Has my video card failed?

I'll start with my computer specs;
Vista 32bit
Intel Core2 Quad
Nvidia 8800GT

A few days ago, my computer starting freezing - and I was forced to shut down as no other control options worked. There are now blue 'dots' all over my DELL intro screen and my Windows Vista loading screen. Then a day or so later it would not turn on apart from in safe mode. It is now turning on, however, it only works relatively well in 1024x768 resolution, but not in its natural 1920x1200 resolution, where it is slow and jittery. The fan is also continually running overtime. Games such as solitaire are now blurry graphically, and give me a warning about hardware acceleration being off. the Nvidia Control Panel does not show up as an option when I right click.

I was reading about some widespread problems with the video card that I have, and I was wondering if mine could be faulty as well. Do these symptoms seem to match up with this sort of problem? Can anyone shed any further light on this?

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X (@ed24f1)

Download the latest drivers and see if it helps.

Also download gpu-z this should tell you how hot your card is running.

If you can, take the card out and have a good look, maybe dust has built up around the fan, so take a can of compressed air and try to give it a clean.

It does sound like you card is too hard and is struggling, so do the above and see what happens

Yes, i have installed the latest drivers, and also one from about a month ago and neither helped.

Thanks, I will try the GPU-Z idea.

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X (@ed24f1)

If you've got dots on the loading screen before the desktop kicks in (where you get the scrolling green bars in Vista) then you've got a dying graphics card. Either that or you're spectacularly unlucky and you've got a problem with your PC and the monitor... quite unlikely!

No way of resolving it. It's the memory chips on the graphics card, and they can't be changed by end-users.

You might want to try removing the heatsink and fan assembly on the graphics card and reseating it, just in case the heatsink isn't making full contact with the GPU and/or memory chips, but artefacts on the screen generally point to failing graphics memory.

The fact that those artefacts are on the loading screen shows it's not a software or driver issue as the driver hasn't actually been loaded yet. It's definitely a hardware issue.

The Nvidia software will likely fail to load if it doesn't think there's a supported graphics card in the system, so presumably it's such a serious fault that the software is confused as to what's going on.

The desktop 8800s don't have any known manufacturing problems to my knowledge. There were serious manufacturing issues with the 8000 and 9000 series of mobile parts (and my memory remembers talk about some of the low end 8000 desktop parts, such as the 8200s and 8400s) which cause graphics chip death through overheating, but it doesn't affect your card. Not to say that's not what's happened (an overheated card), but the cause isn't the same manufacturing issue.

i had a similar thing a few years ago, but the fan on the graphics card had stopped working completely. yours is still running but it could still be a temperature issue.

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RIP Jules, never to be forgotten. #KeepFightingMichael

ok, thanks for the advice, i will look over it tomorrow.

i think i still have a few months left on warranty, so hopefully I can get it covered.

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X (@ed24f1)

I just realised I made an error in the first post, I actually have the 9800GT. sorry about that.

Here is my GPU-Z sensor readings.

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X (@ed24f1)

Are you still getting corruption and artefacts?

Quote
SchueyFan
I just realised I made an error in the first post, I actually have the 9800GT. sorry about that.

It makes no difference as it's exactly the same card.

The only difference between the 2 is that the 9800GT is built on a smaller process, in theory allowing it to run cooler and/or quieter than an equivalent 8800GT. Other than that, zero. It's Nvidia's best talent over the past few years - renaming existing cards to give them a higher number and then reaping the profits while phasing the 'old' one out.

The 9800GT later became the GT 240 and to all intents and purposes the GTS 250.... and the GT 340. Got to love Nvidia's marketing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2010 11:52PM by gav.

gav Wrote:
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> Are you still getting corruption and artefacts?

yes, i'm still getting all the same symptoms.



gav Wrote:
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> It makes no difference as it's exactly the same
> card.

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X (@ed24f1)

i just got a new error message just after log-in.

I was just fading away when i got to the computer, but it was something like, "Incompatible display adapter has been disabled."

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X (@ed24f1)

Sorry if I missed it, but have you tried this adapter in another PC?