Gaming woes

[Wolfx25]

Hi everyone!

I've already posted similar stuff over places, but never really got a definitive answer. About a month ago my gaming rig started acting up. Basically whenever I played certain games (mainly source, but also bioshock), the game would start to freeze up after a while. If it did return to a playable state, there would be a ton of texture errors. Other games seem to have more mild problems, such as artifacts.

I can't really determine what the problem is. GPU is running at about 43-47 degrees at load, CPU is hardly overheating, and RAM seems to check out. A driver issue seems likely, but I can't seem to pin point it.

Any help would be very welcome!

Wolf

[sswilson]

Have you tried bumping the fan to 100% just to see if it's heat related? (Doesn't seem to happen as much these days, but some of the fan profiles kept the GPU cool, but didn't move enough air for the other components on the PCB).

[Wolfx25]

I already have the fan running at around 95%, that's what's giving me stuff in the 40 degree range.

[Perineum]

Check your motherboard for swollen or leaking capacitors, but look really closely around the PCI-E slot(s)



Three capacitors....

From left to right: Bulged capacitor, Normal capacitor, Leaking capacitor.

If it's bulged or leaking then it's toast and that could explain your problems.

If they look normal like the middle of the three then you are most likely okay.

However, that being said, I would guess all three of these capacitors are dead in this picture. The only way to test the middle "normal" capacitor is to physically remove it and test it's capacitance with a meter.

[SGardiner]

Experienced similar issue in the past. What was a stable machine became very unstable when gaming.

Updated drivers,Memory checked out ok, RMA'd video card even reformatted to no avail. The fix was to update the bios.

[KaptCrunch]

sounds to me that the video card memory is failing, have you removed the heat sink?

current driver

also Check with GPU-z that spec's are right

GPU:9800GTX+
CoreClock:756MHz
MemoryClock:2246MHz
ShaderBlock:1836MHz
MemoryBandwidth:71.8GB/sec

updating the BIOS on your XFX Nforce 780i SLI ( MB-N780-ISH9 ) to version P08.

[Chos3n]

Well I have the same configuration as you, and my CPU was having high temps on the stock heatsink. You might check your Power Supply as well, if your system starts rebooting by itself and such.

We need more information, post some pictures of your case and how you arrange the motherboard and all.

[SKYMTL]

Remember, a GPU can go tits up without overheating.

[grinder]

the artifacting leads me to believe it's a hardware problem rather than a software/driver problem. If possible try a different PSU if you have access to one.

I hate to answer a question with a question... but after long-term use dont those thermal "pads" card-makers use to interface the GPU's HSF with the chip degrade over time? To troubleshoot the graphics card could you "underclock" your GPU and RAM and see if that yeilds some answers to your problem?

[Wolfx25]

But the funny thing is it only seems to affect certain games. TF2 played fine, but L4D crashed after about half an hour. Far Cry 2 worked great, but Bioshock would start to glitch up.