Video issues.

[Poppa_Meth]

Tonight I turned on my PC checked my email and updated Opera to 9.24 Then upon opening Firefox my screen went all artifacted. Red and green dotted lines all over. I rebooted several times and the issue kept getting worse. I checked the monitor and it seems to have no problem. The No Signal image is perfectly clear when the PC isn't on. I took the DVI cable off and cleaned it then plugged it back in. Next I had random numbers and letters showing up all over the place between the lines. Finally I shut it down, opened it up and checked the video card to make sure the fan was turning. It feels hot but the fan was turning fine. Upon next reboot all the problems are gone. I've been on it for about a half hour now with no more issues. Does anyone know what could cause such an issues. I'm thinking my video card may be about to go.

[guns1inger]

When you checked the fan, did you push the card back into it's slot ? Constant heating up and cooling down cause PC boards to expand and contract, and over time this can squeeze cards out of their slots. Perhaps you reseated it when you were taking a look.

[Poppa_Meth]

No I just put my fingers under it to feel airflow. I didn't actually touch the card. I think I'll take it out completely and dust the whole thing before reseating it.

[Poppa_Meth]

I took the card out and cleaned it thoroughly. I haven't had issues in a week...until this morning. Same deal all over again. This time my desktop was streaked with lines but when I opened Firefox, it was completely fine, except for the part of the desktop you could see through the transparent parts. The desktop menus are also corrupted. I changed the color setting from 32 bit to 16 bit and back and the corruption disappeared. I just reset Windowblinds and the corruption in the transparency disappeared. This would lead me to believe I have a software issue, except the last time it did this, the BIOS screen was also corrupted. I'm a bit at a loss on this.

[Poppa_Meth]

I'm going to have to get some screenshots of it but on the following page images 3 and 5 look the most like the issues I have. I'm going to try some of the solutions there and see what happens.

http://www.playtool.com/pages/artifacts/artifacts.html

[GKar]

Are you overclocking your video card?

[TBoneit]

Many times what you are describing with random numbers and letters can be blamed on bad memory on the video card.

Especially since you mention that it happens in the Bios screen. This points to a hardware problem.

Bios screen corruption points to hardware and since there is not replacable parts on a video card except the fan start looking for a new card. Unless you haven't alread tried pulling and reseating it as a test to see if that is the problem.

[Poppa_Meth]

No overclocking. I did remove, clean, and reseat the card. It was fine for a week and then acted up again. I hate to buy a new video card before knowing for sure if that's the problem since it's AGP and I can't transition it later to a new build. I'm going to test my computer's RAM tonight and try adjusting the AGP speed to see if there are any issues with that. Thanks for the help so far.

[GKar]

If it is a video card ram or gpu issue like tboneit says, and you want to avoid buying a new card, you can download Rivatuner and under-clock the card and find a stable setting for it.

[Poppa_Meth]

I don't mind buying a new card once I'm certain that the problem is hardware. I just don't want to buy a new card and still have issues if the problem in in the AGP port or the BUS instead. Looks like a lot of testing is coming up.

[Poppa_Meth]

Quick question since I'm shopping video cards just in case. I'm looking at a BFG 7800GT. It specs a 400W PSU with a +12V rail of 20A. Does this mean 20A total on all the +12V rails or 20A on each +12V rail? I've never dealt with a new graphics card on a PC old enough for it to matter before. I'm running a Dell 8300 with stock PSU so I'd imagine it's not up to par.

[Squash]

20 on each, according to what I found when I was researching a new card and PSU. I remember seeing a video card review in which they ran into that problem -- plenty of power, but not enough on any particular rail.

There are a lot of good cheap single-rail PSUs out there which would have plenty of power available on the single rail.

If you click on the "Specifications" tab on the Newegg PSU product pages, it lists the power for each rail.

More info:

http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/glossary/power-supplies/multiple-power-supply-rails-explained/

[aedipuss]

you might want to consider the 7600gt with a 560mhz clock and lower power req. i'm quite happy with the one i picked up a couple months ago at newegg. quiet, small, and works just fine

[GKar]

Agreed, one high powered 12v rail.

[GKar]

you might want to consider the 7600gt with a 560mhz clock and lower power req. i'm quite happy with the one i picked up a couple months ago at newegg. quiet, small, and works just fine

Thats what I have, overclocks ok too.

[Poppa_Meth]

I looked at the BFG 7600GT and it call for 350W but still 20A on the rail.

[Poppa_Meth]

Booted up a few minutes ago to this.


Opened Photo Impact to do the screenshot and after minimizing it looked like this.


Changed 32bit to 16bit and back and it cleared up the desktop but Photo Impact still has residual images in it.


Resetting Window Blinds took care of that part of it. Now that it's up and running it no longer has the issues. It mainly seems to do this when I boot up.

[aedipuss]

run a stability test for a couple hours and see what happens.
http://freestone-group.com/video-card-stability-test.htm

the xfx 7600gt cards are well made and fairly inexpensive. so far it's the best of the 7 nvidia cards i've used. if you think you need it a 500 watt ps can be had for about $20 at newegg.

[Poppa_Meth]

I'm looking at a FSP PSU but the issue isn't just overall wattage, it's how many amps are on each rail that is causing issues. Only the more pricey PSUs have enough amperage on the correct rails unless I go with a single rail.

I ran Memtest86+ for a couple hours. System RAM passed all tests 5 times with no errors. I can rule that out at least.

I also installed the latest DirectX and knocked my AGP speed down to 4X. I'll have to test it for a while again until I notice issues.

[Poppa_Meth]

It's been running for about 3 hours with no artifacting. I ran that stability test for almost an hour and no issues occured.

[aedipuss]

you certainly have an interesting problem. the reverse of most since heat doesn't seem to be a factor. the fact you have artifacting in a bios screen rules out any software problem. i might try removing the video card and checking for oxidation on the contacts. a rub down with a pencil eraser and then cleaning might be in order. another place to check is all the capacitors. look for any white residue or leakage. they are the little soda can like objects wired to the m.b. also go into the bios on a cold boot and check the voltages reported, it may be a weakening p.s. that becomes adequate after warming up.

[Poppa_Meth]

I've examined the card. No leaky capacitors. I also cleaned the connections with denatured alcohol when I had it out. I'll check voltages, if Dell's crappy Bios will allow it. I'm wondering if maybe the AGP port has loosened over time. Maybe once some heat hit the card the metal connection expand enough to make full contact. Except it doesn't always have this problem at every cold boot. I also haven't seen the artifacting in the BIOS but a couple of times. Difficult to figure this one out.

[Bjs]

Consider replacing the heatsink compound between heat sink and gpu on graphics card .

Artic silver 5 as replacement .

May not have been assembled correctly .

---

If motherboard has onboard video , remove addin gpu and run it only using onboard . if problem appears here , issue is in the motherboard .

[Poppa_Meth]

I've got some Arctic Ceramique around here somewhere. I doubt it was an assembly problem though. This 9800 has been in the computer for almost 6 years with no issues. That's not saying it couldn't develope problems though.

[Poppa_Meth]

Okay this is driving me crazy. I found out that Dell's diagnostic utilities have a video RAM tester built into them. My PC went crazy again after being on for about 2 hours this time. So I loaded the disks and checked it while the problem was occurring. I received several error messages saying that it failed to write to the RAM. I turned the PC off a bit and booted back up. The distortion was gone again. I ran the video RAM test again while it was not acting up and I received to error messages. After this I started messing around with the case open. I left it set in my BIOS screen with no problems for a few minutes. Then I tapped the video card a few times. The screen distorted after this. I repeated this a few times with the same results. I took the car out and found no corrosion on the connections. I blew air into the AGP port again and reseated the card. I went into BIOS again and tapped the card a few times. No problems at all this time.

At this point I really have no idea whether the problem is in the card itself or in the AGP port. I'll try to find someone with a spare AGP card I can borrow for a while to see what happens with it.

[Poppa_Meth]

Last week I got a hold of an old FX5200 and slapped that in there. No problems for a week so I figured it was the card itself for sure. I ordered and XFX 7600GT and a Corsair 550W PSU with a single 41A rail. I finally got the parts and hooked it all up tonight. Working great so far. My only problem is the crappy Dell 8300 case, which closes like a book instead of having a side panel, makes it a living hell trying to get the long and plentiful PSUs cables to fit anywhere. Now I'm watching system temps, as the poor case design has me worried about overheating. So far the card runs idle at about 47C and the only other temp monitor which is on my Seagate HDD reads 44C, so I'm assuming ambient case temps to be mid to upper 30s.
I also ran rthdribl to test load temps. I'm getting about 65C after 30 minutes on the card. Not too bad overall I think. I'm also getting about 24FPS on the rthdribl app running full screen (1280X1024), which is twice what my 9800 was putting out.

Thanks for all the help.