Graphics Card dying?

hal9000

Ive recently had some trouble with my 9700pro had it for over 2 years now and it hasnt given me any problems until now, Artifacts started to appear on the screen lines and bluring like it wasnt refreshing properly (not a good sign!) tried to run half-life2 got to the main screen and bang turned into garbled rubbish and the computer proceeded to reboot! thought it might be the vpu overheating but the heat sink was quite cool and the fan seemed to be working ok, i noticed the damn thing was covered in dust so i gave it a good cleaning , and reinstalled the drivers and it seems to be working ok now (for the moment), Im wonderding is it dying a slow death, is there any software i can use to check if its ok or should i start digging a grave for it and look for another one!

BadCharlie

It could be!

But also have you updated your driver of late ? Maybe you have and it somehow has affected your Video card. If you have updated and get the same problem again i would go back to your old drivers.

Cleaning the dust off was a good idea.

And nope i dont know of any programs out there to check on the health of your video card, i dont think they exist.

Khannie

I'd suggest checking the thermal paste between the GPU and the heatsink if your heatsink was cool but you were getting artifacts. I've heard that crappy thermal paste can "dry out".

hal9000

BadCharlie i was using catalyst 4.9 when it happened and after it crashed i updated to 5.2. Khannie how do i examine the thermal paste i persume that would require ripping off the heat sink to examine it

Peeps1977

can u take the heatsink off the cpu once its in place?ive been told not too

Khannie

hal9000 wrote:

Khannie how do i examine the thermal paste i persume that would require ripping off the heat sink to examine it

Yeah, you're spot on. For instructions on how to do that, I'd suggest checking out the arctic cooling website. They provide instructions on how to remove your heatsink and install one of their heatsink / fans. Of course, you'd just be putting your own one back on.

You'll need some thermal paste (and a plyers) if you even intend checking it out though. I recommend arctic silver.

I take no responsibility for borked cards though It's a tricky business....consider yourself duely warned

Having said that....it doesn't look like you've much to lose. Anyone else got any other (less dangerous) ideas? This is just what I'd do myself.

Last thing: If the heatsink hasn't been properly connected for a while, it's possible that the GPU is fecked anyway. Still, if it were my card, I'd remove the heatsink, slap some arctic silver on and try again.

peeps1977: You can do that. You just need to be very careful

bonkey

Khannie wrote:

Anyone else got any other (less dangerous) ideas?

Try it in another machine?

jc

unkel

Khannie wrote:

Still, if it were my card, I'd remove the heatsink, slap some arctic silver on and try again

Same here. Nowadays I believe good quality paste is generally used but not so a few years ago. Note though that taking the HSF off the core invalidates the warranty of any graphics card. I suppose the 9700pro probably is out of warranty at this stage anyway

Peeps1977

Khannie wrote:

peeps1977: You can do that. You just need to be very careful

Thanx khannie im askin cause i bought a pc bundle recently off komplett, xp on machine, recently gettin loads of shutdowns and lockups just wondering could it be ram or the cpu? AMD sempron. Also, ive only got 256 ram in the machine. Mucho Thanx

Khannie

Could be lots of things peeps. If you suspect that the heatsink isn't properly seated on the cpu, check motherboard monitor out. I'm sure there's a link in the essential software sticky. It will almost certainly give you temperature information on the CPU.

Also check your driver versions, etc.

The low amount of ram shouldn't affect anything except perhaps speed.

Peeps1977

Khannie wrote:

Could be lots of things peeps. If you suspect that the heatsink isn't properly seated on the cpu, check motherboard monitor out. I'm sure there's a link in the essential software sticky. It will almost certainly give you temperature information on the CPU.

Also check your driver versions, etc.

The low amount of ram shouldn't affect anything except perhaps speed.

yeah i got motherboard monitor cpu stays bout 39.5-40.5 with almost no change. this temp is fine i think.crap only started happenin after i put xp onto a friends new drive using my machine.when i put my hd back in ive been gettin constant probs. nice one with the advice btw only into pcs 2 years and all i learned was from takin apart so forgive me if i dont spot an obvious answer more mucho thanx

CSSource God

Hey there, im selling 2 new x800pros will have em in 3-4 days. Going at a great price. Sapphire x800pro for €320. Kildare Dublin area. PM me if interested thanks. Also in for sale section just lettin u know thanks!

hal9000

oww! wish i could, but no way i can afford a fancy new graphics card atm (just bought a psp, man what great timing!) btw lads it looks like it dying artifacts are starting to appear again and when running 3-d applications it goes nuts, going to try it on a friends comp and see what happens thanks for the advice though

Khannie

Hal: Artifacts are either overheating core, or botched ram / core. My advice: Get the arctic silver out ASAP It might not be too late.

peeps: They're low temperatures for a CPU, so that's not the problem. If you have an ATI gfx card, their newer drivers have caused system instability in older cards (I got stung on this myself). Try older drivers.

Apart from that, try testing your memory (google memcheck). Try removing your soundcard / any other removable parts, etc. Basically you're looking to narrow down the problem to one piece of hardware.

hal9000

is that gfx card ram or regular ram please dont tell me my gig of ram could be the culprute . btw i actually have small heat sinks on the ram chips of the graphics card but i dont see what damage they could do. unless i had put them on wrong! :rolleyes: i'll have a look at the artic site u were saying though, btw does the ATI silencer come with thermal paste or is that separate?

Khannie

hal9000 wrote:

is that gfx card ram or regular ram please dont tell me my gig of ram could be the culprute .

Nah, I meant gfx card ram

hal9000 wrote:

btw i actually have small heat sinks on the ram chips of the graphics card but i dont see what damage they could do.

Did you put them on recently? What thermal paste did you use? Were you super careful putting it on? Could be a culprit tbh.

hal9000 wrote:

btw does the ATI silencer come with thermal paste or is that separate?

It comes with paste, but I strongly recommend not using it. I broke a 9800 pro with it before. It's conductive.