BFG Tech Geforce GTX 280 issues.

[[H]eckel]

I just recently built a new pc with the following specs:

Asus P6T
i7 920
6GB OCZ DDR3
BFG Tech Geforce GTX 280
800 watt OCZ PSU

My problem is that I am getting some major artifacting when I increase the graphics levels above medium or so on a couple of different games. Far Cry 2 and Red Alert 3 to be more specific.

The artifacts that I am seeing are strange, colorful, long, skinny triangles and lines coming out of 3d objects all over the screen and stretching across the screen. I am also seeing a bunch of weird dots and other things that should not be there.

I have seen similar artifacting in the past on other video cards due to overclocking and such, but I am running stock speeds on everything here.

I spoke with BFG technical support and they seem to think its a bad video card or has some bad processing cores or memory or something along those lines.

I guess I am going to go ahead and RMA it, but I thought I would ask around in here for advice and maybe to get a better idea if this is a common thing with these video cards. I have never used a BFG Tech card before this one, but I've heard a lot of good things about their cards.

They were very quick at jumping to the conclusion that it is bad hardware and it just makes me wonder if it is common with these cards.

 

[MrLoLeR]

Did you make sure its not overheating? Maybe check to see if its running at the specified speeds. This probably isn't the case but maybe the board isn't putting enough voltage to the PCIe lane. It does sound like a faulty card though. Have any higher end card laying around you could test with?

As far as being a common problem, i don't think so. I haven't heard too many accounts of people artifacting with the 280 past a certain graphic level. Unless of course they're not putting forth enough power or a bad overclock.

Sounds like you might've just got a dud if anything bro. i'd RMA and see what happens.

 

[[H]eckel]

Thanks for the advice. I did check the temps and speeds with gpuz and all the speeds are correct and temps are not too high(50 - 60 C).

I reinstalled the graphics drivers earlier and it appears to have solved the issue in RA3, but the artifacting is still horrible in Far Cry 2.

I wonder if there could be something wrong with my drivers. I guess I could try to uninstall the drivers completely and reinstall and see if it gets any better. I think its very strange that reinstalling them helped RA3 but not Far Cry.

 

[[H]eckel]

Nevermind. The problems are back with RA3. It must just be a bad card. It worked the first time I loaded it after reboot, but now its all screwed up again.

Along with the other artifacts that I've described, it also appears to be drawing 2d textures in full screen every so often instead of displaying the 3d environment from the game. It looks like building and other environment textures and skins being flattened out and drawn across the entire screen. Its the strangest thing I've ever seen with a video card.

 

[hdnut]

Have you tried using Driver Cleaner or Driver Sweeper prior to installation of video drivers? It may or may not help but any time I had driver conflicts, using Driver Cleaner (I have the paid version which is $10) fixed the problems. Try using Driver Sweeper (it's free) and reinstall the latest official Nvidia drivers, 180.48.

Also, do you have the fan at full blast during gaming? GTX 280 can run a bit hot, especially in graphically demanding games, and it helps to throttle the fan to its full speed.