7600gt artifact problem

balkieb2002

Ok i recently bought the XFX GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 XXX from komplett and all was going great (far cry, fear, battlefield i.e. most games i played on near max) but while fear was loading a new level the pc crashed and froze. Suddenly artifacts started appearing on the screen so i turned off the pc but when i restarted these artifacts have gotten worse and now appear from the boot screen on and seem to get worse the longer the pc loads.

It looks like the cards gone so i sent for a rma from komplett. Luckily my motherboard has an agr slot and a pci slot so i can use my 9700pro for the time being.

Just wondering what might have caused this and how could i prevent it happening again if i can

My spec are:
Athlon 64 3200 @ 2.2ghz
1 gig ddr 400
7600gt
1x160gb sata hd
1x250gb sata hd
350w power supply

TerrorFirmer

You have a pci-e and agp slot in the same computer?

As for the card, did you connect it to the psu?

Otherwise, it sounds like it was simply just a bad card. Happens to us all at some stage.

balkieb2002

Yeah when i bought the card i had an agp board but wanted a cheapish upgrade for future so bought this Works ok just need now a few drivers for it.

Afait it didn't need to connect to the psu (well i didn't see any connections like an agp card, there was a space on top of the card but i didn't have any type of connections for it on my psu) but then i could be horribly wrong as this "was" my first pci-e card.

L31mr0d

Well the 7600GT doesn't use any extra power other than what the interface slot gives so you are alright there. But man, upgrade that PSU now, please tell me you are not running 2xSATA drives, a gig or ram and a 7600GT on an OEM 350w PSU... you'd better not be overclocking that CPU either.

Your PSU is what caused the problem, FEAR is one of the most power hungry games out there (if not the most). Funny thing is, the exact same thing happened me, I had a 6800Ultra and 400w NorthQ PSU, I loaded FEAR, played for 10 minutes then BOOM, artifacts->BSOD->Artifacts in BIOS->Blank screen. Almost exactly the same as yours. I replaced the PSU after getting some advice on the boards and my new 6800Ultra has never ran sweeter.

What make is the 350w PSU. I'm sorry to say but your next card might do the same thing if you don't invest in a better PSU, anything with a ATX2.0 spec is what you are looking for. You might be able to request a second hand 400w ATX2.0 one from the FS section as i'd say people are upgrading theirs now.

balkieb2002

Thanks for the reply, so the current card is def gone?

My power supply is actually a Netzteil Tagan TG380-U01 380W (i thought it said it was 350). Haven't overlclocked anything actually as motherboard is newly installed but the card came pre-overclocked (its the XXX edition). I was running one ide and one sata before but got rid of the ide for the sata during the recent upgrade.

So another part upgrade is needed then...

L31mr0d

Yeah thats actually a decent PSU and being that it doesn't need any extra PCIe power connectors i'm surprised that the Tagan wouldn't be able to run FEAR. Maybe it was just a faulty card and the heatsink wasn't seated properly. Always inspect the card before you use it, check that the fan is spinning up (if it has one) and also check its temperature after about an hour on full load.

That PSU, even though it only has 1 x 12v rail should of been enough, but you'd be scrapping the barrel with your power needs if you keep it. I think the minimum power requirements for one 7600GT is 350w+. But thats not taking into account overclocking, and other system devices that might be eating into your supply. Do you have many peripherals as well? To be safe, i'd get a new powersupply, even it was only a 400w ATX2, at least you could be guaranteed better stability if not power. Your 12v rail is spec'd at 22A, which can lead to instability on full load (the new spec requires anything over 18A to be split into a seperate rail to increase stability)

I'm using a 400w Enermax Liberty ATX2 and haven't had any power problems, and my 6800Ultra guzzles twice the power of the 7600GT and i'm also running 2 x SATA drives in RAID0. You can pick up PSUs off ebay for dirt cheap, just be sure to stick to the ebay shops and not the individual sellers.