My 8800 GT has More Artifacts then an Egyptian Pyramid

[JeanLuc]

Damn. I've only has this since January last year and I wasn't planning on upgrading until the the GTX3XX and Radeon 58XX ranges came along but now it seems my hand might be forced sooner rather then latter.

In COD4 mulitplayer I've noticed some of the textures on the sides of buildings are flickering on and off i.e flickering between the original colour and black. I also noticed some artifacting in The Witcher a couple of weeks ago which while at the time was particularly bad it was noticeable. But tonight when I loaded up COd 4 the flickering got a lot worse, and in my experience artifacting only gets worse over time.

My drivers are the official NVIDIA 181.20 but this isn't a driver problem and my video card runs at stock speeds and has never been overclocked. Does anyone have any ideas that I can try to fix this issue without having to replace it or am I stuck Poo creak without so much as match stick?

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I don't know if it's just my bad luck but it seems every video card I've ever owned which starts at with the 3DFX Voodoo 1 have all broken down and started to artifact after a year or two.

 

[hsetir]

The flickering can also occur due to overheating system ram. Check for the possiblity by removing either of the ram sticks.

 

[Dekasav]

Check temps, overheating system ram and video ram cause artifacting that sounds like yours. What brand is it, it could still be under warranty.

 

[MMclachlan]

The fans on the stock coolers on the 8800GTs were often set far too low to be able to cool the card properly. I had a Inno3d stock overclocked card (650/1900) and the fan speed was set to 29% and did not dynamically adjust.
Left like this temps would go up over 90oC and higher - 105c I remember seeing once - so I donwloaded Rivatuner and used it to change the fan speed. You can set Rivatuner up to load when Windows boots, then seta new fan speed and be done with it, or you can set it up to control the fan speed based on the temperature (what I did). With the fan speed ranging from 50%-100% the card never went above 70oC. There are plenty of guides on the net on how to set rivatuner up:
http://www.vaguetech.com/index.php?pageid=rt207
Lowering the temp of your card may well sort out your issues.

 

[JeanLuc]

Thanks for you advice MMclachlan, it does appear the video card is overheating and I tired out Rivatuner last night and I found setting the fan to 70% which kept temperatures down helped with the flickering.

Hopefully this will keep the artifacting at bay or at least slow it down (generally I find this only gets worse over time) at least until September time which is when I plan to upgrade. My card is made by Leadtek and they have a 24 month warranty for European customers so I'm still in luck. If it gets worse I'll have to RMA it and send it back and I'll probably get a 9800GT as a replacement. :¬

 

[boulard83]

i personaly use EVGA precision. (works if its not an EGVA).

Monitor Core, Mem ... speed. Can manually control fan speed or set back to auto.

works perfectly, EZ and sweet.

 

[grieve]

you could consider an aftermarket VGA cooler as well...
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=105&language=en

find a cheapy