Bad video card? What's this mean...

:cry:
Seems like Doom III, Brothers-in-Arms, Jedi Knight games & Starship Troopers demo all make my machine go boom. :pinch:

I can't explain it, its wierd & I've tried to research it but...meh... :ermm:

First Person Shooters seem to fail me. :lookaroun After 5 minutes or so of playing my graphics become corrupt, distorted, blah. Like so:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...bautt/mess.jpg
Its like I'm 'noclipping' through walls, but I'm not. I'm just playing then this all of a sudden happens & lags my game & I just can't even see.

When I goto menu everything is fine, but when I return its all, :sick: again.

A simple restart seems to work for a couple of minutes er...hours I guess, but its still reoccurring.

Do I have a bad card er what? Its a 6600 GT agp x4 :ermm:

EDIT: I also get lock-ups then it goes to a blue screen saying nv4_disp got stuck in a infinite loop.

I would look to your drivers or possibly, the PSU.

If you updated the drivers recently, you could try rolling back.
If you haven't, try the new drivers.

You could power the card with a test PSU,removing it from your PC's supply.
If that helps, upgrade your PSU.

Could be a heat issue, how does your machine run with the sidepanels removed?

Have you tried anything else?

What I've tried: I installed the card with the CD, so the original drivers WERE there, but then this happened so I looked for updated ones & I got 71.12 (or w/e), 77.77 & now TODAY 78.01 is released. So I'm currently running the latest. I don't really wanna roll back because the original drivers from the CD didn't work so...if I rollback farther than that I gotta feeling it ain't gonna work period.

Second thing I just did this today. Opened her up removed card & reinstalled. I also removed a PCI card & placed it at the bottom so it can get 'more air'. So far so good, but I havn't really played much.

Third thing I MIGHT do is disabling my Floppy A: drive since it maybe a power issue...but I also have another 512 MB RAM on the way...so...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hairbautt

Third thing I MIGHT do is disabling my Floppy A: drive since it maybe a power issue...but I also have another 512 MB RAM on the way...so...

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Unplugging the floppy tells you nothing.
You need to feed the vid card independent of your case supply and see if that helps.

More RAM might make a difference...worth a shot.

Seems like an overheating problem.

Is the fan on the video card spinning?
Is the heatsink clean?
Is the case well ventilated?

Heat sink is clean, fans are spinning I've checked. Is it well ventilated?...I dunno its a dell dimension case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hairbautt

its a dell dimension case.

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It is probably overheating AND short of power.

All mainstream manufacturers keep costs down by setting the cooling and the power so that they are just sufficient. If you've upgraded the graphics card you probably need to upgrade the cooling and the PSU too.

I've checked the Dell forums alotta people with 4550 have purchased the 6600 GT, but it was said that the AVERAGE PS was 250W & the card req. 300W, but no one seems to be complaining.


Oh! Another thing! How can I play B4ME (The Battle for Middle-Earth) for 4 hours+ & not have it burn, crash, die & goto hell? Why is it only FPS...? B4ME DOES req. alotta card power & I run it at High settings. (not ultra high though, the black gate gets laggy)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hairbautt

I've checked the Dell forums alotta people with 4550 have purchased the 6600 GT, but it was said that the AVERAGE PS was 250W & the card req. 300W, but no one seems to be complaining.


Oh! Another thing! How can I play B4ME (The Battle for Middle-Earth) for 4 hours+ & not have it burn, crash, die & goto hell? Why is it only FPS...? B4ME DOES req. alotta card power & I run it at High settings. (not ultra high though, the black gate gets laggy)

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FPSs seem to need more of the GPU then other games. Especially newer ones like you mentioned before. Which causes the GPU to create more heat/need more power and start showing the artifacts that you posted.

Im gonna take a guess and say your over heating....

Download speedfan and run it. Post your temps for:

-when your running the game
-and when your idling

Download link