Input needed on GFX problem

Hello!

I've been having serious problems with my graphics during gameplay such as World of Warcraft and Everquest 2. I get these heavy artifacting resulting in walls of outdragged textures and "lances" shooting in/out of my character. If I alt+tab, the "walls" disappear for a while, but then I get this annoying glitching, like lightning all over my UI, terribly annoying.

Now this may seem heat related, but the GPU temperature never exceeds 65 degrees Celcius(using ATI Tray Tools). I've upped the fan speed so that it'll never exceed 60 degrees during gameplay, but I still get this artifacting. I've also asked the specific games Technical Support for help, but it seems it all comes down to my computer and its eventual "flaws".

In the beginning I didn't have these graphics problems, but I did have an error popping up regularly every day called error#132 when playing WoW, but it disappeared when I upgraded BIOS. Instead I got this GFX problem...

I've done these steps to try solve the problem,all according to WoW Tech Support; Deleted certain game folders, fresh install on a defragged partition, disabling/enabling certain video settings, updated drivers to GFX and chipset(using Driver Sweeper), monitored temp by the help of SpeedFan and ATI Tray Tools, ran Memtest(0 errors).

None of these steps have helped. All they can say is that my PSU might not cut it, but the GFX-card has never overheated.

Maybe this isn't due to the GFX-card, maybe it is the PSU, or BIOS, or monitor... I have no idea really. But I can say that my monitor SOMETIMES glitches when I shut down the PC and don't turn off the monitor and when I power it up again I need to pull the power cord and put back in and it works. Weird... This leads me to think it's a PSU problem, but then again, no overheating what so ever...

Does anyone have a clue about this? Input is GREATLY appreciated.

The monitor sounds like it is showing your glitches fine, so I would forget that.

Does the graphics card have an extra power connector on it, and if so is it plugged in?

Do you have another graphics card to try?

I am considering sending my graphics card back as I get exactly the same thing. Mine is heat, not in the GPU but it seems the RAM is on the edge. I made the problem go away for a while by pointing a fan directly at the RAM cooling fins, but now it is coming back. Have ordered a cheap replacement video card to try so I can make sure that is where the problem is.

It could be overheating VRAM that's causing the issues, whilst not a "known issue" on that particular card, there's definately been problems in the past with some of the Sapphire vram on other models.

Thanks for the answers guys, it's so frustrating trying to figure things out by oneself.

There's only one power connector as far as I can see, but I've got a another computer I could test it out in, which is using a 7800gt, similar quality/power as my x1900gt. That particular computer uses an AMD CPU but it has even less PSU power than mine and it has run fine well over 2 years now.. It's PSU is an Antec SP 380W(gasp!).

Could I ruin my x1900gt even more by trying it out on the second computer?

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Originally Posted by exosia

Could I ruin my x1900gt even more by trying it out on the second computer?

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I doubt it very much.

Does the card show these artifacts in all 3D applications? i.e games, benches etc. It definately sounds like the cards got issues and may well need RMAing.

Another thing to try is underclocking the memory and core and then play your artifacting games again and see what happens.

Hi again,

To s_kinton:

I've underclocked it and it doesn't make any difference at all, still randomly artifacting sometimes heavily and sometimes not that much. It artifacts in every 3D application, yes.

Received an email from EU Tech Support and they want me to RMA it, guess I'll have to do that then(oh teh fuss).

Thanks for your input guys, greatly appreciated!