weird problem, help please..

[PyKoTic]

this has to do with my radeon card, its awesome i have to admit, but i don't know if this problem i'm about to mention is overheating or just the card itself..
I play quake 2 or 3 or any game and if im playing for a couple hours it works great, but say if i play for 20 min or whatever then i leave to use the washroom or go down stairs for a couple mins, i come back and its all wacky looking, weird colours and artifacts and the text is in blocks, just retarted graphics, but still can make out things, its weird.
For the last coupld days since i had the card, i havent even had an outer case to cover the case and i have a fan or two in my system, so im guessing its not overheating, even if it is, if i restart quake or another game right after this prob happens its normal again...anybody can help me here, i'd really appreciate it.
Thanks.

 

[fodd3r]

what system do you have? is there any ocing? what's your cases ambient temp with the case on?

 

[TuffGuy]

PyKoTic - i've had the same thing happen before. i o/c'd it so much that i fried it. it would still work, i just ad weird artifacts. the cause of mine was not agp overclocking but memory/core overclocking. i don't know if you've done any of that, but if you have that could be the cause.

 

[Brig]

If you can play for 2-3 hours with no heat problems, then there won't be heat problems after only 20 minutes, so I don't think it's either heat or the card itself. I think the key here might be "leaving the room for a few minutes".

Two things that I know (been there before) that will mess up a game are a screen saver and the automatic power management features of the motherboard. If either of these two activate while you're gone, there's no tellin' what your game's gonna look like when you get back. I would try it; shut off any screensaver you may have, and disable the motherboard's APM feature; see what happens.