Bad 6800GT or bad NVS5?

Hopefully the all-knowledgeable OCForums community can help me w/ this annoying problem.

My problem is w/ my BFG 6800GT O/C I bought last month. Immediately after I purchased it, I bought an NVSilencer 5 for it. I slapped it on and it seemed to fit flush w/ both the core and the RAM - I checked w/ a flashlight to see if any light was coming through between any of the RAM chips or the core.

After I installed the NVS5, I tried out some o/c's and benchmarks w/ 3DM05 and didn't notice any artifacts until I hit well-past the Ultra speeds, so I thought it was safe to say the Silencer was doing it's job well.

I cranked the speeds back down to the default shortly after (the same day, didn't leave the o/c or flash the BIOS or anything) and left things be.

Then Star Wars: Republic Commando and the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory demo come out and I'm itching to crank up all the eye-candy w/ my new card.

The following is my system specifications and my problems I've been experiencing.


ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe (latest BIOS)
P4 3.2E (SL7E5) @ stock
(4) 512MB Hynix OEM (2.5-3-3) (I do a lot of graphic editing)
BFG 6800GT O/C @ stock (artifacts still happen w/ both the 66.93 and the 71.90 FWares)
(3) IDE HDDs
(1) SATA HDD
Plextor 708-A
Dual 530w Sparkle PSU's
Nothing is overclocked


Anyway, the problem I am having is w/ artifacts and flashing textures. Driver 3, Star Wars: RC, Spinter Cell: CT, and I've even seen artifacts in the "DX9 Real-Time High-Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting" program.

What bothers me most is that when I enable Pixel Shader 3.0 in SCT, then enable the HDR Rendering sub-option, once I apply the settings and return to the game, this and this happens (note: all other advanced optons maxed). This could be happening because the demo is still technically a beta or because my video card is screwed up.

Some more information:
When playing DOOM3 @ 1280x1024, absolutely maxed-out settings (max AA & AF), my GPU temps don't even reach 70c, they hover around 67c (also have a rheobus/stat that shows 1c lower, so I imagine it's fairly accurate).

Some screenshots and movies I've taken of the problems below (apologies for the crappy quality, I totally forgot about FRAPS).

Drv3r Flashing Textures (AVI, DIVX)
SCT Sparatic Freezing 1 (AVI, DIVX)
SCT Sparatic Freezing 2 (AVI, DIVX)
rthdribl Teapot Artifacts 1 (AVI, DIVX)
rthdribl Teapot Artifacts 2 (JPEG)
SW:RC Blinking Textures 1 (AVI, DIVX)
SW:RC Blinking Textures 2 (AVI, DIVX)

Sorry for all the movies of basically the same thing, but I work in a computer Help-Desk environment and I know how it is when there's too little information given when someone wants a hand w/ a problem.


Thanks in advanced to anyone who replies.

I had this exact same problem. Run 3DMark05 again and it should "melt" anything that got "stuck" in the pipelines. I was running PCMark04 when it happened to me and I was spazzing out like crazy cause nothing I did (I even reseated the cooler) was fixing the problem. I...

Reseated the cooler
Underclocked the card
Let the computer sit for 6 hours
Updated drivers
Downgraded drivers
Ran three different driver cleaners
Cleared system CMOS

none of which worked. I was playing with PCMark04 at the time when I got the artifacts (running the graphics test). After the fourth or fifth test, things snapped back to normal. No more artifacts, and no more OCing that high for me anymore.

Hope this helps, I know what you're goin through.

Have you tried turning fastwrites or sideband addressing off?

Would turning off FF or SBA hinder performance?

could you test to see if the problem occurs all the time, or does it only happen when you turn AA on?

edit: nm looks like it happens all the time. id guess memory overheating. but it seems your temps are good. try underclocking your mem (below stock)

this is so that they will not get as hot. so you can test the overheating theory.

also ya id go ahead and turn them both off to just test.

FW and SBA don't affect performance all that much. Maybe a couple FPS at most. Just turn them off to test. I have read many posts of people having graphic anomolies that were fixed by turning off either FW or SBA or both.

Welp, I have some time to play around w/ the problem, but how do I disable FW and/or SBA? RivaTuner doesn't seem to let me do it. =/

/me feels stupid

You'll find fastwrites and side band addressing options in your BIOS. Hope it works!

Thanks Celeron_Phreak, that's what I thought. I haven't shut my system down in like... two weeks though so I didn't even think to check there. I'll post back w/ my results.

Thanks again guys.

Well crap that sucks. I don't seem to have any option in my BIOS to turn off FW or SBA. Is there any other way I could disable them?

Looks like a vid mem problem. Some people said AS5 don't work well with memory. I think you should try that. Remove your card, reapply AS5 on your GPU. Use the regular white thermal compound on your memory. The white thermal compound is non-conductive, so you won't have to worry it shorting out a circuit in your vid card.

I will suggest you trying the Bios thing these guys suggested, becuase it is quite a lot of work to reapply the thermal compound.

Well I disabled FW via RivaTuner, but even in the PowerUser tab, it wont let me disable SBA. After I disable FW, RivaTuner then shows FW as disabled in the Driver settings, so it must be off.

Unfortunately I still get artifacts so I think I will try and clean off the entire card, around traces and whatnot since I have AS5 on the mem and the core. I'll reapply AS5 to the core and some white paste that came w/ the NVS5 and see if that helps.

I'll report back as soon as I try it. Thanks guys.

well, if you shorted your ram now, theres almost no chance that you can fix it...

but i doubt you shorted your ram, cause then it would show all the time...

Yeah, I can crank the GFX in all other games and not notice any artifacts, it's just these couple of applications/games. Funny too, 'cause in the rthdribl tool, it happens too.

Have you tried running 3DMark05 again? If that doesn't work, try PCMark04. I really think it'll work again after you run those tests completely through. It worked with my 6800GT after I OCed high. Then dropped it back down to stock speeds and saw artifacts, even in Windows. Here's waht I was getting:

Desktop
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v82/virax/2005 Computer/untitled.jpg
Take note of some of the icons, how there are small artifacts, or sections in them that are shifted around.

NVidia Drivers Folder
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v82/virax/2005 Computer/untitled2.jpg
These are some of the files in the NVidia Drivers folder. They're supposed to be the same icon as windows .DLL files, and not yellow.

Windows System32 Folder
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v82/virax/2005 Computer/untitled4.jpg
And the DLL files in the C:\Windows\System32 folder. Again, not supposed to be yellow.

I ran PCMark04 again and everything went back to normal. PCMark04 returns to the desktop after every test to load the next test. When it came back to the desktop to load the 5th test, everything snapped back to normal and I stopped the benchmarking.

~C.P.

P.S. I blured out some icons on my desktop to avoid some odd conversations about some of the applications I use.

I think your biggest mistake was that you didn't let the card run with the stock cooler in the beginning. You could have received a defective in the first place.

Good luck to you, and tell us how this will work out.

Hey fellas. I'm going to resurrect this thread a little here and let you all know what happened.

Anyone who has bought an AC Silencer knows they throw in the little tube of thermal paste. What I recently did (haven't had time for a few months) was completely remove all the AS5 from the GPU, RAM, and any that was on the board. I COMPLETELY cleaned the board as well, around every little nook and crany I could find.

I applied AS5 carefuly on the core and the supplied AC thermal paste on the RAM, screwed all screws back on only finger-tight and plugged her back in.

Works wonders now, no artifacts whatsoever (at stock speed, haven't had time to test an o/c).


Thanks a lot for the help fellas, finally got her working again.

Glad to hear you got it working, as well as had the patience to take time to figure it out. I know there was one person here on the forums that completely trashed their NV Silencer 5 because it didn't live up to their expectations, and they didn't want to take the time to lap it.