Graphics Failure?

So lately, as in the last couple days I've been having problems with my computer freezing up.

It happens semi randomly when I'm in an MMO. First time it happened was in DnD Online and my screen freaked out and it looked as if it was bleeding in pixel form. I thought it was an effect from the game since my UI wasn't effected at all. At least until my whole computer froze. This has happened twice while in DDO at random times.

Third time it happened was in LOTRO. Same thing happened but it was black pixels instead and same side effects. Again no UI was effected, only the "background" area.

Do you guys think this would be a graphics card problem? shader problem(since UI wasn't effected)? or just something else all together.

 

I think it's the graphics card overheating, it happens to me sometimes too.
If you haven't try turning up the fan on your card to see if it makes a difference. I use EVGA Precision to tune my fan speeds and monitor the temps.

 

Usually when you get artifacts on screen it's a result of overheating. You can get better cooling or just stick your card in the freezer for a minute then pop it back in (taking measures to counter moisture buildup) everytime it overheats. When mine overheats I get distorted/stretched polygons.

If your PC is completely freezing it could be your memory or video memory on the card (though it could still be overheating).

You can get mini heatsinks for really cheap off dealextreme.com. Buy a pack of 8 for like $2 and then stick em all over the card. Go nuts and buy more if needed.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.15361 aluminum
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.24500 copper

 

I should pick up some of those, my GTX 260 is actually a bad one, it overheats at temps that it shouldn't be but it's too late to send it back now. Do they help a lot?

 

They help quite a bit. I stick em on all my stuff. I put 6 of em in my laptop and it runs much cooler. Just be careful not to short anything.

Protip: the aluminum ones are the best bang for the buck, even though copper is a more superior element, the copper's full potential won't be realized in this context. Copper is good for facilitating the transfer of heat which is why they're used as heatpipes on heatsinks.

Also, you might wanna take the heatsink/fan off your card and apply some arctic silver compound to the GPU die. Also clean the fan if dirty.

 

It's definately your card overheating. Classic symptom. I had an EVGA 8800GT with a crappy fan (was a known issue) and any game that even thought about pushing the graphics would bleed artifacts and lock up constantly.

You can use SpeedFan software (or RivaTuner) to push your fan to 100% all the time, that will help. It's loud, but it's free.

What video card do you have and how old is it? For some reason the past few years have seen certain manunfacturers skimp out on the cooling for their video cards...

 

It's actually an EVGA 8800GT. It's weird because it seems like its completely random. The first time I was playing a game for about 5 hours before it happened. The second it happened within 10minutes after a long night of cooling down. Third was after about an hour. Yesterday I played for about 4-5 hours and it didn't happen.

Thanks for all the advice guys and the heat sink links rubius.

 

Yeah your card has a known issue with the fan and fan speed (at least, the ones made a year or so ago did). Check their forums, they have all this crap you can try, updates, etc. But the only thing that worked for me was setting the fan speed at 100% all the time. Even then, it started to fail after a few months. I didn't try the heatsink thingies, those sound like a good idea hehe, if you have the room.

You should start saving up for a new card is my real advice hehe.

 

Well with the increased fan speed it dropped it from 60C to 57C but I've crashed twice today so bleh. Ordered some heat sinks and found that I never had an intake fan in my case... so this whole time I've been running on just the back fan.

Ordering an intake fan now too.

 

If I were you I'd slap on of these on your card
http://www.ncixus.com/products/27878/ACCELERO-S1-REV2/Arctic Cooling/

I have a 800rpm fan attached to mine and its silent but can still overclock.
I'd forget about buying an intake fan unless you wanna go for positive pressure inside your case.

 

57C while you're playing a game or at rest? Because if that's while playing, that's waay cold. Might be something else.

My 8800gt started artifacting at 80-85C. Which is just a smidge above acceptable. 75-80 should be normal, iirc. It's been awhile, I might be confused on my numbers, lol.

 

I had close to those problems on my last gfx card. It was just dying.

at those temps it isn't a heat problem probably.

 

I don't think there's much of a pressure build-up, as you have the exhaust fans to take care of that. Even if there is, pressure being applied by air sucked in through a miniscule 90mm fan isn't that big a deal.

Not only that, if all you've got is an exhaust fan, there is still pressure build-up. The only way to avoid that is have both intake and exhaust. Not to mention, there is possibly less air inside the tower with an exhaust-only setup, therefore less gaseous medium for heat to transfer itself into from solid system components.

 

What I meant to say is that adding an intake fan isn't gonna do much unless you buy a strong enough fan(s) to build positive pressure inside the case and you're right one 90mm aint gonna do much.

It's probably better to leave out the intake so that you actually have negative pressure inside the case. This way if you take out one of the expansion slot covers underneath your card, it'll draw in fresh air from there to pass over the card. just my 2cents.

 

Hey Rubius, where exactly do you put those mini heatsinks on the gfx card, I've never used them for gfx cards before

 

It's sitting at 57 rest. I used to sit around 40 rest and hit 53 while playing Huxley.

This is the case I'm using

I never thought about opening a slot below the card to suck in the cooler(no AC at my house) air over the card. Though it would most definitely get dirtier a lot faster with two dogs in my house.

I've got a 120mm fan on the back and was planning on putting the other fan as a 120 on the front. Though it seems in this case it just blows the hot air from the side of the harddrives into the rest of the case.

 

depending on location of the fans a negative pressure isn't always the best and an intake in the side door can provide direct cooling to the video card more than passive cooling from pressure and temperature differences that could be diminished in summer months

cool air intakes on the front will warm from hard drives as sokar stated, which is why the door is a good cool air intake closer to the components.

for me, i have 3 120mm intakes: 1 door, 1 lower 3 bays with 1 hard drive there, a passive vent, then 3 bays with another fan, then a dvd drive in the top bay with a empty slot above... so a lot of active and passive air flow in, so those fans are on a low setting on the front and a medium on the door.
for out flow, there's the standard 120mm back fan, the power supply's vent and fan that pulls air from the case, and a 240mm fan on the top. i've not really seen an advantage to overclocking since i don't play anything needing it, but temperature control is very important even without altering clock speeds.
only thing i wish i had done was getting a modular power supply to remove the extra cords inside

 

First, make sure the DRAM chips are covered (large, black, rectangles). If not, then stick one on each. After that, just stick them on any open spots on the PCB (ie. areas not taken up by any components). You can even stick some on the main heatsink itself.