Yellow dot in ATITool's Artifact test

[Ika]

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Aflac/ScreenShot201.jpg

Can someone explain what that yellow dot is? Is that my GPU getting artifacts? I've never really stressed out my 8800GTS 320mb, so I don't really know what it looks like when it artifacts. I used to get em on my good ol' 6800NU when I bumped the mem clock too high - ATITool's test would go bonkers and I would get little white specks when gaming. I haven't noticed any of that behavior while gaming; the only thing is this little dot and sometimes beeping from ATITool.

The card is an 8800GTS 320mb, 620 core 975 mem, eVGA 2-slot cooler.


On a possibly related note I've been getting freezes lately in CS:Source, but I'm not sure if they're caused by the GPU - I've been running these settings for months and I haven't seen freezing in a while; only after I updated to my RAID 0 array have I been getting issues. I haven't checked ATITool in a while, though.

 

[error8]

That yellow dot is an artifact. It can be produced by one of the following: too high memory/GPU clocks, high temperature of the video card, or faulty video card.

Since you have it overclocked, try reducing your clocks and see if it's still there. Also, check your temperature, since it might overheat for some reason.

 

[Ika]

So I played around in RivaTuner and I got some interesting results.

I first turned core down to 555 and memory down to 800; yellow dot is still there, immediately upon opening "scan for artifacts". That rules out overheating.

Next, I decide to turn my clocks way the heck down - as low as the Rivatuner sliders would let me go down. I pop up the artifact scanner and I see the yellow dot for maybe half a second... then it disappears. It doesn't come back after about a minute.

After that, I've been slowly bumping up the clocks up to where my old overclock settings were previously - on the way up I would see the yellow dot flash occasionally, but it would never be constantly there, and ATITool would never beep. Now that I have it at the old settings, it doesn't show up at all anymore.

What's going on?

 

[error8]

Well, leave the card at stock clocks. Do a reboot and then take a massive one hour artifact test. Sometimes, when you mess with ATI tool too much, it might give you a false sensation of stability.
I have a bad feeling that there is a memory chip gone bad on your card. Also, tell us what are your full load temps.

 

[Ika]

The card's slowly creeped up to 75ºC in the past 7 minutes; doesn't seem like it'll go any higher than that. This is at 60% fan speed, probably 60-65ºF ambient temps.

I've had this overclock on this card basically since I got it (actually, I ran it higher @ 650/1000 for about 3 months, and at that point ATITool showed 100% stable [no yellow dot], but I was feeling a little uncomfortable stressing my GPU out like that, so I dropped it a tad). I suppose you could be right about the bad mem chip - what symptoms would it cause? I was under the impression that bad memory on a GPU wouldn't cause crashing, only significant artifacting, and I haven't seen that in any games. I haven't really stressed this card out in a while - I mostly play CS:Source nowadays. I'll run the artifact test when I have spare time tonight.

 

[error8]

Usually, when Vmem goes bad, you have artifacts exactly like that. I had the same thing on my 6600GT. But, you are also right, since game crashes usually comes from GPU problems. One or the other, something is wrong with your card...

I don't know the thermals of this specific card, but running the fan at 60% and still hitting 75 C, seems a bit high to me. Maybe you have some dust inside the heatsink. Try cleaning it up, maybe it helps.