Major video card instability

[NYHoustonman]

One of my older PC's is extremely unstable in any games/3d applications. I get major artifacting, then the computer crashes. I believe the video card is the problem; the CPU runs hot, but never gets above 60 or so C. When I open the case and point a medium-sized fan at the computer, it lasts pretty much indefinitely in games. The thing is, my case temperatures are not bad at all, and the fan on the video card is spinning. In addition, the card used to be more stable, and is not overclocked (although it came factory overclocked from Gainward). What could be the problem here? Would replacing the heatsink likely help? Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Rachet]

I came to the forums to ask pretty much the same question NYHoustonman.

I upgraded my PC last week by replacing my processor, went from a 1.7 to a 3.2 northwood, I was hoping my stuttering and poor gameplay was due to my old processor.
I have an MSI geforce4 TI4400 video card and I'm leaning towards that as being my problem since I've upgraded my processor. I already used memtest to check my memory. My system temps. high is low 40's(C).

What are you using for a processor, I was concerned with my CPU's high temp of 48 C, 60 C seems high to me but I'm sure that it varies by processor type.

Anyone know if there is a Utility out there that helps to determine if your video card is bad?

 

[NYHoustonman]

Well, I replaced the heatsink with an NV Silencer 1, and I'm still having problems. I can't for the life of me understand how the thing is still overheating, case temperatures top out at around 32C, and I tried running prime95 with the case cover on and there were no problems (leading me to believe that it can't be the processor or memory).

 

[amdskip]

Clock your processor back down to stock speeds and see what happens.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: amdskip
Clock your processor back down to stock speeds and see what happens.

The processor is actually at below stock, to 1300 from 1333, but the multiplier is at 13 rather than the 10 it would normally be at, because I'm running with the FSB at 100MHz rather than 133 (not my choice, the A7V is picky). But, as I said, the processor and memory, according to Prime95, are quite stable.

I may yet try underclocking the video card; I currently have it at default (not overclocked, it came factory overclocked) speeds. A wierd part of the problem... It apparently doesn't freeze outright, but sometimes the screen goes black, or just freezes, but from there it may still come back to life when you press escape to go to the main menu or wait until the next test in 3DMark.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Hmph, underclocking didn't help, but I did notice that the northbridge heatsink gets pretty hot... Could that be it? All of these problems started when I put a second stick of 256MB of PC133 memory in, but considering it is apparently a heat issue that is spawned only in games, and that Prime95 works flawlessly, I dunno if that could be the issue, but I guess it could kind of make sense that an overheating motherboard could cause problems...

EDIT - it was the northbridge chipset. Pointed a fan at it, all is working well now.