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what's going on here then? (graphics problem)
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
ok, so today I started up world of warcraft, did nothing out of the ordinary, havn't installed any new software / drivers, and the visuals started to bug. It's the same having restarted the PC, and winamp's gone odd too, as you can see in the pictures I've attached.
now, the odd thing is that the ui wasn't bugged, and nor is my start bar, but my mouse pointer is
any idea what the hell's going on here?
now, the odd thing is that the ui wasn't bugged, and nor is my start bar, but my mouse pointer is
any idea what the hell's going on here?
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Usually if you overclock to far things like this happen.
edit: it seems to be fine at the moment... I'll try recreating what caused it in the first place, might be something else :chin: very odd!
oh, maybe not, just making the buttons on winamp animate causes the problem grr. it gets worse, check out this screenie
Slowing it down should help isolate the problem. If the artifacts disappear after slowing the memory down, then you can be fairly sure that you're seeing the first symptoms of hardware failure.
thanks for all your suggestions, it's about time I got a new graphics card anyway
drivers have been uninstalled and freshly updated to the latest version, card's inserted properly, heatsinks are clean, there's no fan to clog up either...
underclocking the memory makes things (a lot) worse, overclocking doesnt seem to make a difference, the artifacting's still there.
changing the GPU and the core clockspeed also don't make a difference.
does that mean the memory's broked?
It isn't conclusive, to be honest. Memory doesn't generally just fail completely - a particular piece of it tends to start struggling to perform at the rated specification. Slowing it down makes it work at a slower speed and a lower temperature, which normally gives you a fair idea as to whether or not it is beginning to fail.
As you've still got artifacts, whether you slow down the memory or the GPU, I'm inclined to say that whilst one or the other may be giving you grief, your next port of call should be your PSU. Any chance of you checking over the voltages being given out? They'll drop when the PSU is under load, so what you see in the BIOS isn't always a true representation of the real-world output.
Has anything else started to struggle on the system recently? Have you added a heap of fans or anything for the summer?
nothing else has been struggling noticable, although in the last year it's been slower on the start up, but that's probably just because the hard drive's getting filled up. I've made sure there arn't too many programs that run on startup to fix that though.
Temperature Sensor(s)
Board Temperature : 41.0°C / 105.8°F
CPU Temperature : 49.0°C / 120.2°F
Power / Aux Temperature : 72.5°C / 155.3°F
Voltage Sensor(s)
CPU Voltage : 1.66V
Aux Voltage : 1.66V
+3.3V Voltage : 3.33V
+5V Voltage : 5.08V
+12V Voltage : 11.80V
-12V Voltage : -12.03V
-5V Voltage : -5.05V
Standby Voltage : 5.02V
Battery Voltage : 2.85V
Warning 2518 : Mainboard temperature is too high.
as you can see the power/aux temperature is a bit toasty! voltages look fairly normal I suppose... it also said my video bios is 3 years old and should be updated, how'd I go about that? (seeing as I've already updated the driver to the latest version)
Mainboard temperature is high, but it isn't all that bad. Lower is better, but you're measuring your system at one of the warmest times of the year. At the moment my motherboard is 31°C, and my CPU is 39°C.
More worrying is the 'Power / Aux Temperature' - is this the temperature inside the PSU? Do you know where the readings are being probed from? 72°C is rather too high for any part of a home PC, IMO.
On the whole. your temperature readings are a little high. They're up at the top-end of what would be classed as normal - so long as everything was working fine, then I'd say it wasn't an issue. But as you're experiencing problems, it might be worth trying to get the temperature of your machine down. Take the side off the case, see if that helps with anything. If you've got a fan lying around, then temporarily try using that to force air through the case.
Bank on replacing the battery by the end of the year - it's a lot lower than a new one would read.
I'm assuming the power/aux is the temperature in the PSU, although I'm not totally sure, it seems to vary a bit, that's the high end.
my housemate has a radeon 9800 pro I could borrow for a while, perhaps it might be a good idea to replace mine with that one and see if it fixes the problem, I'll do that once I clean it out.
and as for the battery, I should hopefully be getting a new PC by the end of the year, this one is starting to show its age now
thanks for all your help btw :thumb:
Don't worry about air dusters. Use a vacuum cleaner. I'd not reccomend it but turning a can of deodorant upside down does a very similar job to air dusters - all that comes out is propellant, though you'll smell a bit of the perfume too
I dunno, this is just annoying, I've finished my exams now, and really just want to play on my PC for the next 2 weeks till I go hom efor the summer
think i've pretty much done everything I can without replacing the graphics card now, so I think I'll give up till I can be arsed to do that, thanks for all your help
Good luck with it!
on restart, with no drivers (which would imply the graphics card wasn't doing anything, right?) the problem was a hell of a lot worse... does this indicate that it's nothing to do with the graphics card and something else like the onboard graphics?
Have you tried removing your card and running games on just the onboard card?
so the system uses the graphics card even when the drivers have been uninstalled... uses built in default drivers then I presume?
Some sites need updating desperatley. ;/
And sad to say mate... think the card might be borked. Must say despite the fact it already has - DRIVERS. Get news ones for everything, if no result, then try going back to the originals the card came with. If still no luck, maybe it is borked.
£60 off eBay. I've got one in my comp (not off eBay) and they're fantastic.
[/Shameless ATI plug]
I've got artefacting when my gfx card is doing too much and overheating. If parts of your system are that warm then maybe that's what it is?
yeh, already done the whole new drivers thing, didnt help
and yeh shyboy, I do like my ati cards, it's all clean inside my PC and on the heatsink of the card, and the case is open, so it shouldnt be overheating unless it's proper broke really, damnit! PSU's still running a bit hot though, not much else I can do about that..
onboard vga?
I have like, infinte old TNT Vanta's and other PCI gfx cards... surley... you must have something? If not, it'll be easy to get one... they are cheap/free most of the time.
I would sell ya one for a small sum of money. :thumb:
You said you had onboard as well!
I've got a known-good AGP video card here that you can borrow, just cover my postage.
no matter, i'll have to put up with it till I get a new one, thanks for the offer click, but I wouldnt want to break it
Offer is open if you want it. Though with the cost of postage two ways, you could probably buy a TNT2 or something on eBay.