Gfx card problem

[nicke112]

Hi !

tried to overclock my old gfx card and cpu a few weeks ago and accidentaly broke the gfx card. Got weird artifacs and stripes, computer wouldnt start and so on so i decided to reset bios and get a new gfx card.

I bought a Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 1024MB OC. Installed drivers and everything and it worked great untill i decided to try playing a newer game on highest settings (settlers 7). A few minutes into the game the screen started getting minor disturbances, like when u have a cellphone close to an older display, moving like small waves soon after i close the game i get yellow lines all over the screen. During startup i got yellow showed up everywhere. after a few startups the yellow lines seemed to only occur on white background and green lines appeard on blue but i could only start windows in safe mode. (still getting yellow lines on white) after a few startups the computer got harder and harder to boot, every other startup i had to do a windows recovery to no gain and two times it told me that my overclock failed (I havnt even tried overclocking since i broke my last card) and i could chose to go to setup or reset. both times i picked reset but still got the same problem so i went and returned the gfx card and got a new one( they tested the card and they too got the yellow lines)

So today when I got home i insert the new gfx card and just after a few minutes the screen started getting disturbances. just like the old one. i restart the computer and its normal again. a few minutes later it starts again. i decide to lower resolution from 1680x1024 60hz to 1280x1024 75hz. havnt had any problems yet. been alomast an hour tho i havnt dared starting any games yet. I called tech support and he said that it sounds like a hardware problem and that i should come back with the gfx card again. I asked if it could be that my gfx card is getting too much power and that that might be breaking the cards but he said its not very likly. I also lowered power supply usage from preformance to balanced but i dont know if it did anything.

I would appriciate any help here as to what the problem could be because im clueless. feels like its me breaking the cards.

I have
Corsair Powersupply 550W
intel core 2 quad cpu q6700 @ 2.66Ghz 2.66Ghz
4 GB Ram
Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 1024MB OC
ACPI x64
BIOS American megatrends inc 0810

Computer was built 2008 (only things changed since then is the gfx card and the RAM)

 

[inzone]

First of all you keep refering to your Radeon card as a gfx card . Only Nvidia makes gfx cards. Not a big deal just nitpicking. When you listed you components you left out the MB , OS , HDD and the Monitor. I know you are frustrated but when you ask for help you have to let us know what all the components are even if you don't think it's important because you could be missing something that we might see in your components list. Now even though you broke your video card did you consider that it could be your monitor. Do you have a way of testing it on another computer , maybe a friend or reletive? It could also be the slot on your MB. How many slots do you have and did you try another slot?

 

[nicke112]

Sorry about that, here is what i found using Belarc Advisor.

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5K3 Deluxe Rev 1.xx
Bus Clock: 266 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 0810 11/02/2007


Windows 7 Enterprise (x64) (build 7600)

SAMSUNG HD501LJ [Hard drive] (500,11 GB) -- drive 0, s/n S0MUJDWQ344746, rev CR100-13, SMART Status: Healthy

Radeon HD 6800 Series [Display adapter]
HP w20 [Monitor] (20,0"vis, s/n CZT70601T7, februari 2007)

I have 2 slots on my MB but the card only fits in the first one, tried the other but the graphics card is too big. Since the first card broke just after the same disturbances that this one is showing i figuered its the same issue as the other card had. My monitor is quite old so i have concidered that it might be broken but i have no way of testing it right now.

My concern is that if i test the card using a game like i did with the last one this card will break too.

 

[nicke112]

Started up settlers 7 again and instantly the disturbances began, game was set to 1680x1024 but once i lowerd it down to 1280x1024 it disapeared. Its possible that it could be the monitor that is broken and that its just a coincidence that i got the same issues right now but i still wonder if the other card broke because of my other hardware, settings or if it was broken when i got it.

 

[guavasauce]

this is unusual, but i dont think the monitor is the problem here (the shop tested and got the same thing). i know you said you reset the bios, but did you adjust your pci clock/volts?

the power supply doesnt really "send" power to your card/mobo. its more like "availible for withdraw" so if that is the issue, something (mobo) is telling it to draw more power. your cpu overclock should make too much difference in the gpu stability, and considering this the 3rd card in a row doing the same thing, i say motherboard/bios is your problem.

 

[inzone]

Is there a computer repair shop any where nearyou or any kind of computer store ( Best Buy , or someplace like that) where you can bring your monitor to test it. Can you hook it up to a dvd player in your home theater , anything to get to test it.

 

[nicke112]

When I tried to overclock i did change the Hz on the cpu but i never Touched the voltage. When the computer stoped working normally i manually changed back to what i had before but by then the card was already broken so after a few failed startups i decided to reset bios, since i had already manually reverted the changes i dont think it really did anything. Oh and I used a program to overclock my graphics card at that time, I think it was Nvidia preformance (first card was a Geforce 6700 gtx i think) Changed both Hz and memory. Not really sure what broke it, maybe heat?

I could go to the same place that sold me the graphics card but its quite expencive just to have it checked, I will however take the monitor to a friend on saturday and see if it works better there

 

[nicke112]

Been using the computer for hours now and without any problems, seems like the problems only occur on higher resolutions with lower hz. I also noticed that when the screen got those disturbances in settlers 7 the fans went wild so it could be a cooling problem. Downloaded Everest so I will check temprature next time.

Rebooted the computer a few times and everytime I got the same disturbances, the strange part is that it seems to stop when i get to the welcome screen. Even in BIOS the display was odd. also took the time to check temprature while in BIOS but it seemed fine.