# Video Card Artifacts -- Blame the Card ... or ...?



## martini1179 (Feb 22, 2006)

I've having problems with my video card drawing artifacts on the screen, and before I RMA exchange, I just wanted to get your opinion on what the problem could be, even though I think I know the answer. I want to get some opinions on if this sounds like a hardware problem, or drivers, or ... ?

The history: I bought an 8600GT about 9 months ago from Newegg. It worked fine, for about three weeks, and then it started drawing artifacts on the screen, so I immediately removed it and shelved it, thinking that my 300W HP-stock garbage PSU couldn't handle it. Lately I've been wanting to get back into some light gaming, so I ordered a Corsair 450W PSU, installed it and started playing. Three days later -- artifacts.

The symptoms: Basically, this only starts when I'm in a game. The entire screen is filled with horizontal lines, appearing and disappearing at random, and continues even when I exit the game. This happens in multiple games. Usually I also get screen flashes and random, circular shapes drawn on the screen too.

I'm running WinXP SP3, latest Nvidia drivers. Card is an EVGA "superclocked" (a light superclock) 8600GT. Whenever I played a game without a video card (gasp!) I never had any problems.

Also, does it matter if I use Nvidia's drivers or the ones I get from EVGA's site? Is there even a slight difference?


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

with an 8600 you would expect to be in the 550+ corsair range
check your tempretures
there will be little difference between nvidia and evga


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

You should probably use evga's drivers.


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## martini1179 (Feb 22, 2006)

Sorry about the delay in my reply, but I was testing my card. It took a few weeks for the card to artifact, but it finally did. 

Since my last post, I went ahead and properly installed different drivers, NVIDIA-brand Forceware 174.93, since I wanted to use Rivatuner and it kept nagging me about compatible drivers. Using Rivatuner, I got rid of the overclock and brought my card down to stock speeds, and increased the fan from 30% to 60%. And like I said, it took a while, but I finally got artifacts. 

Temperatures in C recorded using Sensors View Pro 3.1

Load:
GPU 55-65 (with 60% fan speed)
"SYS" 65-70
CPU 45-50
HD 35-40
"AUX" 35-40

Idle:
GPU 50 (with 60% fan speed) 55 (with 30% "stock" fan speed)
"SYS" 52-56
CPU 34-36
HD 39-40
"AUX" 38-40


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## martini1179 (Feb 22, 2006)

I had another problem today. I'm going to include it in this post because I think it has to do with my video card problems above. I was watching a DVD, and when I tried to exit out of the app, my entire system froze, I got what looked like a BSOD for about half a second and then my system restarted. After windows loaded, I got a message saying that Windows has recovered from a serious error. Unfortunately I didn't write down the cryptic error message details, but apparently Windows logged the error message in some kind of temp directory. If someone could tell me the exact file path, I might be able to find it and share? 

Could this be related to my video card problems?


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

to turn off the auto reboot
control panel /sysytem/advanced/startup and recovery settings
then untick the auto reboot box
post any bsod error messages the computer freezes on in full


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## vladimirb (Mar 31, 2008)

Hey there,
could you try different graphic card [borrow from a friend maybe] and check what will happen...
Thus, I do think that you will be much safer if you purchase some 550+W PSU...
Also would be good if you can test RAM memory,
you can download MemTest86+ here:

http://www.memtest.org/

Report back please...
P.S. do not forget to post errors...


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## martini1179 (Feb 22, 2006)

Ok, before I do any more testing I'd just like get someone's opinion on this. Can a video card just go bad for no reason, or is there always a problem somewhere else within the user's system that causes artifacts. Just wanted to know if it possible that I simply bought a dud.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

it is usually caused by bad ram on the card from running an under powered or faulty psu or just plain faulty ram


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