but fine for a family PC@my house.

 

[ezdriver]

Temps (non-load) hover around 50c, load around 60c...seems fine there. I'd hate to buy a new GPU if it's the PSU, and vice versa. Damn computers!

ez

 

[ezdriver]

Ended up buying a BFG 6800GT and that solved my problem (for a price of course). Kind of a pisser that the Leadtek decided to die on me 10 days out of warrenty.

ez

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: ezdriver
Ended up buying a BFG 6800GT and that solved my problem (for a price of course). Kind of a pisser that the Leadtek decided to die on me 10 days out of warrenty.

ez

I'll buy it cheap if you don't want to effort saving it.

 

[ezdriver]

Quote me a price.

ez