Artifacts while gaming, never overclocked.

TomCo

I have an X1900XT 512mb, its about 2 years old, never been overclocked.

A few weeks ago when we had that hot spell I started getting artifacts in game that looked like one of the points of a triangle stretched out to infinity. These artifacts were usually localised to a single asset, so if say, a helmet had one of these artifacts on it, everyone in game with that helmet would display the same problem.

I thought it was heat related so I checked the temps, which were all fine. Updated drivers, no change. I think its getting worse now, Im playing mass effect and there are random glitches which show up a few minutes into play.

I think its video memory related because when I tab out the artifacts go away, but they return after a few minutes. I think this is because the buffers are flushed when I tab and it takes a few minutes to fill all the memory available.

So is it possible that it could just go bad like this?

The atitool artifact tester initially finds no artifacts, but if I leave the test running for a while and then scan for artifacts it doesnt go 5 seconds without finding 1 or 2.

Virgil°

Well usually this sort of stuff is temp related.But i had the exact same thing happen to me on that exact card and never found a solution. In the end i managed to rma it for a partial refund.
Sorry i couldn't be more helpful.

TerrorFirmer

If drivers don't make a change, temps are normal and it's failing the artifact scan, not much else it could be other then failing - you could try underclocking the memory - I did this before to an X1900XT that was failing me and it actually lengthened the lifespan considerably - should squeeze some extra life out of it at the expense of reduced performance, but ultimately probably time for a new card.

TomCo

I have a 8800GT arriving on monday, but I have a lan tomorrow and I was hoping to sell it on to a friend. Pity.