digideath

Hi there people.
I've been having majour gfx problems of l8 from a 2 yr old xpertvision 7950 gt that I'm hoping to get advice about.
I ask you to please bear with me and try and read all of this because I've got loads of information about this to share.

First thing to go wrong was the card started showing minor artifacts on the desktop ( after images of text and pictures etc... ). Thought this was a bad driver instalation or a degrading os.

Recently, the display on the card started to switch off and on repetedly at a specific point during booting windows ( just as it swaps from the windows loading screen to the login screen ).
I say switching off and on because thats what it looks like. My monitor led goes green ( incoming display ) then orange ( no display/switching display ) then green then orange etc.. Always with about 10 secs of green but no display.
Usualy if the computer was powered off at the mains for 30 secs then back on it would boot ok but the situation is getting worse.

At all points during the above type of display failure, the rest of the computer runs as normal.
When the computer is finaly running properly (???) the card can play games etc as normal. Untill recently, there was no issue once it got on the desktop.

Now if the pc is boot from cold, it fails imediatly. I noticed that if I keep trying it eventualy starts to show the bios and fails at l8ter and l8ter points.
I can eventualy get into windows ( how do you think I'm posting ) but it takes about half an hour of coaxing.

If I get to see the bios post and get into the bios with the display up and if I leave it at this point for aprox 10mns the system will fully boot. It's almost as if the thing needs to warm up first before it will display properly.

It's started failing on the desktop. The monitor switches off at random points under load or not, yet the system remains running as usual.

While trying to post this for the first attempt, the computer reboot unexpectedly with no error messsage when I got back on the desktop.

It failed massivley a week ago while trying to play a game. The game loaded a 3d into screen but most of the models and textures were missing and what was there was massivley corrupt and miscoloured. ( looked like the gpu failure demonstraition image shown in the "diagnose a fault with your gfx" link given at the top of this forum. )
Point of note about the above failure: I watched the display cut in and out several times before it reboot and gave me a serious system failure message. The way it cut in and out resembled the behavure shown when the display fails, as mentioned earlier.

While reloading windows to attempt to post this for the second time, the windows loading screen was obscured by pure white smears that seemed to be moving all over the place and got stronger and stronger till the login screen apeared.


Here's what I've done about this myself so far.

I tested on another monitor to rule out a monitor fault.

I logged all voltages, temps and system usage while under load and idle, for hours at a time. Nothing in there jumps out at me. Everything in that dept. seems vstable.

Despite this, I replaiced my psu ( thinking it might be degrading and strugling to power the gpu ). I bought a 700watt tagen psu. This had no effect.

I tried a differant gfx card in my system. It ran like a dream. No issues.
I tried the 7950 gt in another system. It ran flawlessly ????


I just don't get this. I was so sure it was the card, I ordered a bfg 9800gtx+ yesterday but why is the 7950gt card working perfectly in other systems???

Any ideas? I'm completely stumped. I've never seen an issue like this in over 20 years of working with computers. ( Yeah I was an old specy and comodore freak. )


System specs:

AMD x2 6000+ cpu ( vcore on it is 1.35 volt stock as opposed to 1.4 volt )
M2N4-SLI mobo
4 gig kingston ddr2 800 ( 2x2 gig )
512 mb 7950gt
Soundblaster x-fi
2x500 gig sata2 ( raid 0 )
IDE Dvdrw.

digideath

Correction: Psu I've bought and am using is a Tagan ( not tagen ) piperock 700w bz 6 way modular psu.