Hey

i ordered a OcUK 7900gtx last week and have jst got round to putting it into my system and I think its knackered

Before i rma it i jst wanna make sure that it couldn't be anything else so here goes.

1. i uninstalled drivers from old card, then ran driver cleaner in safe mode.

2.installed new card, turned on and everything appeared ok, then installed latest drivers from nvidia. Again everything appeared ok

3.Ran 3d mark06 to make sure everything was running ok and this is where the problems started. all tests were going great up untill the last one Deep freeze. about half way through there was red and blue blobs appearing on the screen and then it froze requiring a restart.

When it was back to the desktop everything looked normal so I tried again but the same happened at the same point.

4. Now i thought i'd try some games to see if theyt had any problems. BF2 worked fine. f.e.a.r seemed ok but performance seemed very low. Then i tried hl2 lost coast and the pics below shows what happened.







Is this definately the card thats broke or could it be anything else?
btw- ive tried reinstalling all the drivers again but still the same and temps seem fine 40-45ish idle, 55 under load.

Thanks for any advice




EDIT: Jst tried oblivion and after about 5 mins the same thing started happening as in pic 1

At the very least reinstall your mobo drivers. I would reinstall windows since u dont want a snotty note saying "no fault found", and being a couple of £10's lighter on the pocket (not to mention waste of time).

At first glance it does look like a faulty card though. Only other thing is PSU, but its unlikely to cause artifacts just reboots AFAIK.

Looks to me the memory is overheating. I've heard of this problem a lot on the 7900's.

Have already re installed mobo drivers. Reinstalling windows was the last thing I was gonna do. ill try that in the mornin before i'll ring ocuk.

psu is a hiper type r 580 so I would have thought it would be ok.

Is there any way to test the ram on the card?

EDIT:Jst got a bsod- Machine_check_exception I'm guessing its related?

OV3RCLOCK3R said:

Looks to me the memory is overheating. I've heard of this problem a lot on the 7900's.

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I'd agree those are artifacts you get with the memory running too fast/hot. Have you tried underclocking the memory?

edit : oh and the purple crap in half life is just the placeholder texture for when the real texture fails to load properly, usually nothing to worry about I get it every now and then.

Have you tried underclocking the memory?

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no not yet. not sure how tbh lol?

Ive never seen that purple crap before so i thought it was related. the card does the same as the first pic in oblivion and css. only after a 5 mins or so so that does indicate overheating.

how long does an rma usually take coz iv'e never had to send anything back before?

Thanks for the advice so far

chris06 said:

and temps seem fine 40-45ish idle, 55 under load.

Click to expand...

It does look like memory artifacts but not due to overheating considering its at stock too.

Borked memory.
RMA time I think.

no_1_dave said:

Borked memory.
RMA time I think.

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Yer I think your right

might be tempted to ask if i can pay a few extra quid and get a different brand (bfg oc)

will they do that or only swap it like for like?

chris06 said:

might be tempted to ask if i can pay a few extra quid and get a different brand (bfg oc)

will they do that or only swap it like for like?

Click to expand...

you could ask but i doubt they would do that, they will probably offer you a refund and then you can buy the brand you want

They'll probably tell you that you can swap the RAM for a different brand of a similar price.

It is what they did with me anyway..

Hlebio said:

They'll probably tell you that you can swap the RAM for a different brand of a similar price.

It is what they did with me anyway..

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It's the memory on the graphics card, my ATI card had this problem so did an RMA on the monday had a replacement by the friday.

Nelly said:

It's the memory on the graphics card, my ATI card had this problem so did an RMA on the monday had a replacement by the friday.

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thats cool im gonna contact them today. Iv'e jst reinstalled windows to make sure but no difference.

Thanks for the help guys!

the bottom screenshot is not your cards fault, HL2 does this occasionally to me, just restart it and all will be fine. As for the top pic looks like faulty memory underclock it to see if if goes away. Then RMA it.

Yeah but what if he underlcocks it and its fine, he's still gona have to send it back so may as well just do it and not bother faffing about underclocking it, its going back anyway.

no point in analysing a faulty card !

Get bit packaged up and back on RMA!


Never heard of anything like the memory getting to hot on the 7900 GTX's.
The cooler more than deals with it,

easyrider said:

no point in analysing a faulty card !

Get bit packaged up and back on RMA!

Click to expand...

Yep that was my thinking. I've sent them a web note so im jst waiting for a reply now

can someone please point out whats wrong in the 1st pic thanks

A2Z said:

can someone please point out whats wrong in the 1st pic thanks

Click to expand...

Spikes coming out of buildings and stuff

chris06 said:

Spikes coming out of buildings and stuff

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ohh they are not supose to be there i see

sorry just thought the graphics looked good didnt see the problem