Is there something wrong with my GPU??

[Theocnoob]

Eliminated: It's NOT the GPU (Tested with HD4850)
Next Test: PSU with Corsair VX750>>

Lately I've been losing performance in games and experiencing strange glitches.

It began as visibly reduced framerates in my games that I play. At first, it only started to happen when I exited one game and loaded another-- as if some kind of hardware resource wasn't freed up. If I restarted the machine the problem would go away. Now restarting the machine has no effect.

Then I started seeing weird video glitches like these:

First it was small things like borders being in the wrong place like here in Spore-- and weird sort of glitching around the borders of rivers in WiC





You can see in the first two that the glitch is the same on the two different maps. The glitch pattern only changes when I restart the game.














Also, most strangely, sometimes I get this strange brightness glitch

http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/...w&current=wic_online2008-11-2600-57-59-90.flv
^See Vid

I've confirmed this is a hardware problem because I've had these same issues on two completely seperate drives with seperate OS's which do not see eachother.

They even have totally different:

Motherboard drivers

Videocard drivers

Sound drivers

just to be sure.

I also get very uneven performance. For example last night the World in conflict benchmark got me an average rate of 48 with a minimum of 25. Today it was 48 and 31. How can performance vary so much?

I ran MEMTEST in safemode to test the most ram possible and completed 2000% (15HRS). 0 errors on both sticks.

My system is:
Asus P5K Premium P35
BFG 8800GTS g92
ASUS Xonar D2 PCI
2x1024 Corsair Dominator 1066
5-5-5-15-2T 518Mhz (at POST says 1039)
E6550@433x7 3.04Ghz 1.33ish Vcore
Antec Sonata w/500W earthwatts

all voltages auto. Ram set to 2.1V as per mfg. spec.

HARDWARE FAILURES SO FAR:

Seagate HDD Failed 5 months ago. Replaced with WD
(bizzarely- my laptop, on AC power, also had the HD die a week later)

RAM (mushkin
1066) failed 2 months ago. Replaced with corsair.

BAD STUFF THAT HAS HAPPENED TO SYSTEM:

1Kinda got hot at one point. Forgot to clean it for awhile. When Mushkin ram failed opened case and dust was completely covering the CPU HS resulting in crappy cooling. Did not check temps at that time but when everything is clean my peak under load is about 50 celsius on the CPU and 60-65 on the GPU

2 I smoke a lot. System is in a smokey room. Smoke=tar=dust STICKS to stuff... I don't know if this tar conducts electricity or not... Just putting it out there to help you help me

3 I once removed the HS from the GPU (about six months ago. It has worked fine since AFAIK. Did not begin getting these problems until 1 month ago)

After I blew all the dust out I replaced the HS properly afaik. No thermal pads were damaged AFAIK.




System Temps:

I just played WiC on max for 2 hours. MAX temp recorded 70 average 60-65 during gameplay.

GPU maxed at 73 and averaged high 60s-70

ORTHOS maxes me @ 80c

 

[watchthisspace]

Have you tried your video card in another system?

 

[Theocnoob]

Dont have another system to try it in.

 

[MARCI]

Okay.. mail your vid card to me, i'll test it, tell you it's killed, and have a new vid card.... no seriously.. do you have a second vid card to test in the same system, to see if it has the same glitches?...

 

[gigabit]

Dude i smoke and i dont have any problems with me system.

 

[Mathersalan]

Most of the systems I look at which died due to hardware failure came from heavy smokers. Opening up the case theres sticky tar mess all over the main board and its components.

 

[MARCI]

I USED to smoke, not only my fans got coated with sticky tar and dust mixture, also my windows. I didn't notice the windows for a long time, just cleaning them with windex. Then one day I sort of noticed that everything looked a little yellowed outside. I opened the window to see what was up, and realized the problem was a film on the window panes. I ended up scraping the windows with razor blades, and scraping dried tar off the inside of the windows.. It had formed a tint like film. ewwwww

 

[gigabit]

I guess i clean my system more than some then.But i have yet to get any tar build up on my system.But i also dont blow smoke at my system.I try to leave the computer when i light up

 

[Theocnoob]

Ok I just tested the system with an ATI HD4850 512MB default clocks.

Got the same reduced framerate issue and some other graphics things that shouldnt be happening on such a high end card but in different ways due to the different architechture I assume...

I actually got a LOWER 3dmark score on the 4850 than the 8800GTS and my PSU was makign weird noises during 3dmark so I'm gonna swap the PSU and run it with the GTS next and see if that does it and if not its either the MOBO or CPU causing the problem...

 

[Theocnoob]

After having changed EVERY single part (literally- excluding drives) I have concluded that it must be the memory-- cuzz that's the only part I haven't checked.

So that's what I'll be doing tommorow.

 

[w00tstock]

"I ran MEMTEST in safemode to test the most ram possible and completed 2000% (15HRS). 0 errors on both sticks."

The vista memtest tool does to test all the memory blocks. Also have you attempted to either slow down the ram or up the voltage?

 

[Cuiiey]

have you tried to reinstall the drivers?

 

[Theocnoob]

"I ran MEMTEST in safemode to test the most ram possible and completed 2000% (15HRS). 0 errors on both sticks."

The vista memtest tool does to test all the memory blocks. Also have you attempted to either slow down the ram or up the voltage?

Yes I have slowed it down. The voltage is 2.1V as recommended by the OEM.

I also tried some OCZ ram which was 5-5-5-15 1066 2.1V and had the same problems.

I'm now on a P45 board (new), TX750PSU (new) and wolfdale E8400 (45nm) and same problem.