Graphics Overheating prob?

Hi guys, Im not quite sure what the problem with my card at the moment. I mostly get these funny artifact lines when I run Guild Wars (havent tried any other game yet). But I think its an overheating problem. My grphx card fan burnt out and ive replaced it but I still have these lines that come up when I load up serious exe. files like GW. Ive posted an image of what I get sometimes and my specs. Thanks in advance.


Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP/MP/4 2126MHz
Display Card: ATI RADEON 9800
Memory: 512MB
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP
Free Disk Space: 85.26GB
Display Card Memory: 128MB
Display Driver Version: 6.14.10.6575
DirectX Version: 9.0c

thats just strange.

i think you should format ur pc and re-install windows and your graphs card drivers

Tend to agree with Monk.

If this happens the moment you start the game it's not heat, but if it happens after you've been playing for a while, it's likely a temperature issue.

If the former, it's more likely to be driver related so I'd try to upgrade those.

Can you elaborate on that part? Did you replace the fan only or also the heatsink? I assume heatsink too, as that is how GPU coolers are usually sold. Did you install the heat sink properly? As in removing residue of the old thermal compound and applying new thermal compound? Did you use thermal compound at all? Or was there a thermal pad with the new heatsink? Did you remove the protective film from the pad?

Please excuse those stupid questions, but I've seen it happen too often. You may indeed suffer from an overheating issue due to exceptionally bad cooling, which may be caused by a faulty installed heatsink.

sorry, what I meant to say was that the fan had burnt out so i replaced it. But I still have these problems (typing through them as we speak so apologies for spelling. Ive only just started my computor and I'm already getting these lines so I'm guessing its driver related maybe. I'll probably end up buying a new card.

The card could also have been damaged in whatever event caused the fan to die. Trying the card in another PC might be a good bet.

I'd recommend replacing the card as processors tend to die or suffer severe damage within seconds if not constantly cooled. Not only that, if you did replace the fan, you'd also likely need some replacement thermal paste to put on the bottom of the fan.

Long story short - Replace your card. I'd safely call it dead.

You DO NOT need to re-format and reinstall windows, that is just a pointless waste of time

First off remove your graphics card and clean the copper contacts, unistall the drivers and update with new ones. If that does not correct it then your card is dying and beyond repair.

cannonfodder

Assuming you (usually pay) find a program that removes all traces of drivers, and are able to 100% remove your drivers then yes, reformatting can be silly. However reformatting is a) free (assuming you have your disc) and b) easier than going through all that annoyance. Any and all valuable data should be kept backed up anyway, so reformatting is quite painless.

While you do have good points there, dying hardware could cause the Windows installer to crash to BSOD. He can try it, but in my professional opinion I don't think it'll solve this particular problem.

OT: Regular reformatting and reinstallation of software, however, is sound computer practice. This gets rid of oprhaned files, screwed up registry keys, annoying little programs that won't go away, etc. Doing this in the above case, in conjuction with replacing the video card, would likely leave the OP in a much better position to get back into the game.

Several good points here but I do think that your video card has bitten the dust. Time to replace it with a new one. You realy do not have to upgrade (although that would be a good investment). Just make sure to remove everything from your computer pertaining to the original video card before installing the new one. Most of the time when teh fans on the video cards go out it causes irrepariable damage to the processor on the card. One other thing that you can do is to install a fan in the side of your case to direct air directly onto the top of your video card assisting to cool it. Hope this helps

Mega Mouse

I'm a professional computer consultant and I have two degrees in the field...

No no no, wiping your hard drive/reformatting/reinstalling windows is a bad idea. It should never, ever be your first plan of action. People on this thread are calling it painless, which seems kind of silly to me since it takes a very long time to do, especially when you count the time spent reinstalling all your programs and updating windows. On the contrary, it's a royal pain, and your problem is almost certainly not due to some sort of windows corruption. If you reinstall, you'll be right back to where you're at now.

Flameout in the post above says that regular reformatting and reinstalling everything is sound computer practice - he's completely wrong. In the case of registry problems, the solution is repairing the registry. In the case of annoying little programs that won't go away, the solution is deleting them properly.

For the average user, running Ccleaner (www.ccleaner.com) is just fine. The registry repair utility in this program is excellent, and it will let you uninstall stubborn programs.

... With that being said, I'd bet your problem damage to your graphics card from your broken fan. Do you have access to an old graphics card of any sort? It you do, pop it in to see if you still have this problem.

Also, how hot is your card getting at idle and when you load those .exes?

Heh. Yeah, me too, but that doesn't mean we know what we're talking about, now does it? I've worked with enough multi-degreed "professional" engineers that didn't know their butts from a linked-list to know better than that. I've met with "professional" software engineers that didn't understand arrays and "professional" technicians that couldn't identify a bad cable if half the insulation was torn off. Not insulting you personally....just saying that our degrees don't necessarily mean much.

This I agree with this 50%. It's not a bad idea, but it's a last resort...the one that comes right before, "toss the computer out the window onto the sidewalk."

It can be painless. I keep my data on a separate drive and create an image of my OS drive with all of my programs already installed on it. If I do need to wipe my OS drive I'm done in 15 minutes...it's all about the "magic" bootable DVD with a drive image on it.

Hmmm.....not entirely true. I don't think it's necessary to reformat more than once every year or two as long as you're good about keeping your system clean (don't install every piece of junk software that comes along, keep your registry as clean as possible, etc.), but eventually Windows (and every other modern OS....yes, even MacOS) will "bog down" in ways that it's simply not a good use of one's time to fix. I'm not saying it's impossible to fix, and if you don't use your computer every day you may never need to reformat, but eventually any Windows installation can start to feel sluggish. Reinstalling isn't necessary, but every once in a while it's nice to get your "snappy" OS back.

That being said, I agree that there's a very VERY high probability that the OP's video card is dying. Since the corruption shows in the screenshot it's definitely not a monitor, cable, or DAC problem. Driver problems don't cause that kind of corruption as a general rule. What you're looking at looks a lot like something that can be caused by heat or overvoltage damage. I see a new video card in your future...

I never suggested that reformatting/reinstalling is the only solution for registry fixes and such. Windows has tools for you to fix the registry as well if it's specifically a registry issue. However, I should have been more clear - I recommend doing a reformat at least once a year, especially for heavy computer users. You're right - It is a pain to do, and doesn't fix absolutely everything. Reinstalling windows would not fix the OP problem as I've stated above.

Heatsink, (if it was not the fan only that got replaced)

If the new gpu cooler got a thermal pad, remove the thin plastic film that covers it. If it has no pad, clean you gpu for old thermal paste and apply new.
Be carefull not to drag paste around the gpu, and you should altso just give it a very thin layer, use some sort of plastic to spread the paste out.
If the new cooler comes with a mounting system that contains screws, be careful that you dont tighten them to hard (can bend your card and get other components to loosen)
It doenst look driver related at all, never seen any driver or software make a nvidia behave like that. Looks more like a hardware problem.
Check your slot (agp/pci-e?) as well, is it dirty and need some cleaning? Is the card properly insertet? Are the pins in the monitor cables plugs looking ok?
Did you make a proper installation of your new cooler?
Did your old one cover the rams and the new one doesnt? (either get heatsinks or underclock your ram if so, some cards come pre overclocked)
How hot is your gpu in idle mode and when running GW compared to the technical specs for your card?
If your lucky it is just some loose connection, have seen it a few times on other pc's.

problems fixed now, installed a new card (ATI Radeon 9250) and put in 1gb of RAM, one problem though now. GW and my other games stutter quite alot. Any ideas how to resolve this? Thanks for all the help so far.

problems fixed now, installed a new card (ATI Radeon 9250) and put in 1gb of RAM, one problem though now. GW and my other games stutter quite alot. Any ideas how to resolve this? Thanks for all the help so far.

Problems fixed now, installed a new card (ATI Radeon 9250) and put in 1gb of RAM, one problem though now. GW and my other games stutter quite alot. Any ideas how to resolve this? Thanks for all the help so far.

Well, your Radeon 9250 is quite a bit less powerful than your 9800. I'm sorry to say that there isn't much you can do to fix that outside of getting a more powerful card.