Video card dying? Or driver issue perhaps? Help appreciated.

[sn8ke]

Hello, first off thanks for any assistance anyone can offer.
This is going to be a long message as i'm trying to include all necessary information from the start.

Ok, first the basic specs:
XP sp2
BFG GeForce 6600GT OC
1.5GB Mushkin DDR RAM
Soltek K8AN2E-GR mobo (nforce 3)
Latest nvidia display drivers and the nforce3 package I found online (info below)
(I know the mobo and card are pretty dated, but they work(ed) great in this system and with the games I play.)

The other day I powered on my system, but got no video. I have had this problem before, and a driver reinstall fixed it. I booted into safe mode, removed the nforce and display drivers and rebooted back into windows fine.
I could not locate the system disc that came with my motherboard that has the nforce drivers on them, so I had to look online. The problem is my ethernet adapter was not working because the nforce drivers were uninstalled. Previously, I had always used the ones on the CD, and then updated.

I had an nforce installer on my other computer I figured I would try, to at least get the display drivers so scrolling wasn't so painfully slow, but I accidently installed some "nvidia business platform" drivers. I could not find a way to uninstall these within windows or online, and upon reboot it resulted in a BSOD upon windows load every time.

I loaded up Linux and got online, and searched for the right nforce drivers. Nvidia did not have the Nforce3 drivers on their site anymore, so I got them from a 3rd party site. The filename was nForce_5.11_winxp2k_international_whql.exe

I went back into safe mode and uninstalled all the nvidia drivers I could find and removed all nvidia entires from the startup in msconfig. I then installed the nforce drivers mentioned above, and windows loaded fine. I was able to get online in windows and install the lastest display drivers (175.19).

Things worked great again for the next couple of days. I didn't do anything during this time except for 2d tasks (web, media). No gaming or 3d applications.

Today I noticed artifacts when in windows. Many images have artifacts when browsing the web, as does my desktop. Screenshot below. My first thought was a dying or fried video card, however I am currently in linux and have spent a couple of hours browsing the web and visiting an imageboard, viewing tons of images, none of which have artifacts. This leads me to believe it's a driver issue within windows..? It might also have something to do with that business platform install which caused BSODs.

The problem is i'm not sure how to go about remedying this since the hardware is a bit outdated, and I believe Soltek went out of business, so I cannot download the drivers from their site and I still cannot find the motherboard CD.

I have also read a lot of problems with the current display drivers and people reporting it "frying" their cards, resulting in no video or no video signal errors. This makes me more suspicious of the drivers.

At this point I am going to try and use drivercleaner to remove all nvidia drivers and reinstall them, but I have little hopes.

I appreciate any info or assistance anyone can offer!

Thank you.

Windows Desktop Screenshot

 

[Tempered81]

is the card dirty, take pc apart & clean all dust out with a can of air duster - especially fans/ducts/heatsinks.

 

[sn8ke]

Thanks for the reply.

I forgot to mention when I had the no signal problem, I removed the video card and reinstalled it in case it had become loose. It was clean. I clean all my components pretty regularly, so that's not an issue.

 

[sn8ke]

Back in windows, and there is still artifacting. Speedfan is reporting GPU temp of a solid 68c! Obviously, that's not good however I know it's not totally accurate and i'm not sure if it's even reading correctly. It also reports Core 34c and Core 67c however this processor is only single-core..?

Obviously this would explain the artifacting if it's really 68c, however why wasn't it overheating in linux when doing the same things I was doing in windows? Could a bad driver be causing it to overheat??

Is there a utility like speedfan for linux so I can cross reference the temp readings? (WINE not an option atm, and I kind of wouldn't trust the readings of a program like this being emulated anyway).

 

[katank]

Well, GPU temps hitting 68C or so is perfectly fine. GPUs do get pretty hot. I typically don't worry until they pass 80C or so.

 

[sn8ke]

But sitting on the desktop and it being 68c? Kinda high, no?

I loaded up san andreas multiplayer to see if it would run, and it ran fine with no artifacts for a few minutes until it blue screened with the error: driver irql not less or equal

I've never gotten this error before. Another thing pointing to driver problems I think.

 

[sn8ke]

Anyone else have anything at all to add? Theories will work lol..

 

[Slugbait]

Old card...so it's an old fan. Sleeve, probably. My guess is that it's dirty or dying, it's not spinning nearly as fast as designed, so your GPU is overheating.

Once had a fan that could barely be spun with my finger, another that was locked solid and wouldn't spin at all. Seen numerous other machines suffer the same fate. Nothing unusual. Cleaning probably won't help, you'll just need a new fan.

 

[sn8ke]

Hmm It's not the stock fan and it's relatively clean. As clean as I can get it anyway.
It spins pretty good... good enough to feel unpleasant when you touch it.

 

[rogue1979]

The newer Nvidia drivers are optimized for newer hardware.

Go back to an older 9 series driver and see if that works, I am sure they will give you
better performance.

Use driver cleaner pro first.

 

[jonks]

I'd drop $50 on a low end card. It'll save you the hassle of hours and hours of troubleshooting you are doing now and it'll perform better than a 6600gt.

 

[sn8ke]

I have doubts about that, plus i'm not buying new hardware just because nvidia's drivers are shoddy. Never had problems like this with ATI, and every nvidia card i've had has given me trouble like this.

I rebuilt the card and redid the solder on a couple of parts that looked questionable or worn, and the artifacting has since stopped. I'm still getting crashes in games, however so I will try older drivers. Anyone have a suggestion on the best older drivers?

 

[rogue1979]

When I had a 6800 I got the best results with an Xtreme-G 84.24. Later when I was using a 7900 the Xtreme-G 94.24 worked the best. I tried newer drivers for both and performance dropped some, never had any gaming issues or glitches with the older drivers, even in newer games.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: sn8ke
I have doubts about that, plus i'm not buying new hardware just because nvidia's drivers are shoddy. Never had problems like this with ATI, and every nvidia card i've had has given me trouble like this.

and yet you keep buying them...

 

[sn8ke]

Originally posted by: jonks


and yet you keep buying them...

actually a friend gave me this one nib last year for a half of dank.

but yea I doubt i'll ever get another especially since the amd+ati merger.