Graphics card problem

Joined
May 18, 2005
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I just got a new Graphics card, and it seems to work fine, but if I play a game, after a few minutes it screws up and both monitors look like this: http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/Rat1fink/damnscreen.jpg

then my secondary monitor goes black, and the primary monitor continues to look like that, the game is no longer working, and I end up having to turn off the power.

Any idea what would cause this? Is it a faulty card, or is there something I need to adjust?
the card is a 512MB GeForce6800XT
 
It could be getting too hot. Do you have good air circulation through the case, and is the graphics card fan working properly?

Another possibility, power supply. Many (most) low-end off-the-shelf computers are equipped with equally low-end power supplies. Just guessing, but I bet that a relatively high-end card like that requires a 450-550watt PSU, depending on what else is installed in the computer.

Since it starts out fine then deteriorates, my first guess would be overheating.

Good Luck,
-Bob
 
Try reducing your Graphics Card Acceleration

Display Properties/Settings/Advanced Button and then the Troubleshoot tab. Drag the slider to NONE and see if that helps.

Also go the Nvidia website and download their Legacy driver file which holds the latest drivers for all of their cards.
 
I have been watching the temperature, and it has been maintaining a steady 51 degrees, so it is not overheating.

How do I check my Power supply wattage?
 
It'll probably say on the PSU (metal box where the power cord pugs into).

-Bob
 
If I turn off the acceleration, I lose the ability to use the NVIDIA control panel.

This problem only occurs whileplaying a game. It happens in GTA San Andreas and BattleField2. I tried Doom3 at High graphics settings, and it did not happen, even though the graphics were more intense.
 
Here are some additional PSU tidbits. I don't understand it all myself, but read quite a bit when I was researching my new computer last fall.

- the power rating should be for continuous watts, not just capable of peaking at 500w.
- modern PSUs have dual or triple +12V rails with a sufficient number of amps per rail. My PSU has three +12V curcuits with 18 amps per circuit.

Maybe someone else can clarify the PSU requirements for your particular card.
Good Luck,
-Bob
 
It could be a compatability issue with your card and certain games. If so, upgrading the graphics card drivers should fix it.

It still could be the PSU though. Some games cause more stress on the graphics card, and some drain more on the processor. I think this difference could drain the power differently, creating the symptom you've photographed.

-Bob
 
I am going to check for driver updates now, then I will try playing a game. I hope it is not the PSU, Thats all I need, to dump more money into this computer.
 
that it is most likely 305 watts.
Well that's one possible source of the problem. Wish I could tell you more.

-Bob

Added:
Three years ago I bought an off-brand case that included a 400w PSU, and the bundle cost $30. My new PSU is an Antec NeoPower HE 550 and cost about $110.
 
Bad news. It sounds like it's your power supply and Dell often uses a non standard PSU configuration which means that often your only choice is stock. If your machine will take an aftermarket PSU, I'd be your machine would behave much better. a 512mb 6800 is about the most power hungry video card ever built.
 
Thanks for all the replies so far.
I just was test playing Half Life 2 for over an hour and it worked fine, so it seems to only glitch out on certain games. I am really surprised that it messes up on GTA San Andreas, since it has pretty low end graphics, especially compared to Doom3 and HL2. I guess it is something other than the graphic level that is making it glitch?

I did find a replacement 400 or so watt power source for the Dell 8300, but it costs about $120 hopefully I can figure something else out.
I have been monitoring the card, and it only spiked 4 degrees (to 54 degrees) while running HL2 on high settings. So at least it seems to stay cool on its own.
 
The card is only a 6800 , 350 is fine for that. (foot in mouth here , althought that also depends on how mmuch you are runing , i.e dvd/cd drive , anything else that draws power) Although it would not hurt to upgrade the PSU if you got extra dough , may as well go for a 500w.
It does sound like various game issues , face it nearly every game is relased with fingers crossed that it is going to work on every individual system out there.
I have spent hours on forums in the past trying to get various games to work. You can try messing with the settings inside your games graphics options, especially look for anything that mentions shading or shadows , make sure to turn those to low or off. I have a high end vid card and have to turn shadows to thier lowest to avoid problems. It's often not the as much the hardware involved as it is the game itself. An example of this is that HL2 works fine while some of your others do not (Thank You Sierra and Valve for making such a kick ass game !)

You can also try looking for hombrewed shader patches if there are any for your game/s.
Remember the key thing about video cards is not the amount of ram they have , it is the GPU and what shaders they support that really matters.
A good example is NWN2 , a graphically beautiful game but Obsidian just had to go out and use some exotic ass shader that only certain cards deal with nicely , even other high end cards have had problems runing this game.
Blame the game companies I guess. Some folks will tell you to buy an Xbox or whatever but it's not nearly as fun , or frustrating :D
You could also search for Black Widows guide to tweaking your PC for gaming. He will tell you all of the BS services you can turn off , just little things to free up resources , it does help your games run smooth.
 
For those problem games, you should be able to create an application profile for them to automatically ratchet down AA, shadows, dynamic lighting and such.

Click the Nvidia taskbar icon.
You'll have a tree menu on the left and settings on the right. Select Performance and Quality Settings.

Now choose the application from the drop down menu, then apply a setting from the active profile drop down menu. You can tweak Anti-aliasing and such for each program to keep it running happily.

Phil
 
Maybe start from the beginning and troubleshoot from there. I installed a new video card forgetting to delete all previous video card drivers. My screen did weird things. I went back, uninstalled anything to do with my previous GPU, then I installed the latest drivers. Worked fine after that. Don't know if you had already tried this, though. I upgrade my card frequently and the only problems I've had were 'user error' ones - not hardware/software related. :D
 
I did uninstall all the ATI drivers, but that was after the NVIDIA drivers were installed. . . could that have caused this problem?
 
Yeah, maybe. That's what happened in my case. So, I had to start completely over and uninstall both new and old drivers (saved the newest driver on the desktop), and go from there. You want to start off without GPU drivers, install your new GPU, and then install the latest drivers.
 
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