Fried Vid Card?

Kyomi Tachibana

Kyomi Tachibana

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2007

Oregon, USA

Where iz teh Bonuz [WitB]

P/W

Alrighty, recently I've been having some increasing issues with FPS, and weird graphical glitches. Normally minimizing and reopening fixes the non-FPS related issues.

However! Today, doing Catacombs of Kathandrax my screen went all apesh*t on me. Although it looked much worse than the screen shot depicts.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...mura/gw418.jpg

I was thinking the vid card is fried, or something, but I know next to nothing when it comes to this.

Alright and here's everything I know:

Windows Vista 32-bit
Inspiron Notebook 1520
Intel Core2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5Ghz
2GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce8600M GT 256MB

If anything else is needed, yeah, just say so.

I'm looking at the temperatures right now. From what I gathered, while running GW it was running at 82C, and dropped down to 60C running just Firefox.

Not sure if that would be overheating or not. Anywho; I'm tired. And haven't slept in ages. Remodeling the kitchen ftl. Any help at all will be greatly appreciated. /sleep

Fried Tech

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2007

[Yeti]

E/

That is running hot. Open up your computer and check for a lot of dust on the video card and its heatsink and fan. If there is a good amount try cleaning it (all of it). That would be the first step. If it keeps doing it after that it may be time for a new card

Ferret Deathsquad

Ferret Deathsquad

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2008

Boston, Mass

W/Rt

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fried Tech
That is running hot. Open up your computer and check for a lot of dust on the video card and its heatsink and fan. If there is a good amount try cleaning it (all of it). That would be the first step. If it keeps doing it after that it may be time for a new card
^Do this^ But before you go buy a new Video card, check for new drivers for the video card. Sometimes they have updates and it might solve your problem. Plus it doesn't cost anything to try it first.

Fried Tech

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2007

[Yeti]

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ferret Deathsquad
^Do this^ But before you go buy a new Video card, check for new drivers for the video card. Sometimes they have updates and it might solve your problem. Plus it doesn't cost anything to try it first.
Doh!. forgot to mention drivers.

wesman

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2008

Order Of the Pheonix

Mo/

Hows the air flow around the GPU vent? make sure there is nothing blocking it, if the comp is on a desk try propping the back up with a thin book to increase the air flow. You can also get cooling pads which go under the notebook, these help a bit as well.

The suggestions on cleaning the area around the GPU are also a very good idea. Just be careful not to touch the components, or if you must make sure you ground yourself by touching a solid piece of metal before hand (gets rid of static electricity which does not mix well with computer parts)

As always check the drivers...

Kyomi Tachibana

Kyomi Tachibana

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2007

Oregon, USA

Where iz teh Bonuz [WitB]

P/W

Well I'm cursed and can't sleep. So! I did update the drivers about a week ago, but I'll check again. I'll give cleaning another go, removing panels on my laptop kinda scares me, as uninformed as I am. Manual time.

Fried Tech

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2007

[Yeti]

E/

argh. a laptop.... Why do people use laptops to play games?!! sorry missed that part in your opening post

wesman

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2008

Order Of the Pheonix

Mo/

Just out of curiosity is the computer running fine once it cools down?

EDIT: this is a quick guide that gives some good tips... mostly, and its always nice to see it done before you try it. btw cnet is not the place I recommend for comp experts but it will do in a pinch.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4660-10165_7...html?tag=vid.1

Ferret Deathsquad

Ferret Deathsquad

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2008

Boston, Mass

W/Rt

Ah laptop, Do you have a laptop cooler underneath it? You might have the problem of the video card getting to hot. Trust me a cooler will help, I know mine gets very hot after a couple of hours.

Kyomi Tachibana

Kyomi Tachibana

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2007

Oregon, USA

Where iz teh Bonuz [WitB]

P/W

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fried Tech
argh. a laptop.... Why do people use laptops to play games?!! sorry missed that part in your opening post
Because it was a gift and being a student I can't afford a real computer at the moment. ;p

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ferret Deathsquad
Ah laptop, Do you have a laptop cooler underneath it? You might have the problem of the video card getting to hot. Trust me a cooler will help, I know mine gets very hot after a couple of hours.
I do have a cooler, but it's crap. Need to grab a new one.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wesman
Just out of curiosity is the computer running fine once it cools down?
Well, it only really happens when I'm playing GW, it runs everything else just fine, hot or not. And yes, I did just cleaned it completely.


Alright update: Running GW now at 67C~, I'll leave it on for a little while and see if it gets much hotter.

moriz

moriz

??ber t??k-n??sh'??n

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada

R/

nvidia had recently admitting of using "inferior materials" in their laptop GPUs and chipsets, which caused "higher than usual rate of failure".

they are paying to replace them though. if you can, and if the laptop is still under warranty, it might be worthwhile to consider exchanging it.

Age

Age

Hall Hero

Join Date: Jul 2005

California Canada/BC

STG Administrator

Mo/

I would check to see if you have any malware on windows and is up to date as my ATI card went green a lot and back .You could in command line put -dx8 noshaders.

Kyomi Tachibana

Kyomi Tachibana

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2007

Oregon, USA

Where iz teh Bonuz [WitB]

P/W

Quote:
Originally Posted by moriz
nvidia had recently admitting of using "inferior materials" in their laptop GPUs and chipsets, which caused "higher than usual rate of failure".

they are paying to replace them though. if you can, and if the laptop is still under warranty, it might be worthwhile to consider exchanging it.
I'll most definitely be looking into this, I read something about other people with similar troubles using NVidia GPUs and chipsets but didn't know about this.

As for everything else, I cleaned it thoroughly, again, and I do run scans daily with AVG, updated BIOS and Vid Drivers once again, and I think a major contribution to the heat was my 'cooling' pad was actually blocking the fan. All that in combination with shifting my laptop to the left so the fan isn't blocked(-.-; figures I would overlook this) reduced temps while not running GW to ~53C, and ~68C while running GW. So as soon as I am able I'll be looking into both the NVidia thing and a new cooling pad.

Thanks much for the help!

Edit: Well, the blocky screen of doom came up again, so I'm going to call Dell in the morning and see what can be done. Thank goodness the warranty is still on it.

Lord Sojar

Lord Sojar

The Fallen One

Join Date: Dec 2005

Oblivion

Irrelevant

Mo/Me

Yes, I am "sort of" to blame for this. But if you blame me, I will kill you.

Ferret Deathsquad

Ferret Deathsquad

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2008

Boston, Mass

W/Rt

I second that we blame Rahja the Thief, and he should fix it for free.

wesman

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2008

Order Of the Pheonix

Mo/

yea if the issues persist after it is running at a cooler temp then that is not good. The only other thing to check into is if the most recent driver is bugged... may have to back roll it to a previous, perhaps slightly more stable driver. Try looking here for info on that

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26

Also try installing the driver that came with your computer (hopefully they sent a driver/restore dvd) and see what that does

Quaker

Quaker

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Aug 2005

Canada

Brothers Disgruntled

That looks like a graphics RAM problem to me. The 256meg dedicated graphics RAM could be bad, or, since it would be capable of sharing main RAM, check that too, with Memtest or some such.