Graphics Problem

[BlackDwarf]

Hey guys.

Got a mate who's having probs with his computer.

His graphics card died, and has now got a new one, but is experiencing this:



Any ideas?

[staffsMike]

underpowered..classic sign..although I had a 7900gtx that did that and it died the next day..does it need the 4 pin gfx connector from the psu?

[BlackDwarf]

Apparently the power is plugged in. Using the PCI-E power

Could it be the PSU is not powerful enough?

[staffsMike]

What gfx card and psu is it. I suppose it could be the psu but more often than not its the gfx card.

[BlackDwarf]

Tis a GeForce 6800GT on a 350W PSU

[staffsMike]

sounds good enough but i dont know how hungry 6800gt's are.

try another psu if you can but i think its the card.

[shaithis]

Looks like overheating and/or corrupt gfx card ram to me.

[max99]

Depending on the rest of the spec and the quality of the PSU, 350W may be just over the limit.

What happens if he temporarily disconnects all drives, sound cards, etc and drops to one stick of RAM?

And the obvious one (just in case) - has he properly reseated the graphics card? And is the card's fan definitely connected?

And finally, what exactly went wrong with the previous graphics card, as this current problem may well be connected?

[jamin]

I have had exactly that kind of graphics corruption after fitting a new cooler to a gfx card.

[Mutley]

That looks like a blown card to me...I had something very similar happen to my 6800GT, and I've been running it happily from an Enermax 350W PSU, also running a P4, 2 HDDs, 2 CD/DVD drives.
However, as has been suggested it always worth checking on power, unplug everything non-essential and see what happens.

Have you been able to get any temp measurements? If its happening as soon as you switch on, it won't be temp though.

[Blitzen]

My money would be on the RAM has died/dying.

Does it do it as soon as power is switched on or just when you get into windows?

[chuckskull]

That kind of corruption is almost always blown/wrongly configured RAM. The next thing to figure out is whether it;s the GFX RAM or the sticks. It's also worth a doing a CMOS clear as setting some of the timings wrong can cause similar problems.

Simplest way to figure it out is find another set of RAM or another GFX card to borrow for half an hour.

[zashark]

It's goosed mate send it back for another.