Odd Graphical Problems

[Dark_Oppressor]

Alrighty, here's my story:
I've been having some problems(well, lots) with games on my desktop lately(well, games other than Nethack, that is). It seems to be lots of strange graphical problems. A while back, I discovered that one of my two 1-gig sticks of ram was extremely corrupt, so I removed it and continued merrily along, only to begin having these odd problems with playing games soon afterward. Assuming it was the other stick of ram(they came in a package together, so it made sense), I RMA'd them and got two new 1-gig sticks from Corsair. Unfortunately, upon receiving and installing these new ram sticks, my problems are continuing to persist. I am now thinking it is probably a graphics card related issue. This leaves me with a couple of possibilities:
a) My graphics card is suffering problems due to being over clocked(it is an eVGA card and came over clocked, I haven't done anything extra to it) or
b)My graphics card is overheating(or maybe a and b are related, I don't know)

Here are a few screenshots I took in Garry's Mod 10 last night:
http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?i...5897797mp5.jpg
http://img108.imageshack.us/my.php?i...5002326wo5.jpg
http://img405.imageshack.us/my.php?i...5323811ws6.jpg

These same kinds of graphical problems exist in all the other Source games I've tested so far, but as far as I can tell, do not exist in Quake III. Perhaps this is because Q3 is far older and doesn't use too much graphical juice?
Can anyone tell me what my problem is here, and what I can do to solve it? Do I need better cooling, a new graphics card, or something else entirely?

[hopperdave2000]

I looked at your screenshots and didn't really see anything in the last one, but the first two show a definite rendering problem. This could be due to any of the possibilities you mentioned (overheating, bad RAM, bad video card RAM) or a possible software or driver issue. First, power down the PC, unplug it from the wall, open it up, and take a good look at the video card. Are any chips discolored? Are any capacitors 'popped' with bowed out tops? Is it clean from dust? Does the fan spin freely? While your inside the PC, make sure all the fans and heat sinks are clean and the fans are spinning freely with no resistance. Make sure all cards (including RAM stix) are seated securely. Make sure the PSU fan is clean and spinning freely. Run a memory diagnostic (a bootable one is best; here's a link: http://www.majorgeeks.com/Microsoft_...tic_d3955.html) to check the RAM's integrity. Download and install the newest drivers for your video card. Visit this link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en to download a fully updated DirectX 9.0c. Installing it will repair and/or replace any corruption that may be in your current DirectX. There's also a chance that running the PC with the bad RAM has corrupted other system files; info was read from the hard drive and passed thru the bad RAM before being re-written back to the hard drive, and therefore may be corrupted. A safe reload of Windows may be in your future if these other suggestions don't fix the problem..... Good luck and keep us posted!

hd2k

[Dark_Oppressor]

Ok, I have clocked the card down to its standard clock speeds(the ones the regular Nvidia card is supposed to run at), and I was able to play Gmod10 for around a half hour or so without any artifacts. After that time, there were a few small artifacts that showed up from time to time, but nothing major or game shattering, only a few weird lines on some textures. I continued playing for quite a while and things didn't seem to get any worse. Since then I have removed the case's side and added a fan(not a case fan, mind you, a REAL fan) blowing onto the video card, so this should help matters even more. I also made sure all fans and whatnot were clean and clear while I was down there, and made sure I had the latest DirectX 9.0c installed, so things are looking up.

[viper_boy403]

its overheating; you can definitely tell that its artifacting VERY badly in the second pic, the 1st just looks like its missing a texture or sumthing

have the Nvidia control panel log your temps while you play so you can see how high they are getting or if that doesnt work (it wont log temps for me) set the slowdown threshold on the card to like 90C (stock is like 110C or something like that) and it will notify you when your card reaches that level

also, it may be that the heatsink is just seated badly. take it off and reapply some new thermal paste if you can

[Dark_Oppressor]

Sorry for the late reply, but I've just come into 500 dollars, and have been wanting a new graphics card anyway, so I figure I will buy a new one. However, I'm not sure if it's just this card or if a new card will also overheat. I've rigged up a totally ghetto cooling system for the time being, involving a box fan etc, but I shouldn't have to have all this just to use a graphics card at stock(and now, under clocked below factory defaults) settings. Do you think if I were to buy a brand new, top of the line card, it would also overheat?

[viper_boy403]

it may be time for an upgrade anyways. What are your current specs? including your video card

[Dark_Oppressor]

I've got an Athlon 64 X2 4400+, 2 gigs of ram, and a Geforce 7900gt. I just now took the heat sink off the card and looked at the thermal paste, at which point I realized I have no idea what it should look like. All I had access to was a crappy cell phone camera, but I took a few pictures anyway, in case someone could tell me if it looked like I needed some new thermal paste. I checked the rest of the card(as suggested in this thread) and it looked fine as far as I could tell. Here's the pictures I took:
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/7...4215993lr2.jpg
http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/3...5422534qe1.jpg
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/3...4233875ne0.jpg

If at all possible, I'd prefer to get this current card working and buy an Xbox 360 with the money instead(most recent console I have is an N64), so I definitely want to try any possible avenues of fixing this thing.

[viper_boy403]

the paste looks ok, maybe a little bit dried out tho. If I were you i would pick up some arctic silver and reapply the thermal paste. maybe pick up an aftermarket cooler too? it will quiet things down a bit as well as keep it cooler

[Dark_Oppressor]

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll try that out. Would this be a good after market cooler for my card? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118117

[viper_boy403]

yes it would, pretty much any Zalman product is great, especially their cooling stuff

[Dark_Oppressor]

Ok, I cleaned off the old thermal grease and applied some Arctic Silver 5, and then installed the Zalman VF700-cu in place of the stock cooler. I seem to be idling about 12-14 C cooler than before, and I've gotten to about 50 C while playing a game. CS: Source(one of my "test" games that artifacted horribly before) ran for about 10-15 minutes with no problems on maxed settings, that's definitely new. I got to about 50 C while playing Insurgency(a HL2 mod that always blue-screened my computer after 5-10 minutes of playing before) and noticed some artifacting beginning, but this is a major step up from blue screens every time. No other game has shown artifacting or gotten above 44 C thus far. This seems to have helped tremendously!

[hats_for_clowns]

I had he same problem about 6 months ago with my GPU (nVidia 7900GS), turns out i burned out my graphics card due to the sub-standard liquid cooler i was using.
Long story short, got the GPU replaced under warranty and changed the cooler, now every things cool.
Only difference with my problem and yours is that the messed up colours where a bit different and tended to just be vertical lines.