Severe Graphics Corruption

[The Village Idiot]

Howdy friends. PC specs are listed below. Had my computer for just over 2 years I think. Recently I got a few more than usual problems while playing Race On, but it didn't think much of it. One fine day the game froze, and the game started flickering, which is a well known problem, usually the game will come back to life with texture issues. This time however, I got a blue screen of death which shut down too quickly to read. Upon boot up I got visual distortions across the Windows XP loading screen like broken up lines running vertically. Once into the Windows login screen things are unreadable, I have severe distortions mainly in the form of small black and white dots, with a bit of colour as well as very large blocks of black running diagonally. After a few restarts the vertical lines I talked about earlier appeared in the BIOS booting sequence, but not in the BIOS itself when I pressed delete.

After some fiddling around I found starting in Safe Mode works fine apart from the obvious drawbacks, I tried system restore, didn't work, I tried uninstalling the graphics drivers which worked up until I tried installing new drivers.

Now I'm getting some pretty conflicting advice on the interwebs, it seems people think the graphics ram is shot while others think it's more simple like display drivers. Any ideas people? I think I got a 3 year warranty with the card but want to make sure it's that before I start messing around with replacements.

[Masaki 7-11]

Were you able to install updated graphics card driver? Try fully uninstalling the old graphics driver in safe mode (with networking, if you will be downloading updated graphics drivers); you may need a program to help you with this such as http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D--...%29_d1655.html, I usually just uninstall through Ccleaner and then clean out the registry. Once you are done that, install the updated drivers in Safe mode.

If possible also use a program like GPU-Z to note graphics card temps. It could just be that the card is overheating.

If you are still having problems, you may be able to fix it by lowering the memory and clock rate, however at this point you will probably want to RMA the card.

[The Village Idiot]

Just a quick update, tried removing everything graphics related, used that removal program as well, after reinstalling exactly the same problem as before, the computer seemingly freezed with graphical problems. Many of the programs which test temperature don't seem to work, through various errors, and they don't display any form of graphics adapter, like one doesn't exist. I remember when the errors first started, I had limited use and tested the heat, which was running at normal temperatures. Now however it doesn't show any temperatures what-so-ever, not even CPU.

[pam123]

Do you have any way of testing the card in another rig ?
That would give you the definitive answer.

[The Village Idiot]

Right I'm bringing this thread back to life, I don't know if it's allowed or not. Essentially EVGA sent me a replacement 9800GT, which worked fantastically. For a day. When I booted the computer up the next afternoon it showed the corruption all over again in the form of a crash, I experienced not quite as bad stuff at windows, but it would flash pink over the white parts on the screen, the BIOS was much worse, with everything unreadable, and giant blocks of colour over the loading screen. So I dissembled the computer, taking mostly everything out bar the motherboard from its position, and it seemingly worked. This morning, on a cold boot, exactly the same thing happened. Now just as a gut instinct, and something I'd noticed the previous day, I pulled the motherboard power connectors out, and put them back in, works again. Crash happened 5 minutes later, just wiggled the power connector, and I'm posting this. What seems strange is I had restarted the computer a huge amount of times between crashes, and not once was there a problem, I had left the computer for a couple of hours, I'd stress tested the system, so it's not overloading apparently. But when I turn it on a different day, problems. I'm really confused, is it a power supply problem, a motherboard problem? please help!

[glc]

Try removing the motherboard from the case, and remounting it. You may be getting an intermittent short or something from an improper mounting job. Check the standoffs and I/O shield carefully.