Graphics card displaying random colours =/

ok,

I have had a geforce 6800 GT graphics card for about 10 months now.....

Yesterday, while i was playing a 3D rpg my screen just started to display random colours all over the screen... i couldn't ctr+alt+del..... nothing so i had to restart.....

It has done this about 10 times now..... and after about 20 mins gaming time.... it just seem so random as to why it would do it.....

Its ok on the desktop..... and i left Starwars: Empire at war on for about 7 hours just to test it out..... and nothing happened....

Perhaps its the 3D element, im not sure.

Does anyone have any suggestions??

thanx

-Philkills

 

try changing the game settings.....see if that helps...

 

so even tho it worked fine for the past 6 months on this game... you think its the game settings? .....

Nevertheless i did change the graphics to low... still done it.....

I found out from my brother that he has recently done a windows update ....coincidently the same day that the game started playing up..... so maybe its that... but how could that cause this =/

 

There are a few possible causes for the problem its best eliminate them one at a time,the most obvious is that the game has a problem so post the name of the game and check for patches and updates ,also if the game has any forums check the forums for people experiencing similar issues a quick google search with the game name and 'forum' should spring a few

Next you have to check it isnt overheating,check the idle temp of your card in display properties,ideally you dont want it idling over 60c,if so you may need more cooling by adding additional case fans or the card is clogged with dust,clean out the cards heatsink with canned air,squirt the air in the opposite direction from which the fans blows,the dust gets clogged on the lead edge blades of the heatsink,you need the dust to come out of the fan 'intake'

Also make sure you have the latest drivers for your card from nvidia.com,its also advisable to remove the previos drivers with a driver cleaning program such as this,follow the instructions in the readme,its has to be done in a specific order for the drivers to be totally removed

http://majorgeeks.com/Driver_Cleaner_Professional_d3214.html

 

I had the same problem with dreamfall and uninstalled the nvidia drivers and got Omega drivers from http://omegadrivers.net/ make sure to uninstall omega drivers and reinstall nvidia drivers from the internet after your done beating the game since Omega drivers seems to suck and crashes your computer in most games.I would have to guess its a driver problem not sure though.