Need help diagnosing graphics problems

Alex74 · 4 Aug 2010 at 19:24

Started having some graphics problems since I started playing the newly released Starcraft 2. Being aware of the problems people have had with overheating, I'm hoping that's not the issue here.

Games I've identified which have the problem are

Starcraft 2: Effect corruption
*image of bright lines on SC2 screen removed*
Effect is worse in real time, quite annoying but at least I can play the game.

Supreme Commander 2: Screen corruption

Looks like the vertices are distorted and splashed everywhere?

GRID: Total Screen corruption
Menu -

In game -

This is the worst case yet.

Crysis:
Now here's the interesting one.
Here's Crysis running in Directx 9 mode:

And now those same locations running in Directx 10:

Notice that Directx 10 renders perfectly, but Directx 9 causes total corruption! I get exactly the same result with Crysis: Warhead.

To try to verify this 'Directx 9 fails' problem, I tried running 3DMark 06 and Vantage (each using 9 and 10 respectively i believe). But to no avail, 3DMark 06 ran perfectly, as did Vantage.

I've also confirmed that these other games appear to work without faults:
Fuel
Fallout 3
Counterstrike Source
HL:Lost Coast.

All of this has been tested using catalyst 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, and i'm now very confused. So any help from the great gurus of the graphics card forum would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

EDIT: Oh, system spec!

Core 2 Duo E6550
4GB RAM
HIS HD4670 1GB
Creative X-FI Xtreme Audio (i think)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

hohum · 4 Aug 2010 at 20:28

At a guess you might have some corrupted DirectX binaries (based off the fact that a DX10 rendering mode doesn't exhibit the problem). As a result, I'd recommend installing the latest redist runtime package:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FamilyID=3b170b25-abab-4bc3-ae91-50ceb6d8fa8d

Unpack and run dxsetup.exe which will overwrite all existing .dlls, regardless of whether they need updating or not (something the standard web updater doesn't do - it will just download the files that need updating). See if that helps or not.

Alex74 · 4 Aug 2010 at 22:27

Hi, thanks for responding

I actually ran the updater earlier, wonder why i didnt think of the full redist.

Didnt make a difference though I'm afraid

My fear is that having spent a reasonable amount of time idling in starcraft 2 menus, the card may have overheated and thus been damaged (as seems to have been the case with some other cards). Being that this isnt the most powerful card around, and it has a fair cooling system, i'm not entirely sure that that's the case.

Hopefully there's something else I've missed that can be tested before I give up, call it bricked and scream RMA

Demolitiondan · 4 Aug 2010 at 22:43

hmm check to see if it is overheating and what temps its running at and maybe try reinstalling the drivers maybe currupt.

jigger · 4 Aug 2010 at 22:56

So everything was fine before the starcraft install ?

bigjimmyauk · 4 Aug 2010 at 22:58

just so you know my AV found a virus on your first link to a picture

Alex74 · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:07

jigger said:
So everything was fine before the starcraft install ?

Well i installed SC2, then the next day installed a patch for it and updated drivers to 10.7 cats at the same time (stupidly on reflection). It was after the patch/driver update that the problems started. So it seems either:

1. The card got fried the day before when i left it alone for a while
2. The patch caused a problem
3. The driver install was bad

That's why i've tried the different drivers from .5 to .7, but no help.

Demolitiondan said:
hmm check to see if it is overheating and what temps its running at and maybe try reinstalling the drivers maybe currupt.

Been reinstalling drivers all day

been using driver sweeper as well. Just played a large game of SC2 with AI, card didnt go above 50C.

bigjimmyauk said:
just so you know my AV found a virus on your first link to a picture

oh..

i imagine it's a false positive, but i'll remove the link for now and do a scan anyway

thanks for letting me know.

bigjimmyauk · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:09

yeah no prob came through pretty quick i scanned the page again but didn't find anything second time round was maybe one of those commercials on the page or something.

Can you try the card in someone elses rig at all?

Alex74 · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:16

ahh fair enough. I'm afraid not, nobody local enough with a PCI-E desktop and all of the other rigs here are old-school AGP

The really strange thing is that it's so selective on the titles that have problems. Also only Starcraft 2 seems to have what i would guess are problems around the pixel shader, where all of the other games seem to have vertices corrupted. I can't see a common theme.

Also, just tested Portal and Fear 2 also work fine. So confused now

bigjimmyauk · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:19

have you tried dropping the 3d clocks below stock and loading up say grid and see what happens?

Alex74 · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:26

dropped both GPU and Memory down to about 3/4 of normal in Overdrive and tried GRID, no difference

jigger · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:33

I would try installing one of the problem games again.

Alex74 · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:36

jigger said:
I would try installing one of the problem games again.

Sorry, forgot to mention I reinstalled GRID (10GB download :eek:

) earlier to no avail.

Cheers for all the responses, any ideas for a solution or at least a known cause are appreciated

bigjimmyauk · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:37

DO you have a spare HDD so you could install another windows on there and try again from scratch.

if it works then you know there is a problem with your main OS if it don't then get someone to try it for you if it still does the same RMA it

bigjimmyauk · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:37

Alex74 said:
Sorry, forgot to mention I reinstalled GRID (10GB download ) earlier to no avail.

Cheers for all the responses, any ideas for a solution or at least a known cause are appreciated

My only 2 pence is the post above this one can't really think of anything other that corrupt OS or bricked card

need to try both tho before an RMA cause if it works in there test system you'll get charged

Alex74 · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:39

bigjimmyauk said:
DO you have a spare HDD so you could install another windows on there and try again from scratch.

if it works then you know there is a problem with your main OS if it don't then get someone to try it for you if it still does the same RMA it

hmm..didnt think to test the OS. I have a 32 bit windows 7 install on another partition I could test with. Will give it a go now

bigjimmyauk · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:41

Worth a shot back when i had my 2600XT on windows XP i kept getting all sorts of weird crap happening turned out the file system was fubar

bigjimmyauk · 4 Aug 2010 at 23:42

Alex74 said:
hmm..didnt think to test the OS. I have a 32 bit windows 7 install on another partition I could test with. Will give it a go now

If that partition is driverless try some early drivers such as 10.4 then work your way up to the 10.7's and see what happens

will be keeping ym eye on this thread to see how your getting on

Alex74 · 5 Aug 2010 at 00:31

Very interesting, looks like you were right, SC2, GRID and Crysis DX9 all work perfectly under the 32-bit install. I installed Cats 9.12 on here when i first loaded it up, saw no point in updating the drivers if i wasnt gaming here. They seem to be working rather well now though

I'm in two minds now whether to work through the later drivers as bigjimmyuk suggests or just leave it and format the other partition..

At the very least this hopefully means I dont have to worry about an RMA process and can solve the problems here and now

bigjimmyauk · 5 Aug 2010 at 00:50

Alex74 said:
Very interesting, looks like you were right, SC2, GRID and Crysis DX9 all work perfectly under the 32-bit install. I installed Cats 9.12 on here when i first loaded it up, saw no point in updating the drivers if i wasnt gaming here. They seem to be working rather well now though

I'm in two minds now whether to work through the later drivers as bigjimmyuk suggests or just leave it and format the other partition..

At the very least this hopefully means I dont have to worry about an RMA process and can solve the problems here and now

I would definately try updating the drivers on that partition and seeing if a particular driver set bricks the card again, If not then go ahead and do a reinstall of the os on the other partition and you should be good to go.

Few things can cause unstable os's such as a unstable overclock,dodgy driver,failing HDD,Sudden power off such as a power cut etc etc.

i would imagine the problem lies within the driver or the Direct X binaries. You could always also try to locate the cause of the problem. Uninstall all ati drivers, re-update direct x again (even tho you have already done it once)

Possiblity that the starcraft game also included a direct x runtime update that did not apply properly which caused it to fail in which event try restoring your computer to an earlier timeline to see what happens.

Good luck and keep us posted and what you decided to do and what happened

P:S did you find anything on that first picture after my anti virus found something?