Vid card problems

[Heater]

Ya at this point im pretty confident that replacing the card will fix the problem. Its just spending 200 bucks out of pocket for it when I have several other things Im wanting, like a new primary 52' hdtv and a bunch of gym equipment for my garage, both combined is like 3k lol.

I love newegg, ive ordered 2 complete systems from them and havent had much issues and the prices are great.

I still havent uploaded my drivers, so when i get home im gonna try that, and i got a 120mm fan from work today that im gonna slap in for the hell of it.
If i still have problems I guess I will have to figure out how to afford a that 190 dollar 8800!

 

[Lafinass]

It's a good card, I've a pair of that exact same model in my system.

NewEgg is also an excellent source of user feedback, popular items usually have several pages of positive and negative feedback both. Several times reading the feedback has saved me from buying a product that conflicts with something else I have installed.

 

[Heater]

Its tempting to just whip out my wallet and buy it! But then I have to think about how often I can actually play since I have a 4 month old. A gym and tv rank over a vid card right now. Im just worried that if I keep playing with glitches its gonna get worse and then all a sudden it craps out for good and I cant even use it when im not gaming, forcing me to buy a new one to get my computer working. actually, not sure if i have onboard video but, who wants to convert to that!!!

 

[NinjaFluff]

hang on, before you go doing that... have you seen one of these?

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1891808,00.asp

If you've got a couple free PCI slots right below your video card, this is a nice little gadget that takes air from outside the case and blows it directly on your video card. CHEAP too! This doesn't use the PCI slots themselves, but it does take up enough room to block 2 of the slots.

 

[Lafinass]

You can get a 30 dollar card to handle basic windows operation if you don't have onboard.

Best bet would be to see if any friends have an old card they could let you borrow just to try out. It would be nice if you could slap a card in there and say for certain the current card is the source of this. I know how often I've just said 'Meh' and upgraded a trouble component rather than figure out what's wrong, but I'd hate for you to do this and have the problem persist.

Edit: Indeed, a cooling card is an option. It has limited usefulness if your card has an exhaust fan that actually vents out of the case though. You end up just sucking in the same hot air you're blowing out.

 

[NinjaFluff]

yeah, the reviews on that aren't great, but if it'll do the job, it beats having to shell out much more for a halfway decent card.

 

[Lafinass]

It's mostly because there isn't a lot of cool air at the back end of a computer. My cat sleeps behind my computer on colder nights. That whole region of the room is warmer because of all the exhaust.

 

[Heater]

ya before i actually buy one ill snatch my dads vid card and test out my games
that way i dont waste 200 bucks when its something else causing the problem!

 

[Heater]

Hey lafinass, I added another 120mm antec fan today for my intake. But I open up speedfan and it still shows values for 4 fans, I dont see any difference. Also, that 4th fan still says 50%. Have any ideas?

I at least feel better about having a functional intake and exhaust 120mm fans. The only other fans I have are the one on top of my power supply and the zalman adjustable cpu fan.

 

[MrQ]

Are you running the fans off the board? If you are the mobo will control how fast the fans go. I have a fan controller on mine and I just turn my fans up all the way its not bad sound-wise. If you can't do that there should have been a connector that came with the fan that will allow it to be plugged directly in one of the 5-volt PSU lines. That will definitely run it a 100%.

 

[Heater]

Hmm ok, I know the fan I hooked up last night I plugged into the molex connector so its straight off the PSU.
I used to have a good fan controller in an older PC but I sold it, never looked into getting another, but def a good idea I guess. I know my zalman CPU fan has a controller thats inside the case which is cool.



edit*
Speaking of cooling, check out [link=hyperlink url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118117[/link]
Its got good reviews, but I cant figure out how you would mount this?

 

[Lafinass]

Having never had anything but praise for eVGA stock fans, my personal choice in video cards, I wouldn't know specifically. But I've used Zalmann in the past, I've got one of their monsters on my CPU actually, and their instructions are always pretty good.

 

[Heater]

UPDATE:
So I decided to call AMD/ATI support and the guy tells me that I may need to update my motherboard chipset drivers, and he also tells me my super nice 120 dollar modular Kingwin power supply may be the cause.
Id rather buy a new power supply over a vid card any day but I just love my PSU!

He also confirmed its not in warranty so I would be buying a new one if these 2 things arent the cause

 

[Lafinass]

But this is a NEW issues right? As in, this exact same setup worked in TF2 before without issue? Generally, new issues when nothing has changed software/hardware wise are not going to be fixed by driver updates. But it's always possible I guess.

As for the PSU, these glitches COULD be caused by memory being under-powered, but your system doesn't sound like it's particularly high use. What's the wattage on what you've got? I don't know Kingwin, I'm an Enermax man myself.

 

[Heater]

I would prefer Enermax, Antec, thermeltake anyday over kingwin but I just liked the look and it seemed good. its a 600w

Powersupply - [link=hyperlink url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121014[/link]

Vid card - [link=hyperlink url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102003[/link]

I know back in October I had this problem with Portal, but not too much on TF2, now I notice it was getting worse with TF2. Now that Ive put a new fan in and cleaned the dust, I think it has gotten slighty better, hasnt rebooted on me yet at least.

 

[Lafinass]

It definitely does sound like heat then, and unless you're running a whole heck of a lot of peripherals that PSU shouldn't have a problem supporting your system. Your temperatures seemed fine though, I'm wondering if some component that does not have a sensor on it is over heating. Did you try your father's graphic card? It would be great if we could say for sure it is the card.

If you have A/C or somewhere with A/C you can take your computer, crank the A/C as low as it can go till it's nice and chilly. If that helps the problem, then it'll be another point for heat. But frankly, if it doesn't have a built in sensor and you don't have the tools to check other components... I don't know what more to do.

 

[Heater]

Ya, what I think I am going to do is, update the chipset drivers, and see if I have any problems still, if I do, then I might just take my card out and put it in my fathers machine, and run the games to see if his machine has problems, if it does, its the card no matter what. If it doesnt, then maybe replacing the card wont fix it. Ill keep you updated.

 

[Lafinass]

Not true! If you put the card in your father's machine and it runs better, his system could simply have better air flow or any number of things. By putting his video card in your machine, you change one variable and one variable only. If you put your video card in his computer, you are testing one variable with a whole set of new variables.

 

[Heater]

very true i guess, but i counted on heat not being a major cause since you and the ati/amd guy said my temps are normal at idle and load.
ill let ya know what i end up doing and try to see if i can get this solved

 

[Lafinass]

The temperatures we're SEEING are fine. But there are no sensors on the video card's memory, or on the RAM. It's probably splitting hairs, but to logically rule out the card as the issue you should put the other card in your system.