The death of a graphics card?

Hi, last Thursday my PC started acting weird around games. At the time I was using Forceware 177.92. What happens is that after about 2 minutes of playing any game (TF2, Crysis, STALKER CS, etc...), I'll get some weird lines / artifacts all over the screen, then a 2-sec freeze, and then a black screen and my monitor saying "out of signal", requiring a hard reboot. It does that with every game, so it's sort of bad. Before I continue, here's my PC specs:

Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 2.66 ghz, 2GB DDR 2 800mhz, EvGA 8800 GTX stock, WinVista 32 bit.

I tried: reinstalling the games, reformatting the PC, using drivers 178.13 and 178.15 to the same result, even worse...(in 178.15) while I was on the desktop, I'd get red dots all over my screen, huge windows lag and then BAM! crashes. I just rolled back to 177.92 so I could use my PC a bit. I also tried dusting off the innards of my PC.

Now, I'm assuming my graphic card is problematic. My power supply is 600 something watts and has been serving my card well for the last year so i don't assume it's the problem. My 8800 gtx is 1 year and 3 months old only. So now I have a few questions:

1- Can this be fixed in any way?

2- Is there still a warranty (though I don't feel like waiting 3 months)?

3- Is 279.99$ (probably less since I work at FutureShop) a good price/worthwhile update to a GTX 260 192 cores? I know the 8800gtx fits just tight in my case, is the GTX 200 series any longer?

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10107916&logon=&langid=EN (GTX 260)

Thanks very much to anybody that can help!

Guillaume

Ps: The crashes sometimes happen after 5 minutes of play, sometimes right on the menu

Evga has a lifetime warranty (if you registered the card within 30 days of purchase, 1 year if not) and offers cross shipping, so you could have a replacement in just a few days.

What are the temps of the GPU?

While unlikely, it could be your PSU. With capacitor aging and whatnot they do loose some performance over the years, if it was an el cheap-o 600w, this very well could be the problem, but I doubt it. What brand PSU is it?

My card is registered, you say I could get a new one in a few days? (Im in Quebec, Canada)

It's from Tigerdirect.ca, the brand is Ultra.(its the same age as the graphics card)

Evga has a lifetime warranty (if you registered the card within 30 days of purchase, 1 year if not) and offers cross shipping, so you could have a replacement in just a few days.

What are the temps of the GPU?

While unlikely, it could be your PSU. With capacitor aging and whatnot they do loose some performance over the years, if it was an el cheap-o 600w, this very well could be the problem, but I doubt it. What brand PSU is it?

ch5richards

I kind of doubt it would be a PSU with the aftifacting. It could be, but if it was his PSU he would probably be seeing issues outside of games too.

My card is registered, you say I could get a new one in a few days? (Im in Quebec, Canada)

It's from Tigerdirect.ca, the brand is Ultra.(its the same age as the graphics card)

underdark944

Yes, go to EVGA's website and go to view/edit my products. Then select Purchase an advanced RMA, under the card in question. You have to pay for this, but it includes the shipping to send the bad card back, so it really cost almost nothing extra. EVGA will send you a new card, then you send the bad card back. But I am not sure how EVGA does RMA's to Canada, this might not be possible for you.

Ultra is not the best name in PSU's, but far from the worst. I doubt it is the cause of your problems.

Have you checked the temperature of the GPU? There is also the chance it is just overheating, EVGA precision is a good program to check GPU temps.

dude that is very high, thats even higher than my load temps. Download EVGA Precision and try turning up your cards fan speed. Its works for all Nvidia cards even if you dont have EVGA brand:Pwii_123

That is not high at all for a 8800 GTX. Mine idles in the mid to upper 50's, with the fan at 100%.

Unless the temp is jumping up during games, like to 100c or higher, you are ok on the temps.

I've tried Gpu-Z, the temperature does not change at all, during the crash it was about 63-64...but I got more artifacts than ever before

On another topic, is the 260 GTX a worthwhile update for 279.99?