GW and gpu

Here's one for the techies... Thanks in advance for reading this.

My custom rig has always been rock solid stable, for about 18 months. My curent graphics card has been working fine for about 6 months. A few days ago after playing GW for a few hours I rebooted to a lockup.

The lockup occurs about 10 seconds into starting up windows. Either the screen goes black or I get a million horzontal blue lines.

Here's the kicker: when I unplug the power cable from my GeForce 7600 GS, everything is fine. Except I get the Nvidia warning that my card isn't getting enough juice and is running in gimpy mode. When I play GW in gimpy mode, I seem to have the same graphical experience as when everything was normal. Same FPS...

I've tried:

1) virus scan & spyware scan.
2) disabling almost everything in my msconfig.
3) Giving my graphics card a bit more power
4) Checking the heat on my card - it's normal, about 62C while gaming
5) Buying a new 650W power supply. I returned it since it didn't change anything.
6) Checking to make sure the card isn't loose.
7) I've used 3 different Nvidia drivers. I updated my realtek AC '97.
8) Doing a system restore. This had interesting results. When I restored to a week ago, I could boot fine with the power cable in. But when I played GW and then rebooted, the problem occurred again.

Anyone have any advice for me? I'm pretty baffled. Thanks!

Have you tried Defragmenting your HDD. Im not sure if that will fix the problem, if that doesnt help, then you may have to Format and install everything from scratch. As a computer gets older and more data (including loads of temporary crap which Windows doesnt automatically delete) is on a HDD, the more problems arrise.

On a side note, maybe the Gcard is messed up and you may be needing a new one (if posible, then borrow one from a friend to test that theory, doesnt need to be the same type. Just check if the slot is working and if the system is stable on the other card).

Would would a fragmented HD have to do with the gpu power cable? But yeah, I've defragged. I also use CCleaner to clear out (some) old junk.

It's far too soon to wipe out windows and start from scratch. Sheesh...

Yeah, a new graphics card may be my next step. This one isnt very old though... ugh... Any other help out there?

lol, just checking through the things Id do to test where your problems are comming from.

No need to buy a new Gcard just yet. If possible borrow one from a friend... or if thats not possible (your friends start running after you with a baseball bat if you get too close to their comps with a scrwedriver ), then try and take the card out completely and disable the drivers so that your computer is forced to run on the onboard graphics.

Your GW will look really crap but if it does run without a hitch, then it would be due to a faulty Gcard.

I usually make a clean wipe of my HDD once a year, so that it keeps the registry clean.

By a system restore, do you mean you rolled back to a previous state?

If so, I recommend trying a full reformat and reinstall of Windows. I don't know if it would work, but it seems like the only major possibility you haven't tried—who knows, with all the driver installations and uninstallations you've been doing, there could be tons of corrupted/fragmented/messy driver files laying around.

Head over to http://lunarsoft.net/ and describe your problem as you did here. They will assist you and help you diagnose the issue in full from the information provided. Remember though, they can only do as well as the amount of information given. So be sure to post your hardware specs and Windows information.

Yes, rolling back to a previous state.

I havent tried another graphics card yet. Shouldn't I do that before wiping windows for possibly no reason?

My windows registry is probably fine. I don't have a lot of junk on my computer and I maintain it with the CCleaner registry utility...

Is your system, or parts of it "overclocked"?

No overclocking. Forgot to mention that.

You say 62C is normal, but it sounds kinda hot to me. Somewhere in the 35-45C range would be more "normal". Have you checked that the fan on the video card is working, and blown the dust out of the heaksink/fan? Does it run at full speed?
Of course, there's always the possibility that the heatsink/fan on the GPU was never installed correctly - like maybe there's no paste between the heatsink and the chip, or it's warped.

All fans, including the gpu fan are working. The case and fans have been cleaned thoroughly.

62 under load isn't hot. That's actually 62 when running an artifact check with ATI Tool. While running GW it usually only gets up to 57 degrees. My old 6800 Ultra would get up to 80 degrees with no artifacts and no problems.

Gigabyte makes a version of the 7600 which doesn't even have a fan, just a heatsink. Mine has both.

My graphics card has been working fine for half a year. It seems unlikely that it's a heat problem, especially since the crashes occur 5 seconds after booting when the whole system is cold.

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

Some motherboards and videocards just don't work together for some reason. I've had the same, my motherboard just wouldn't run any ATI card; it'd lock up after about 10 minutes. Then I tried an nVidia card, and it all worked like a charm.

Maybe you should try an ATI card.

My vidcard and mobo have been working fine together since August. Why would they suddenly become incompatible?

i am having a similar problem and i've tried just about everything you have tried, i think i am going to reformat my computer.

Could happen through drivers being changed, anywho, are those blue lines artifacts? If so it's a GPU problem, either core on the GPU is overheating, or the ram is hot and or fautly... Would be nice if you had a picture of what happens on the screen.

I changed my drivers last in early November. No problems at all until January 25th.

The blue lines are not artifacts. The computer locks up completely with a wallpaper of just blue lines. Or it goes black.

It may well be a GPU problem. But it's impossible for it to be heat-related since it occurs when everything is cold.

The problem appears to be 100% solved by swapping in a new graphics card. The old one apparently went bad.

Thanks to all who helped on this thread.

And a word of caution to those who seek help on this forum... There are several here who are quick to jump to the "Reformat your hard drive" option. That is an absolute LAST resort. It's so far in last that it shouldn't even be talked about for a VERY long time. Imagine how screwed I'd be if I took their advice and wiped my whole HDD? I'd have hours of re-installation to do, and my computer would have still be freezing up and having the same problems.

Exactly, that should be stickied.