Graphics card death tester?

Andy Pandy · 17 Mar 2007 at 11:03

Hi, im looking for something that will test my graphics card to see if its dieing. So far if i load arma and tdu the screen goes black and says check input or something. I think this means my once good g card is dead

Could anyone help please

willhub · 17 Mar 2007 at 11:06

Try ATi Tool and scan for artifacts?

If it only happens in 2 games I cant see it been a problem with the graphics card, re-install/get the latest drivers.

Andy Pandy · 17 Mar 2007 at 11:14

i scanned for artifacts and the whole thing is yellow lines. Dead?

Dark_Angel · 17 Mar 2007 at 11:26

Andy Pandy said:
i scanned for artifacts and the whole thing is yellow lines. Dead?

It doesn't sound healthy.

Try downloading 3d mark too and running that (05 and 06 variants) also, you could try different drivers.

It could be your PSU isn't supplying the correct voltages. Most people will tell you that you may as well use a energizer battery than a Q-Tec.

Andy Pandy · 17 Mar 2007 at 11:32

Hehe lol. I will do the 3d mark tests and if its low ill order a 8800, good power supply and a sata hard drive while im at it

. I caught the bug again

Dark_Angel · 17 Mar 2007 at 12:15

As a note, remember your CPU will hold back an 8800 GTS...

agnes · 17 Mar 2007 at 12:23

Dark_Angel said:
As a note, remember your CPU will hold back an 8800 GTS...

aye, what he said, get a E6600 whilst your there, less than 200 quid, cant go wrong to be honest

ags

Andy Pandy · 17 Mar 2007 at 12:31

i would but i cant afford to atm

. An 8800 is still going to beat my 7800 gtx ill just put loads of aa and af, and play ay 1600 by 1200.

MuSsEr · 17 Mar 2007 at 14:26

agnes said:
aye, what he said, get a E6600 whilst your there, less than 200 quid, cant go wrong to be honest

ags

I love how people forget about that fact that hes on a 939 system atm and changing to C2D is going to cost a bit more than "less than £200" coz he'll have to buy new ram, and motherboard at the same time

(which is what i'll be doing soon)

snowdog · 17 Mar 2007 at 15:59

Defo ** psu imo, i had problems with it with a low power 6600GT (yes, with the same 650watts triple fan you have), i don't know how u got ** system stable with it, my old system decided to reboot after about 1 hours of gaming every time with the q-tec, was fixed by a new psu.

SkeeterUK · 17 Mar 2007 at 16:03

LMAO q-tec 650w (really 300w)

Duff-Man · 17 Mar 2007 at 16:05

Could be the PSU, but it seems unlikely. Usually PSU failures result in hard reboots when the draw is too high for the supply to provide.

Sounds like the card is dying, but first just check to make sure the GFX heatsink isn't clogged with dust. If it is, get rid of the dust and try again.

The B.A. · 17 Mar 2007 at 17:00

Duff-Man said:
but first just check to make sure the GFX heatsink isn't clogged with dust. If it is, get rid of the dust and try again.

That would also be my first check before getting out the wallet... Could well be overheating and forcing a reboot. What temps is ATI tool showing?

Andy Pandy · 17 Mar 2007 at 18:15

I ordered a new psu a ocz 600 watt and a 320 mb 8800. I needed a new g card anyway my 7800 was a bit slow. Even if its not dead i dont feel too bad

And the q-tec i had no choice but to get it, it was that or nothing as i was at a local pc shop. Had a year and 3 months didnt die

Duff-Man · 17 Mar 2007 at 20:59

Andy Pandy said:
Had a year and 3 months didnt die

PSU 'death' doesn't neccesarily happen in the form of it stopping working entirely, or flames + smoke. If / when it starts providing inconsistent and fluctuating voltages to your components it is all but useless.

Still, you'll enjoy your new hardware, and your new PSU will be a hell of a lot more reliable than what you have now.

Also, ignore the people saying "your CPU will bottlneck a new GFX card" etc, it's not something so simple as: Is my card bottlenecked - yes/no. Some people always seem to want to over-simplify things...

It's dependent on the individual frame being rendered within a game, which varies greatly within a single scene in a game, and more so from game to game. For each frame rendered EITHER the GPU or "the system" (meaning a combination of CPU power, memory bandwidth and bus speed) will be the limiting factor. By pushing up the resolution you increase the percentage of frames which will be limited by the system rather than GPU.

Basically, and this is also an over-simplification, a more powerful graphics card will allow you to run at higher resolutions and detail levels with much less of a performance drop. A more powerful CPU (and and equivalent increase in memory bandwidth) will allow you to have more consistent framerates for a given resolution.

V4NT0M · 17 Mar 2007 at 21:39

A bit OT, but this reminds me of the time my pc would switch straight off in certain games every now and then, and always at a certain point in aquamark... PSU problem... wtf...

ViRuS2k · 17 Mar 2007 at 21:44

You will find out that most if not all GTX/GTS 8800Series cards will fill up on ATITOOLS artifact tester.

Personaly i would stay well clear of that POS becuse basicly the auther is useless, its so full of bugs its unbeleavable..

useing Rivatuner, for overclocking is the best program you can use for 8800series cards. and for stress testing them just use 3dmarks 2006, if you get faults, then something is wrong.

Duff-Man · 17 Mar 2007 at 22:36

Skyfall said:
A bit OT, but this reminds me of the time my pc would switch straight off in certain games every now and then, and always at a certain point in aquamark... PSU problem... wtf...

At that point in aquamark, the required system power load was just more than the PSU could deliver. When that threshold is reached, the system will usually reboot. The power used by a graphics card (or CPU or othewr component) is not constant throughout a game or demo - it is dynamically changing dependent on the operations being performed.

Like I said earlier, PSU problems *usually* manifest as hard reboots under load, rather than as artifacting or other instability.

snowdog · 18 Mar 2007 at 02:02

Duff-Man said:
At that point in aquamark, the required system power load was just more than the PSU could deliver. When that threshold is reached, the system will usually reboot. The power used by a graphics card (or CPU or othewr component) is not constant throughout a game or demo - it is dynamically changing dependent on the operations being performed.

Like I said earlier, PSU problems *usually* manifest as hard reboots under load, rather than as artifacting or other instability.

My mohaa spearhead used to kept for casing reboots, causing ''this program was shut down'' problems too with my q-tec, all gone away when i bought the akasa I have now...

silversurfer · 18 Mar 2007 at 02:48

Ati tool is good for showing a graph of the gpu temp but I find it crashes when I run it in the background of a game.
Is there any other tool that shows a graph and/or logs gpu temp?