Problem with 6800gs (AGP)

[Platinum Pete]

I have just got a new 6800gs AGP and i am getting artifacts in 3dmark 05 and hl2 (i havent tried much else) the card is at stock and im using the drivers that were supplied 82.12

the card is idling around 60 and seems to be around 80 at load. is this a faulty card or am i missing something?

 

[Platinum Pete]

i tried to install them but it says there is a hardware mismatch which seems odd

 

[Platinum Pete]

after further use the artifacts had got worse so ive rma'd the card.

This is the 4th faulty nvidia card i've had in a year and i dont overclock or use my pc 24/7. is it common for nvidia cards to be this unreliable or am i just super unlucky??

 

[Platinum Pete]

psu is fine- an 6800ultra recommends 350W psu acording to the manual and i dont have many other things drawing from the psu (one ide drive and a dvd burner)

none of the faults have been related to psu afaik and my last card (6800nu) went for almost a year before giving up completely. ive also had 2 6600gts one of which would crash randomly (suspected faulty memory) and one that wouldnt even get passed posting the bios and then ive had this 6800gs which is giving artifacts under load, and that is definately not a psu problem.

All of the problems have been different and as far as i know they have all been down to a faulty graphics card.

needless to say- im a bit exhausted with these problems now and very underwhelmed by the quality of nvidia products that i have sampled.

It doesnt stop at graphics cards either- i've had 2 lots of faulty ram a faulty dvd burner and a faulty floppy (this is just for 1 pc in the space of a year). Royal mail loves me

 

[Platinum Pete]

Ive already sent the card back so no more testing from me.

to be honest though if there are artifacts at stock it will mean that the card is faulty usually- it never happened like this on any of the other cards so that is my comparison test if you like

 

[Platinum Pete]

Weird?are you buying NEW or 2nd hand cards as i think either it a dodgy mainboard or PSU,that could be ruining graphics cards.Use an online psu calc to find out how much power is actually being pulled off that and how old it night be.Strained psu = unstable board bits

Always new and retail packaged and yeah ive run some of those psu calcs before and my psu is fine.

with the 6600gts i was getting problems that were common on several forums with the cards so i guess i was unlucky in that respect. still problems with 6600gts seem to be plentiful and not just with me.

as i said before the 6800nu was reliable for nearly a year before it just died on me. so if anything on my rig was unstable then i would be surprised that it lasted that long??

the new 6800gs card was artifacting from the first time i ran it so i suppose it was faulty out of the box as i think artifacts are a result of over stressed/naff vertex shaders or pixel pipelines and i wouldnt imagine that they would be effected by anything but the gfx card???? but dont quote me on that!!

its got to the point now that when i have to phone up for rma it takes over 5 mins to explain the whole story which is unneccisarily complicated due to non audited payments (problem at distributers end) that made proof of waranty very difficult and much more that i cant be bothered to discuss. It certainly feels like someone up there doesnt want me to have a working pc.

so maybe im just unlucky. on the plus side i havent been able to play games for nearly a month which has meant ive been able to get on with some more uni work