Is my Video Card dieing?

[Bushtree]

hey guys well my Geforce 4 Ti4200 is comming to an end i think.. when i play Americas Army my FPS are stuck at like 26fps... when i turn the details all the way to LOW its still 26fps. my brother is running a Geforce 2 mx and he is getting 20-60FPS..

is my videocard dieing? i have a can in my side panel on my case and the core/memory are not hot to the touch only warm.. so its not overheating.


any other ideas?

[Blakhart]

Is anything else running while you game?

[mike breck]

What brand of Ti4200?

Is it happening with other games?

Any graphical abnormalities showing up during bootup or in other applications?

Try running 3DMark2003 and see if it passes all the benchmarks and what sort of score your getting.

[ktkendall]

That card can not be that old and should not have reached it's life expectancy yet. Could be something else in the PC like Windows could be time for it's yearly reformat and reinstall....What version of windows have U there???

[Bushtree]

ok.. nothing else is running

its a PNY TI4200 64MB

no abnormalities..

Windows XP

[Blakhart]

Then what you may be in need of is a refresh rate fix. Then set it to your desired ref rate and enjoy.

[Bushtree]

where can i get a refresh rate fix.. then what show i run it at?

60mhz? 75mhz?

[Blakhart]

I run mine at the next step down from the highest refresh rate that the monitor will do at that resolution. In my present case, that would be 100Hz in 1024x768. The mon will do 120 at that res.
I think you can get NVRefTool from guru3d, that's where I got it. While you are at it, get coolbits+ to oc the card...

[Rapier]

Could be something else in the PC like Windows could be time for it's yearly reformat and reinstall....What version of windows have U there???

??what does that mean? I have XP.

[ktkendall]

Yes I was asking what version of Windows, and XP is not so bad, but win9x pretty much needed reloaded fresh now and then. I believe they really don't make their OS's to perform to the highest that they could because they want U to think U need to always buy the upgrades and newer ones in the not too distant future..

[Rapier]

Yes after about a year i found the XP and Norten defrags were messed up. i had to get a new one O&O

[Bushtree]

yes i picked up cool bits when this started happening and i oc'ed it i have good cooling so its still on getting to hot when its Oc'ed to 275/580 but that doesnt help at all in the game.. still 26fps its like its caped or something..

[Q-Frost]

Did you Try Newer Drivers?

[Ryan2318]

i know you said you turned details down but make sure the decal setting is low so it doesn't take up a ton of vram

[Bushtree]

yep tried that.. tried new drivers and decals... umm

[Bushtree]

umm i justran 3dmark2001se and i think it is dieing..

here is my results

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6756219

and that is with it Oc'ed to 275/580.. :( very disipointed...


umm but the box it came in (PNY ist he company) it says lifetime warrenty so that means i can get a new 1 right?

[Ryan2318]

i'd think so... just hope that they don't kill you when you ask for a replacement cause then you know lifetime is up...

[Bushtree]

Originally posted by Ryan2318
i'd think so... just hope that they don't kill you when you ask for a replacement cause then you know lifetime is up...

what ? lifetime is up?

[Ryan2318]

just making sure.. it was a joke. i was saying that you know if they physically killed YOU that you're lifetime would be up and the cards lifetime would be up cause you wouldn't be living anymore.

but on a serious side put your card back at stock settings because they probably cancle the warranty if you overclock the card.

[Bushtree]

yes i figured that.. oh i get your joke now that you explane it lol. sorry im slow..

[Spyda]

have you tried actually over-riding the default refresh rates in the driver properties control panel in display proerties? i had the same problem but it was stuck at 60, this fixed it for me and i can now over ride it to constantly stick at 85

[Bushtree]

well i changed my refresh rate...from 60mhz to 72mhz..

[Spyda]

im a tad miffed as to what you meant, so

did you change it as on this picture? notice the refresh rates are overridden with 85hz

[Bushtree]

umm i have this...


the box for override wasnt checked so i check it.. but how do i change the mhz like you did?

[Bushtree]

ok i think ii figured it out....

should it look like this?

im gonna go test it like this now and ill let ya know how it goes.

[Bushtree]

OK i just tested it and my FPS are still stuck at 26fps..

but when im in the game and i have it ovride to 85mhz then it make my game screen smaller.. like there is black to the left and bottom of my screen :(

so that doesnt work :(

[sdkfz]

Page 20 of the July 2003 Maximum PC - and this is for a GeForce4 Ti 4600 in the watch dog section there was a PNY VC problem Q & A

Two points PNY came out with were, no reciept or invoice = no warranty and second "lifetime is defined as the lifetime of the product on the market. Outdated technology is not covered by lifetime warranty if the item is no longer available on the common market as a new product"

The person writing the complaint was being helped as they found the receipt, but it was interesting news. Also OC'ing may be an issue too, I have an MSI card and OC'ing it does void the warranty.

[Bushtree]

umm well its still good for the lifetime right sence you can still buy PNY Geforce4 Ti4200's.. umm reciept.... damn.... im outa luck..

[Spyda]

how are you testing its fps?

[Bushtree]

with the ingame stats..

i just open up the console and type "Stat fps"
and it shows it..

[glc]

PNY GeForce cards are made by MSI.

[Liquid Ice]

I haven't seen one person suggest using another version o fthe Nvidia drivers yet. You might want to do that.

[Nemesis]

bush tree do you use opengl or directx?

[Bushtree]

direct X yea.. ofcourse you cant play with out it.. how do i check aobut opengl?