Spiking, Stretching and Crashing...

[Starsky303]

Hello!

I think my graphics card is broken but how can I find out?
I've been playing The Witcher for some time now and recently the game has started to crash. The game would crash and stretch/spike the textures. At first I thought it was simply a bug with the game but now every game I play crashes after about 5mins of play, sometimes (Portal/HL2 Episode 2) crashes with spikes.

I don't have any viruses or spyware and I've ran memtest which comes out clear. My temperatures are fine too. It started yesterday and I've never had a problem like this with this setup which I've had for a long time now so I think there's something wrong with my graphics card

Is there a 'memtest-type-thing' I can use to find out?
If anyone has any other ideas I love to hear them!

Cheers.

Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
Athlon 64 FX-55
GeForce 8800 GTX XT
2GB Corsair (TWINX2048-C2PT)
Maxtor 300GB HD
Audigy 2 ZS
Windows XP - Home Edition x32

 

[pdyckman@comcas]

If nothing is overheating then something is losing it's value within a short time. Try that 8800 in a different machine to make sure it's O.K. First step.

 

[Starsky303]

Ok. I'm now not so sure it has something to do with my memory or graphics card. Windows Explorer crashes now... but only when I'm on facebook for 5 mins!

Maybe something to do with Java?

I ran another memory test overnight but it came out clean although when I've tried to play games, the same thing happens again. I've then restart to notice white speckles on the screen when the computer boots up, then also noticing a few blue speckles on the Windows XP logo on boot up too... What does all of this mean? Please help!

PS, I can use this site plus others without crashing or the hint of a crash, when face book crashes, lines appear all over the screen, then the mouse goes, only to come back in use after a few seconds, then go again, lines n all - odd
It's all got to be related...

 

[Ph30nIX]

GFX could possibly be broken if your seeing lots of artifacts, try testing for overheating first though.

 

[Starsky303]

My graphics card temperatures are fine, although I think my memory is overheating... a possibility? How do I monitor my RAM temperatures? Is there a way?

Also, why does explorer crash (pretty much in the same way a game does) only when I'm typing a message in facebook? My other applications are fine, windows media player, photoshop etc.

 

[Starsky303]

Now there are spots on bios screen/startup screen... it's the graphics card. OInly bought it in April! Am sending it back for testing and replacement... good thing I never o/c'd it... didn't need to, was XT already.

Am disappointed in Nvidia.

 

[Starsky303]

Just a thought, but can increasing the CPU multiplyer damage the graphics card or is the risk restricted to the CPU?

 

[ucpproto]

Just a thought, but can increasing the CPU multiplyer damage the graphics card or is the risk restricted to the CPU?

can damage cpu and mobo not gfx