Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/15 06:34Hi guys, I could do with a little sensible advice here please... My system is about 14-18 months old self built. Have been noticing a lot of tearing, black sections, pink sections and bolts from the sky just lately when playing different games. Don't think its down to power shortage all fans and VGA coolers run at 100% from external power supply. The VGA temps using Gainward ExperTool never show temp over 35°C, any advice very gratefully received.
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
Mavke
Admin Admin
Posts: 14153
Karma: 355
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/15 09:58xldeane wrote: Have been noticing a lot of tearing, black sections, pink sections and bolts from the sky just lately when playing different games. Don't think its down to power shortage all fans and VGA coolers run at 100% from external power supply. Well just wondering since you see that happening now, what has changed on your system? Or are you playing other, newer games? Cause newer games demand a lot more from the graphics card and do impact the faster generation of artifacts if there is not enough power or the graphics card being clocked too fast. And even though you state temps is okay, the memory chips might be causing these artifacts and you can't know the temps of each chip individually...
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
xldeane
User Fresh Boarder
Posts: 8
Karma: 0
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/16 07:02First started to notice it in Battlefield 2 with all settings on max then slowly had to reduce all settings over time back to low, then just couldn't play/enjoy game at all. Tried a little Counter-Strike: Source to for a while but started to notice artufacts in that too. Call of Duty 4 unless running at absolute base settings, graphics cards generate a very bright spidersweb config on screen. Guess its time to salvage and upgrade.
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
Mavke
Admin Admin
Posts: 14153
Karma: 355
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/16 09:59Well I think maybe one of the cards has a problem really with some failing memory or maybe even both. Cause as you might know the GeForce 7900 GT's had some issues in the past with bad memory chips... So do you have the same issue with the card individually? Having on one of them installed in the machine?
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
xldeane
User Fresh Boarder
Posts: 8
Karma: 0
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/17 01:23Have tried to run with one card in place, same issue distorted graphics on both cards, even took them to a friends PC simular set up as mine, both showed signs of distortion. Looks like I have two bad cards. Don't suppose flashing card BIOS would have any effect?
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
Mavke
Admin Admin
Posts: 14153
Karma: 355
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/17 19:19xldeane wrote: Have tried to run with one card in place, same issue distorted graphics on both cards, even took them to a friends PC simular set up as mine, both showed signs of distortion. Looks like I have two bad cards. Don't suppose flashing card BIOS would have any effect? Mmm, that is somehow what I was expecting... Well the only thing you can try is to downclock the cards and see if the artifacts or distortions are going away. If not then there is nothing that will really help, and most like it has something to do with a faulty memory chip which we have seen quite a bit on these GeForce 7900 GT's in the past.
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
xldeane
User Fresh Boarder
Posts: 8
Karma: 0
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/18 09:29What would you consider the best way to downclock the cards Mavke. I have got shot of all overclocking programs with the fresh install. So my system is totally clean of all overclock utilities. Thanks again for your assistance.
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
Mavke
Admin Admin
Posts: 14153
Karma: 355
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/18 19:02xldeane wrote: What would you consider the best way to downclock the cards Mavke. I have got shot of all overclocking programs with the fresh install. So my system is totally clean of all overclock utilities. Well I am a big fan of PowerStrip, which I use for the final overclock I am doing but during testing and findings max overclocking I am using both ATITool and RivaTuner... But to simply downclock the card I would go for PowerStrip.
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
xldeane
User Fresh Boarder
Posts: 8
Karma: 0
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/22 04:48And now I'm a big fan of Powerstrip, downloaded PowerStrip, had a quick read on how to set it up for my graphics cards. Dropped the memory slightly and bingo, no distortion what so ever. The PC should be good for another six months or so before it needs upgrading. Thanks Mavke for your advice. Donation on its way.
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
Mavke
Admin Admin
Posts: 14153
Karma: 355
Re:Gainward GeForce 7900 GT, and some anomalies showing up? - 2007/12/22 09:28xldeane wrote: And now I'm a big fan of Powerstrip, downloaded PowerStrip, had a quick read on how to set it up for my graphics cards. Dropped the memory slightly and bingo, no distortion what so ever. Thanks Mavke for your advice. Okay, cool, that is great to see that worked to clock down the memory. Indeed as I suspected it is somehow related to the memory. Take into account that it could get worse in those six months, so don't be surprised if you need to lower later on once again, but I hope not and that it is just a minor issue.
| | The administrator has disabled public write access.
ASUS 9800GTX+ (DK) PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
