Card dead? Or another problem? Help needed please!

[red98]

I'm running an E7200 processor, P5Q-Pro, 2 x 2 GB Geil Ram with a Radeon HD 4850 all powered by a Corsair 520W PSU. I use windows 7 home premium 64 bit. Everything has been running nicely for almost 2 years (upgraded from win XP to win 7 when it came out) and I've been able to play most games I've wanted to. I recently picked up Assassin's Creed 2 and was really enjoying it, played on and off for a week or so.

A few days ago I was playing and artifacts started appearing all over the screen. This quickly got worse and worse, now the artifacts are present immediately you start the software and it then quickly freezes and goes back to the desktop where it says something along the lines of "ATI display driver crashed and has restarted". Go back into the game and the same thing happens.

It is not just ACII, but any game I load has the same issue. I have googled the problem and found much talk of ATI driver problems in windows 7/vista. I'm not convinced it is this, especially as I had been using the current driver set for almost a year with no issues. I have a dual boot XP/Win 7 machine and the same issue occurs when running games in XP. I have used HW monitor to look at the temps on the video card and they never exceed 65C when under load, so I doubt it is overheating at any point. I have tried the latest ATI drivers which made no difference. Now rolled back to the original ones. I have run a video card memory test application, it found no errors.

I'm totally at a loss for what to do, I fear my graphics card is dead, but I am not certain. There are no artifacts or BSOD in windows, only issue is the artifacts and freezing when running any 3D game. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I can do to determine the problem?

 

[Bipolarbear]

Card still under warranty? Because there's a 90% chance it's busted. It happens.

But - to exclude that unfortunate probability:

1- Update to the latest drivers.
2- Ensure your card's heatsink/fan isn't clogged with dust. Check temps and adjust fan speed if necessary (the 4850s run hot but keep it out of the 90 degree celsius range).

If you can exclude drivers and overheating from being issues then it is most likely the card is dying. Had exactly the same thing happen to me with an MSI 4850.

Best of luck with it.

 

[novadaemon]

check for dust and monitor temperatures. Try to take the card out of the computer and reseat the card while you are at it. run something like OCCT and do the GPU test with error checking to see if it's getting errors.

 

[red98]

Thanks for the replies. Seems it may just be case of confirming what I already suspect

Ok, heatsink is not dusty. I am (and have been running for the life of the card) an Accelero S1 (the big version) with a 120mm fan on the top.

At rest temps are approx 48C and at load the max I can get it to is 65C so I'm pretty confident overheating is not the issue.

It is out of warranty (bought just over 2 years ago) and in any case I have removed the stock cooler so voided the warranty. Already tried the latest drivers, but I will try a few more versions to see if there is any difference. I'll try a few more testing applications, seems odd I can't find any errors when games are so obviously not working.

Bipolarbear, did you experience a similar issue of not being able to find errors on the card?