6600GT artifacts

[esmo]

I am using a 6600GT and have been seeing purple and green shapes quickly, randomly flashing around the screen. This happens shortly after I start to play a game like WoW or even Civilization IV. The shapes appear more and more until the whole screen is a mess of them. I am running the card stock, put into a Dell from around 2004 (4200 I think). The only way I can prevent them or get them to stop is if I leave the case open and put a room fan pointing at the case on high speed... medium and low don't cut it. I assume heat is causing the problem, but I'm not sure why... the card has only started behaving like this since playing the two games I mentioned. I've played Neverwinter Nights and Elder Scrolls: Morrowind... no problems that I recall. Would an updated driver possibly help? Is my card malfunctioning? Is it possibly not getting enough power (there's no power connector for the card, but didn't know if power could still be an issue via the mb?)

Thanks for any info!

 

[esmo]

Sounds like heat form a poorly ventilated case.

It could be just it's age but you might want to remove it and mkae sure no dust is clogging the fan as well as make sure the airvents of the case are clear.

Re-applying thermal paste may also be an idea if possible.

reapply thermal paste to what? You think the CPU is possibly putting too much heat into the case? Even if that is true,... I seriously have one of those fans you mount on a window ledge pointed into the open side of the case on "high" to prevent the artifacting. That seems somewhat extreme to me.

 

[wa1]

Reapplying thermal paste to your GPU card of course...
Just make sure your card is free from dust.

 

[jitpublisher]

When was the last time you removed the old card and simply blew all of the dust out of it? Is the fan working correctly? On a card several years old, it is pretty common for the fan to quit. Maybe it is still spinning, but only slowly, not fast enough to cool properly....sometimes they will do that before they quit completely. How about your case fans? Are they in good working order, keeping a good supply of cool air flowing in, and hot air exhausting? If all these are looking okay, the old card may simply be on it's last leg. But check all of these things before your start messing with removing the fan and heatsink, or throw in the towel on it.

 

[esmo]

When was the last time you removed the old card and simply blew all of the dust out of it? Is the fan working correctly? On a card several years old, it is pretty common for the fan to quit. Maybe it is still spinning, but only slowly, not fast enough to cool properly....sometimes they will do that before they quit completely. How about your case fans? Are they in good working order, keeping a good supply of cool air flowing in, and hot air exhausting? If all these are looking okay, the old card may simply be on it's last leg. But check all of these things before your start messing with removing the fan and heatsink, or throw in the towel on it.

The computer is a Dell from around 2004... it has just two fans total... one in the PSU and one that has a shroud attached to it that goes over the CPU heatsink.

The fan on the video card seems to be moving fairly quickly, but I have no way to tell if it's considerably slower than stock or not.

I have cleaned out the case as well as the heatsink/fan for the graphics card.