7600GT - I think Ive Blown it

Hi Guys, i am totally new here and baffled...

Really need some help here......

Just bought a brand new 7600GT and installed it. I was very keen to overclock it. To do this i used one of the programs to unlock the Nvidia control panal to access the clocking template. Now the 7600 sits with a core clock of 560 and a memory clock of 1.4Ghz. but me being me pushed the core to 660 and the memory to 1.5Ghz....I know...Why did i do it????
Anyway the control panel let me do this so i suppose all was fine. I kept an eye on the tempreture and that never went above 46C. so all is ok......so i thought. Anyway i played call of duty 2 on full detail and it ran fine. Then i played Silent hunter 3 and in certain parts of the game i get these....and i can only describe them as....Big triangles and sharp edges. Almost as if there are lots of these triangles all seen through a kalidascope moving about. Sorry but its very hard to explain. Its like when you approch a wall in a game...you know the game designers intended you not to see beyond that wall, but sometimes you can and you get this like view into another world, and there is all this distortion? Anyway its a bit like that, but only in the actual game...or parts of it.
(For anyone reading this who had played SH3 it happens in the Cammand room and the conning tower)
Anyway i thought maybe i over did it with the clocking, so i went back into control panal and checked the temp on the card again....Still 45-47c.....No problems there?? So i run call of duty 2 again on full details.....game runs like a dream. So i uninstall SH3 and re-install the game.....Still the same problem. So i un-install the Nvidia drivers and start again....Still the same problem. SO....can anyone help? my own instincts tell me i have blown the card, but it never even got hot when i overclocked it....also it runs COD2 without any of these "triangles". So what could this be? I have the patch for SH3, which is supposed to clear up any bugs, so i know its not the game.
Any opinions, suggestions or advice would be SOOOOO appreciated.

Cheers, Matt

PS. I have now put both clocks bck to default....this has not had any effect.

 

I have and play SH3 and had difficulties on my older machine. Blackouts and such. My newer machine plays it fine. Did you try adjusting settings in the game? May have to tone it down a bit. Great game but can be buggy on slower machines. Just installed Seawolves expansion for SH3 and it blacked out once then I installed patch for it and it seems fine. So basically I would try making adjustments in the game to the graphics though there are not alot of things you can change.

 

Well 46C is a little high but nothing to worry about. The only possible explanation I can think about is that your pipelines are a slightly defective. When you overclocked your 7600GT did you unlock any extra pipelines? If you did one of those must have been faulty.
You should also post us the rest of your system.

P.S. Those strange triangles are called "artifacts"

 

Hey,

Thanks so much for replying to my post....I did what you said(about ajusting setting), but naa its not having it. You said you had problems on an older Machine...Well i have just done a major upgrade (See end), so i dont think it down to the fact i cant run the game on it......

Also Yeah i did have a look at Riva Turner, but couldent see there was anymore pipelines to unlock (or is there?), as this is not really a stripped down card is it? But staying on the subject of pipelines...Pixel Unit 2 has been disabled on the card, but you still have the option to turn it on. I realise that even though it says 16 pipes, it still only has twelve, but is there anyway to actually enable Pixel unit 2? Or is it locked out from the card itself.

your thoughts on this would be good, and thanks sailor for giving me the proper name of my "triangles" lol

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BTW - My Specs

Asrock Dual VSTA Mobo
Intel Pentium D 820 2.8Ghz
2Gb DDRII 4300
320Gb Seagate Barracuda HD
Xpertvision Geforce 7600GT (PCI-E)

 

Well I like studying on hardware but this is beyond my knowlege. Add "if I am not mistaking" to the following.
You have one pixel unit disabled. So your image passes properly only through the vertex processing. In the vertex processing units objects are split into triangles. Since some of these triangles were suposed to be processed by pixel unit 2 (which is out of order) they appear as simple triangles. Don't try enabling pixel unit 2 until someone more experienced says so.
Everything seems OK with the rest of the system.

 

I've got the same issue. I'm on an AGP GeForce 7600GS OC from BFG Tech. I've posted on another forum without luck, that forum has a list of stuff I've tried and my DXDiag attached.

http://www.hardware.info/forum/showthread.php?p=986089#post986089

We're also not the only ones with this problem. I found another person with similiar artifacting and even screenshots. Unfortunately, I can't find the link, but here are some others with the exact same problem:

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t17809.html

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t20847.html

I bet I could find more if I tried. What I'm seeing as a commonality is the SiS motherboard and it's built-in graphics adapter/chipset. I tried updating mine, but I ended up breaking the installation (see the other forum I linked to). I looked in my Bios (Award Medallion V6.0) but it didn't have a section for disabling my VGA. Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Before, my SiS stuff was complaining when I opened the Advanced property of my monitor settings and when I booted up, and it wouldn't let me uninstall my VGA utilities saying SiSInst.dll was missing. On bootup it said SiSApCom.dll was missing. Now it says SisApCom doesn't have the right stuff in it or somesuch (it does this since I manually installed some drivers for SiS 650, which mighta been a mistake on my part). My SiSTray and VGA utilities are, of course, toast. Any recommendations on how to fix them, or more importantly, shut off the VGA entirely? Do I need to update my Bios to do that and if so, how do I do so?

 

Oh, and theres one more link, too.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=202352

If I can find the last link, I will. It's a topic called "A problem for the AGES!" on some forum out there, regarding a guy with the exact same problem (also a SiS motherboard) and card

 

The problem is with the ram.. The 7600GT and GS both come with every thing unlocked. The disabled "Pixel Unit 2" is a bug in Riva tuner. When overclocking the 7600 core it eather runs fine or hard locks/crashes, when overclocking the 7600s ram you get exactly what your describing... random triangles and textures flash randomly. If your overclocking with riva tuner, maybe its loading its overclockign settings in the fresh drivers as well ?? And the bigest question of all, is it only in one game ? BTW your temps are fine, the 7600 core doesnt seem to care as long as its running under 85c. It doesnt seem to matter what speed its running either if it tops 85c it crashes or if your lucky defalts to a slower "low power 3D" speed or 2D...

 

sorry for butting in here . i am following this thread closely . i am in the process of overclocking my xfx 7600 gt . you say there is a bug in riva tuner .
am i reading you right?
i have no overclocking program loaded as yet ,i am waiting on my vf900cu cooler to arrive .
i have a question.
is it better to use coolbits ,or riva tuner ?.
i overclocked a fx5200 before useing nvtweak .
what is the best program for the 7600 gt??
again , sorry for butting in .
thanks for reading .
cheers .

 

There is no best overclocking utility, I recommend coolbits as its the easiest to use in less you know how to use all the advanced features in revatuner like being able to disable the clock test. Odds are its an error in revatuner, but its possible that there is another unit physically on the card that is locked in hardware. I will look into that and if it is the case will try to find if there is a way to unlock it.

 

much thanks for the reply .
ill see what happens with this7600 gt and coolbits early next week .
again , thanks .
cheers .

 

It would be rather strange for this problem to come from overclocking the RAM considering the number of people having the issue....is there any way to eliminate or fix it? If you checked the forum links I posted, you should realize I've tried both underclocking my card (both GPU and RAM clocks) with no effect, and I also tried 3DMark's tests. The demos did indeed give me the same problems as real games, though when I used Software T&L instead of Hardware T&L the problem was nonexistant. What can I do? I need help to ensure my SiS chipset and Bios are updated.

 

It happens to me when I press alt+tab while opening BF2. :|

 

Just a shot in the dark. Aren't these cards OC'd from the factory hence the OC in the name? So maybe OC'n them more is causing the problem. Have you turned it back down to the factory settings and tried it? (I don't remember reading that you did if so disregard)

 

Hotmattman, in the opening post says that he set the clocks to default.
Solodric in post No 12 says that not only he set it back to the default but he also underclocked the GPU and the memory.
So after the first overclocking it seems that it is ireversable. Have you considered the case I described?

 

I thought he had the default clocked 7600GT. Oh well.

 

I made a mistake in my post; I actually have a 7800, not a 7600, GS OC from BFG Tech. Sailor, that's an interesting theory, but what do we do to fix it?

 

If its the overclock that came with it by defalt thats giving your artifacts.. it is a bad card... its that simple. Have you uninstalled all the video card drivers (using something like driver cleaner ) ? How hot is the ram running? Can you give us a list of games it does it in and what games it doesnt do it in? You are using the latest drivers (93,71s) right?

 

If you had followed the links, you would have seen that I have indeed used a professional driver cleaner. My typical GPU temperature is 45-50 degrees, sometimes 55, which is well within card limits. Also, you woulda noticed I have used not only the latest drivers, but also the ones that came with my card, some homebrew ones online, and several versions suggested by BFG tech, all AFTER this problem started (except the ones from the disk, of course). I've tried Chaos Theory, Raven Shield, and Neverwinter Nights 2, all have the problem. Only my 2D games seem to lack it.

 

If the memory its self isent getting to hot, and under clocking the ram doesnt help, then it looks like RMA time if your lucky enough for it to be still under warranty. Have you tryed ATI tool to see if it too detects the artifacts ? Sorry if i come across as layz in not reading all of this thread but time is not one of the things i have a lot of ...