Graphics card overheating or ...?

[[DnC]]

So I encountered a problem with a few of my recent acquired games, namely Medieval 2: Total War, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Splinter Cell: Double Agent.

I'll start with MTW2: Only on the campaign map after a while I'll see particles flickering about only on the sea textures, not on land. Apart from that I have no problems.

NWN2: After a while it'll start to flicker particles and later on even small to large patches flashing about in different colours (purple, white, green, red etc. etc. - not just one colour at a time though, a mixture). If I put certain settings off or downgrade them it'll be less of a problem, but the game looks horrendous that way and the problem is still not entirely solved, just lessened and delayed. The thing is the game runs just fine with all those flickering and flashing things FPS-wise.

SCDA: Textures start flashing such as Fisher self, sometimes entire surfaces start flashing. Some places worse then others. In one of the early levels where you are in the arctic the sky is filled with black flickering particles at the beginning of the mission. Apart from that no particles though. Haven't played much of it since. SCDA was the first game where I had these problems and it was my first acquisition of the three by the way.

I have no problems with Oblivion for example, which is also a relatively new game and cpu intensive. Perhaps it's just a driver problem with some of the latest games? I sure hope so. I tried going back to an earlier driver but it all got messy and didn't solve the problem. It uninstalled some graphics card hardware along with the display drivers which were the ones I uninstalled. I figured it would install them if I'd install the older drivers, but no it did not.

Setup:

- AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
- 2x 2GB Memory Cards (Kingston)
- ASUS NVIDIA 7800GTX TOP 256MB (93.71 drivers)
- Soundblaster Audigy
- Windows XP (SP2)
- DirectX 9.0c

I have a SLI motherboard (forgot what it was called), but only use one graphics card. I've read on the NVIDIA forums that people with SLI configurations (those that do use 2 GFX cards) have similar problems as I have. Makes me go hmm... Perhaps not just with those using 2 cards? And the problem is bigger then that?



Also, someone mentioned it could be due to overclocking the graphics card. Setting it (back) to normal specs solved the problem. He mentioned a presale-overclocked or in other words overclocked by the manufacturers graphics card. Mine is overclocked by ASUS. You can look it up at the ASUS site (can't seem to get on it myself at the moment).

My card runs at 486MHz/1350MHz (actually it shows 2700MHz with Coolbits, but I think it's just doubled somehow or so? Confused.), while the normal 7800 runs at 430MHz/1200MHz. However I'm afraid of downgrading being a complete novice at tweaking and doing something wrong. I read this card couldn't be overclocked anymore or something. Perhaps I can't downgrade either without a problem? I can have misinterpreted or forgotten what was being said however, considering it was a while back before I bought this card.

Much appreciated if someone could help me out here.

PS. I have no tearing or rubberbanding problems, just this flickering/flashing thing.

[LeftEyeNine]

Does taking a restart solve your problems temporarily? I mean when you take a restart those flashes and flickerings disappear for some time but hit back eventually ?

[[DnC]]

Restarting the games or my pc? Well in both cases yes!

[caravel]

It could be heat related. The graphics card heatsink and fan could be full of dust and dirt. Try giving that a careful clean. What you're describing is known as artifacts, usually caused by having the memory clocked too high. The problem could be down to bad airflow in your case or in the the room where the PC is operating.

[LeftEyeNine]

If restarting temporarily solves your problem, then it's time for you to do some cooling with the folowing alternatives:

- Get a case with better cooling,
- Get a new VGA cooler,
- Lower your video card's core clock values through either the overclocking software that your manufacturer provides or by Riva Tuner (I doubt you'll prefer this way, though)

[AussieGiant]

Hi DnC,

I second LeftEyeNine comment.

Your first stop in trouble shooting will always be to reset hardware to stock speeds. Until you do that you will never know.

The same way you OC'ed is the same way you would bring the card speeds back to their original settings.

[[DnC]]

Well the thing is ASUS overclocked the card and not me. Supposedly they overclocked it enough that it would give more performance, yet still run stable. Perhaps that's not entirely true.

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...89&modelmenu=1 = graphics card specs.

I'll check to see if ASUS has any overclocking software.
Using Coolbits is not a good idea? You can lower it using Coolbits or so it looks like it.
My card is 486MHz/2700MHz according to Coolbits while it should be 486MHz/1350MHz. So why does it show as 2700 and not 1350?
If the default values for this graphics core are 430MHz/1200MHz, should I change 2700 to 2400 (2x1200)? Really don't understand the double values for memory (the higher number is the speed what the memory runs on if I'm correct right?).

Also if I changed the values and applied, what would happen? Automatic restart or should I restart myself?

[caravel]

Also reduce the memory and core clocks individually to work out which is overheating.

[AussieGiant]

Well the thing is ASUS overclocked the card and not me. Supposedly they overclocked it enough that it would give more performance, yet still run stable. Perhaps that's not entirely true.

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...89&modelmenu=1 = graphics card specs.

I'll check to see if ASUS has any overclocking software.
Using Coolbits is not a good idea? You can lower it using Coolbits or so it looks like it.
My card is 486MHz/2700MHz according to Coolbits while it should be 486MHz/1350MHz. So why does it show as 2700 and not 1350?
If the default values for this graphics core are 430MHz/1200MHz, should I change 2700 to 2400 (2x1200)? Really don't understand the double values for memory (the higher number is the speed what the memory runs on if I'm correct right?).

Also if I changed the values and applied, what would happen? Automatic restart or should I restart myself?

Hi DnC,

Sorry I did not realise it was a factory over clock by ASUS (only skimmed your initial post ).

There should be some warranty invovled and at the very least some phone support available for you to use.

It seems to be heat related due to the behaviour you are describing, therefore it would be best to check the tempurate before calling ASUS. You should be able to see this in the Nvidia Control panel. Once you have some screen shots of the tempurature then give them a call and see what they say.

I would not recommended playing around with the over clocking yourself as you did not do it in the first place.

[[DnC]]

I got around to doing a couple of things suggested.

Cleaning the case didn't help much, perhaps made it a little bit cooler. But the artifacts are still there.

I saw that you can test changes with Coolbits before actually changing them. So I fiddled around a bit with the core clock frequency and memory clock frequency. However every time I get this message -> The test failed to run at the selected clock frequencies. Please lower your settings and try again.

I guess this message pops up because the frequencies are locked, because I underclocked by quite a bit. Each time a bit lower to no effect (I underclocked to the standard 7800GTX frequencies and lower).

My connection is a bit borked, so I can't download ASUS SmartDoctor which also has the feature of setting clock frequencies, unless I want keep my pc on for a day or so (it's that slow now!). Perhaps it needs the ASUS software in order for the frequencies to be changed...?

My temperature ingame doesn't exceed 60 degrees celcius. Usually it's somewhere between 50 and 55. My core slowdown threshold is 115 degrees celcius. So how could it be overheating?

ASUS overclocked the core clock frequency from 430MHz to 486MHz and the memory clock frequency from 1200MHz to 1350MHz. Is that such an incremental increase?

After I've tried ASUS SmartDoctor I'll e-mail ASUS and NVIDIA about the problem and hope they can help me.

I really hope it's just a driver problem.

[LeftEyeNine]

Yes, these increases can be the reason to your problem. Draw them back to their standard values.

Have you tried RivaTuner to underclock the values to their default ?

[AussieGiant]

Hi DnC,

Honestly I would contact ASUS and be looking to have them send a new card out. The tempuratures are not a problem given the numbers you have stated.

How old is the card and machine?