I think my graphic card is going to die--helppp!!

[chuckcrc]

Hello

I would love a second opinon on my current problem please.
I have an Asus A8N32-SLI mb which has two Leadtek 7800gt video cards running in sli mode.

The system has been running fine now for over a year since I built it.

Recently I loaded Direct X 9.0c version april 2007 as a the Flight sim BoB 2 needed it for it's latest sim patch to 2.06.

Now then when I think I started having troubles. When playing a flight sim ie cfs3 I would notice very small very bright green specks appearing on the screen. Shortly after these appear the game would crash / lockup and I would have to reboot the pc.

I only had xp pro with service pack 1 on it and I thought this night be the problem. So I downloaded a copy of sp2 and installed it but it doesn't seem to have helped at all.

I took sli mode off and just ran the one card -- and it didn't seem so bad but it just took a little longer for the green specks to come back. I swapped the cards around and it seems to be better.

When I go to re-install the sli mode in the nvidia control panel and hit the ok button , windows comes up with an exception report as follows___

windows\system32\shell32.dll, control_rundll
C:\windows\system32\desk.cpl, display

So I suppose what I'm trying to find out is -- is this a hardware problem and one of the vid cards is dying  or have a got great software stuff up because of the sp1/sp2 and direct x software being out of whack.

I would very grateful for any feedback please.

cheers
chuck

system specs--mb-asus a8n32-sli--cpu--amd 3700 san diego, Leadtek 7800gt x 2 vid cards, two raptor sata drives in raid 0,  1 gb ocz ram-- xp pro sp1--now at sp2

[Politically Incorrect]

Sounds more like a driver issue. Try to reinstall your drivers, or install the most up to date ones.

[HugoCampos]

To me it sounds like a temperature problem. I think the green artifacts can be caused by the cards overheating. Try cleaning the cards and make sure the coolers on them are working properly.

[Ashton Lawson]

its overheating.  when overclocking graphics cards, ur supposed to watch for artifacts.  when they come up, like missing polies, or randomly coloured pixels, u back down the card's frequency, because the higher frequency makes the card run hotter.

if u havent overclocked them cards, them just clean them, or get some better ventilation for ur PC.

[beaky]

Before even thinking about anything else, open your computer, take it apart, and clean everything.
Especially any onboard fans on the graphics card.
Then get back to us if you still have trouble.


If you haven't done this before, you may be astonished how much crud accumulates inside a computer in the course of a year!

[4_Series_Scania]

Before even thinking about anything else, open your computer, take it apart, and clean everything.
Especially any onboard fans on the graphics card.
Then get back to us if you still have trouble.


If you haven't done this before, you may be astonished how much crud accumulates inside a computer in the course of a year!

Spoken for truth.

My mate Dogfighter from these forums had a similar issue with his 6800Ultra, he took the heatsink off & cleaned all of the crap out of it & what do ya know? - It worked!!!!!

Worth a try & cheaper than 2 new cards!

[chuckcrc]

Thanks for the advice chaps. I will have a look at the cleaning options.

What about power supply?  I have a 650watt supply that has two seperate power feeds for the vid cards. I think the 7800gt would pull close to 20amps each when working hard. I might try swapping around the feeds,  maybe one feed could be a bit low or has developed a fault under high load.
What do you think?

cheers
chuck

[chuckcrc]

I'm still working the problem-- but I think I need some type of test software to stress test the vid cards.

Does anyone know where I could get some good freeware test s/ware for graphic cards??

I have used Prime 95 to stress test the cpu/ram and everything tests out ok in that area.

thanks
chuck

[HugoCampos]

3d mark demo should do it.