What would cause this? (Video Uploaded)

deadman_uk

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 30, 2003
Messages
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Hi, my 8800GTS 512 has died and I am waiting for the 4890 XXX to be in stock. I am currently gaming with my bakcup card (a 8500GT). I was playing Guild Wars and suddenly the screen went crazy. I exited the game, and noticed a few artifacts on my desktop. I ran Guild Wars again (while recording with my camera phone).

See below for video:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stephanie.mirza/Graphic Corruption GW.zip

(file is free from viruses)

I rebooted, and my card has been fine, no artifacts, Guild Wars runs fine. What could cause this?
 
Overclock or overheating are some of the most common. Too lazy to watch video though.
 
Overclock or overheating are some of the most common. Too lazy to watch video though.

I've seen my fair share of artifacts, but nothing like this, almost like digital interference. Video is approx 20 seconds long, sorry you feel lazy. Card is not overclocked, and is running cool (at least it is now, 43c idle)

Is it possible that it's a random, out of the blue, one of a kind problem? Like a BSOD may be a one off which you don't see again in the months ahead.
 
I'm dissapointed I did not receive my replies, I really want to know what this is. It's been a week since this happened and PC has been fine...
 
Next time you upload a video, upload it to youtube.

Anyway, I haven't seen anything like that before.
 
Almost looks like the vsync was a little out of whack in between the video card and monitor.

At least that is my first guess as I have not actually ever seen that happen on an LCD before.
 
Next time you upload a video, upload it to youtube.

Anyway, I haven't seen anything like that before.

Youtube is a place for videos to be stored long term, for people to see and comment. This video will be deleted later, and I don't wish for comments outside this forum. I felt it more appropriate to post here.

Almost looks like the vsync was a little out of whack in between the video card and monitor.

At least that is my first guess as I have not actually ever seen that happen on an LCD before.

Do you think it was caused by the monitor or graphics card? Is this a sign one of the 2 is dying?
 
I've never seen anything like this before, either.

However, we can rule some things out.

1. Probably not the monitor because it works fine on the desktop
2. 2d seems to work fine.

And so I think that the cause of this problem is something related to the 3d accelerator has failed. I would say the video card is failing.

Check the temps.
 
Looks like gfx card memory failure due to the block patterns.
 
As I said, graphics card temps are fine, and I only experienced this once, it's been fine before and after for weeks. Been on Guild Wars, all fine apart from that one time.

This is an 8500gt (8800GTS died). Im getting my 4890 Thursday.

Is there a way I can test graphics card memory?
 
try running some other games or 3d aplications and see if it works. it could simply be a driver issue or the card failing. i would use driver cleaner pro to completely remove the driver and reinstall it.

check that your guildwars resolution is with the screens cababilities, u might have it too high and its crappying its pants.

also try taking the card out and checking for any physical damage and try your other pci slot if you have one.

the amount of problems ive solved by taking a card doing a fresh driver install and putting back in is amazing lol.

cause yeah that video isnt artifacts and not heat realted.

**oh and its definatly the card not the monitor as it works fine on your desktop.
 
try running some other games or 3d aplications and see if it works. it could simply be a driver issue or the card failing. i would use driver cleaner pro to completely remove the driver and reinstall it.

check that your guildwars resolution is with the screens cababilities, u might have it too high and its crappying its pants.

also try taking the card out and checking for any physical damage and try your other pci slot if you have one.

the amount of problems ive solved by taking a card doing a fresh driver install and putting back in is amazing lol.

cause yeah that video isnt artifacts and not heat realted.

**oh and its definatly the card not the monitor as it works fine on your desktop.

Not sure if I mentioned this but I did see artifacts on my desktop too. In the video, I had a folder open, the artifacts were on their too, little green dots popping around. I can tell you this has not happened again after a restart, this is odd. There aren't much games I can try with this poor 8500GT but Worms Armageddon, World of Goo and Guild Wars work fine.

I won't bother doing a driver cleaner (I did run a driver cleaner when I installed the card 2 weeks ago) because my 4890 is here Thursday. I only have one PCI-E port too. Guild Wars is running at my native resolution of 1920x1200.

I guess this is a mystery
 
It could have just been a driver issue. Unless it happens again, in a different game, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
your video card needs to be replaced, its as simple as that. looks like the memory is failing to me, due to the black pattern in the artifacts; time for an RMA
 
your video card needs to be replaced, its as simple as that. looks like the memory is failing to me, due to the black pattern in the artifacts; time for an RMA

8500GT is a card I purchased on eBay purely for backup, in case my primary card went down which it did (8800GTS). The 8500GT cannot be RMAed but if its due to memory failing, why hasn't it happened again in over a week?
 
Its likely related to heat and its not until warmer ambient temp or you push the gfx memory that it happens.
Unless you have fitted a temp sensor to your gfx ram or have measured the temp manually, you wont know how hot it is.
 
Its likely related to heat and its not until warmer ambient temp or you push the gfx memory that it happens.
Unless you have fitted a temp sensor to your gfx ram or have measured the temp manually, you wont know how hot it is.

I don't see how that can be true, the most I pushed the card is Guild Wars and if it's overheating because the card is being pushed too hard, it would overheat every time I play Guild Wars. I have been on Guild Wars everyday for the last week, and no problems.

I can measure my temperature with eVGA Precision, it's 40ish idle and doesn't pass 60C when max load.
 
Like I said, it could have been a driver bug, if it was an isolated incident. These things are possible. I'd really only suspect a failing card if it happened across multiple games in multiple occasions. Is there any corruption on a regular basis, or was it just that one time? That series of cards has been known to fail, but the evidence needs to fit the diagnosis.
 
Hi ordovician, yes I know you said to ignore it, and I will do. My 4890 is here tomorrow and this issue only happened once, so I will put it down to a driver error, a one off incident.

Thanks all!
 
It might be the driver after the Update GW patch.
GW upped the graphics on the skills animation a bit and some of the pretty scenary got a facelift too.
Might have caused some small driver issues,
the newested update patch also had issues with some 4850/4870 causing the cards to crash.
Which was ATi drive incompatibility with GW files making GW thinks its a Error code instead.
 
I don't see how that can be true, the most I pushed the card is Guild Wars and if it's overheating because the card is being pushed too hard, it would overheat every time I play Guild Wars. I have been on Guild Wars everyday for the last week, and no problems.

I can measure my temperature with eVGA Precision, it's 40ish idle and doesn't pass 60C when max load.

I should have read on a bit after the video link, I didnt realise it worked fine after a reboot.
If its ok now, put it down to one of those things.
It could be a driver bug as it looks video card related rather than software.
There is a vague possibility your PSU is on the way out and it semi crashed the video card, just a fyi.

What is the temperature you are monitoring?
I havent seen a card that reports the memory temp, only the GPU.
(Probably because there are a lot of memory chips and the temps wont be the same)
 
It might be the driver after the Update GW patch.
GW upped the graphics on the skills animation a bit and some of the pretty scenary got a facelift too.
Might have caused some small driver issues,
the newested update patch also had issues with some 4850/4870 causing the cards to crash.
Which was ATi drive incompatibility with GW files making GW thinks its a Error code instead.

I can see no mention of the skills animation being improved, or the scenary being "upped" in the graphics department. Where did you hear this? I don't think this is true.

I don't know why you are taking about ATI cards, I'm running an NVIDIA 8500GT.

I should have read on a bit after the video link, I didnt realise it worked fine after a reboot.
If its ok now, put it down to one of those things.
It could be a driver bug as it looks video card related rather than software.
There is a vague possibility your PSU is on the way out and it semi crashed the video card, just a fyi.

What is the temperature you are monitoring?
I havent seen a card that reports the memory temp, only the GPU.
(Probably because there are a lot of memory chips and the temps wont be the same)

I don't know what temperature I'm monitoring, but it's to do with the graphics card, I think it's GPU, the actualy core. I use EVGA Precision.

I will forget about this now, it hasn't happened again.
 
The graphic update where made ahead of time before the Large patch we had.
The latest patch just optimized the setting between graphic card and game.
All it supposed to do is give a better auto optimazation to the graphic settings.

I mentioned the 4xxx series b/c there are some known driver issues with certain cards that randomly causes failure. So it is not uncommon it to show up on a nvidia card also.

I also spotted some Graphic glitches in the game on my 9800 and 8800 when the patch first came out but it has not shown up again ever since after some later patches.
Its not a comon error probably just some hick up during the update.

Didnt you say you saw the error on a 8800GTS 512 ???
And you getting a 4890 ???
While waiting for your 4890 running it on the the 8500 GT ???
All i am saying it might be caused by the game,
since the large update we had, did change alot so its not uncommon that there are slight glitches that they are fixing around the game.

The glitches i had on my 8800 GT was noted to Anet and NCsoft but were not listed in the patch notes.
But it got fixed 2 patches after the large update. But then as you said it could be ur card.
 
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The graphic update where made ahead of time before the Large patch we had.
The latest patch just optimized the setting between graphic card and game.
All it supposed to do is give a better auto optimazation to the graphic settings.

I mentioned the 4xxx series b/c there are some known driver issues with certain cards that randomly causes failure. So it is not uncommon it to show up on a nvidia card also.

I also spotted some Graphic glitches in the game on my 9800 and 8800 when the patch first came out but it has not shown up again ever since after some later patches.
Its not a comon error probably just some hick up during the update.

What you are saying makes sense but this problem happened around a week after the large update so I really doubt that. As you can see in the video, the problem happened during the title screen too, where the scenary and skillbars were not shown. About the graphical update, why is it not announced in guildwiki? or have I misread?
 
When you see blocky corruption like that it tends to be video RAM related. I had a similar problem when I overclocked my card too high, but it only happened in games that had constantly very high frame rates.
 
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