LambdaLynx

For about the past couple of months, every game I play has experienced either a graphical corruption issue, or has completely frozen when I get onto an online server or even just at the logo screen.

I've seen graphical corruption in Call of Duty 2, Battlefield 2, World of Warcraft, the Crysis demo (which usually lags or freezes on the logo screens, so I had to disable them from coming up), the Call of Duty 4 demo (it worked just perfectly on one play-through, then totally froze the next time), and the Company of Heroes demo (which usually freezes on the logo screen). Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat just froze today when I got onto a server (although it was working just fine yesterday), and Battlefield 1942 always freezes within seconds after getting onto a server.

The graphical corruption usually begins with extreme lag (sometimes resulting in a total freeze), and then strange, colorless, angled shapes appearing on the screen in random locations. Sometimes checkered textures replace the usual textures. The framerate might drop considerably. A couple of times I think I got a blue screen, and saw something like 'nv4dsply' on it. I have updated my drivers to the newest version I believe (I've had it suggested to me a couple times recently).

I've googled 7900 gt and graphical corruption, and found others with the same problems. On one topic on the Nvidia forums, people made all of these suggestions about disabling or enabling stuff under the BIOS settings, and I tried looking for these settings, but could not find them at all (link to topic: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=69509 )

I really do not want to buy a new video card if I don't have to. Up until a few months ago, BF2 and all of my other games ran just how I wanted them to. Even the Company of Heroes demo ran pretty dang well, and I was about to buy the full game recently, but it too has been having problems lately. I was thinking of buying the $300 GeForce 8800 GTS (320 MB I think)....but if all these problems really are just because of my video card, I may just end up buying only a slightly better card for much cheaper than the 8800 GTS.

LambdaLynx

I should probably also mention that, randomly on the screen, small trails of pixels often appear and disappear (they are usually light blue or some other strange color). When I'm in Paint Shop Pro 7 working on a drawing, especially, I'm zooming in and out and they appear and disappear as I zoom in and out, against the white screen.

1 g0t 0wn3d

What power supply do you have, post your temps and voltages using speedfan (in my sig) also blow the dust out of the cards heatsink

LambdaLynx

I've never used this program, but I'll do my best to give you the readings....

On the Readings screen, it says:

Sys Fan: 3750 RPM
CPU0 Fan: 0 RPM
Aux0 Fan: 0 RPM
CPU1 Fan: 2250 RPM
Aux1 Fan: 0 RPM

Then, on the right..

(there are arrows, check marks and various symbols, some of which are changing)
Local: 38C
Remote: 26C
System: 42C
CPU: 38C
AUX: 38C
HD0: 40C
Core: 26C
(fire icon...uh oh...) Core: 59C
Ambient: 0C

And I see the option to adjust the Speed (right now it's at 63%)

LambdaLynx

Also, I did recently blow dust out of every little thing I could inside the tower, with a can of compressed air (at least without tilting the can too much)

I also just now attempted to increase the Speed thing that is below the Local, Remote, etc. column. It doesn't appear to be changing anything..

Another edit/update: I forgot to say my voltage...I believe it's 700 or 750W for my power supply..though I am not sure

According to Speedfan's Readings screen, there are also these stats:

Vcore: 1.22V
+12V: 12.14V
AVcc: 3.36V

Another note, although I don't know if it helps...I think my computer and monitor may be plugged into a "Voltage Stabilizer" box that I bought with this computer off of ibuypower.com. I actually only started using it about six months ago, so I didn't use it for about the first six months after getting this PC...

1 g0t 0wn3d

ok how many fans do you have were are they and were do they blow

LambdaLynx

I have one small one on the side of my case, sort of blowing air away from an area above my video card (edit: out of the computer, that is)...and then on the very top of my tower, blowing out of the back, is one big fan, and another one below that, both blowing out of the back of the computer.

LambdaLynx

I tried taking some photos of the fans.. Here (click on the "Fans on My PC" link on the side to see two more photos)

The first photo (sorry you have to tilt your head) shows the small fan on the side, and then on the very top edge of the photo is the upper fan that blows out the back, and below that is the other one. The other two photos are supposed to be sort of for reference.

1 g0t 0wn3d

The side one should be blowing in, clear the dust out of there with some compressed air.

LambdaLynx

Oh, oops, yeah, it is blowing in...that's why there's so much dust...although it gets that dusty often, so I guess I have to remove my case lid every time I need to clean it (because I don't want to blow the dust off it and into the computer, do I?)...do you think that's a significant part at all in my problem? Also, I'm still a little worried about one of my "Cores" having a little fire icon next to it and being at 63 degrees celsius...147 degrees fahrenheit.... O_o

1 g0t 0wn3d

the dust keeps the heat in so yes

LambdaLynx

I feel like I am rushing you when I ask this, but...if I get rid of that dust and consistently keep it clear, do you think that'll solve my high temperature problem? Is there anything I should do in the SpeedFan, like increase any fan speeds?

1 g0t 0wn3d

if they are not at 100 % then yes you should do that to

LambdaLynx

Alright, last night I increased the Speed04 to 100%, but this morning it was back down to 63%. Should I check-mark automatic fan speed?

Also, after blowing out (hopefully) all of the dust in the side-fan and increasing the Speed04 fan speed, I tried running one of the games that I was experiencing problems on (the Company of Heroes demo). It froze on the black screen before the logos...

OK, so do you think I can take a guess yet at whether this is the fans' fault, or whether I need a new video card? I was hoping to actually buy Company of Heroes this weekend (online), but I'd like to actually be able to run it before I buy it..and to do that, I need to figure out what the heck is the matter here..

I'm still sort of wondering about my voltage stabilizer, as that has not always been hooked up to my computer...although for the past six months about, it has been, so I guess it doesn't exactly correlate with when I started having the problems...but for some reason I think it could be preventing the necessary power from reaching my PC (it 'stabilizes' it, but couldn't that mean it doesn't give the PC all that it wants or needs?)


Edit: OK, I didn't even check out the Configure option until this morning...but for my second "Core", it already has it set on a Desired 40 C, and it's obviously not helping...I turn on the computer this morning and log into my Firefox browser and, as of this moment, it's at 61 C.

1 g0t 0wn3d

You may have to re apply the thermal paste on the cpu, but first try updating your video drivers.

LambdaLynx

OK, I am about to install this driver: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_163.75.html
even though I'm pretty sure I already tried installing this one before..

And I think I may have heard of something that could be this 'paste' you're talking about, when I was reading about building a computer once...but I am guessing that if I have no clue how to do it, I should probably get a professional to do it, right?

LambdaLynx

I just ran Call of Duty 2 and it ran just fine and never froze (no graphical corruption, although I don't think that was an issue before). I also just ran the Company of Heroes demo for about 15 minutes and nothing happened. When I exited out of Company of Heroes, though, I checked SpeedFan, and the one Core that's always high has reached a new record: 72 C!

1 g0t 0wn3d

Ok now to deal with you heat issue you may want to re apply your thermal paste.

LambdaLynx

OK..I see there are guides online on how to do this, but I am seriously worried that I'd mess something up somehow if I did it (the reason why I never built my own PC...if I screw anything up then it'd be a huge waste of money).. Is the thing with the big fat cables going into the thing that needs paste on it (to the right, in the center on this photo)? (this is the old photo from last night, by the way....there's definitely not that much dust on stuff anymore)

1 g0t 0wn3d

Is that liquid cooled?