Computer artifacts and freezes while gaming

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UltraVioletDream

Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2007
Messages
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I'm running a HD 6970 gaming at 1600p. I've had my computer for a couple of years and this hasn't happened before. A couple of days ago my computer started artifacting/freezing within minutes of starting TF2. I thought it might have been a heat issue so I pulled out the card and reapplied the thermal paste and it started working again, but today the issue has resurfaced so I'm wondering what the issue could be?
Could the video card just be dying and I need to replace it or could it be related to something else?
 
You'll have to do more testing first. Try other games and gpu intensive applications and see if it artifacts and crashes. Since you're not seeing any artifacts while booting, it could be your card is getting flakey under load. Test more for us and post back your results.
 
I've tested it with Diablo 3 and Starcraft, same situation, the game loads fine and everything is smooth, but when I start playing (GPU under load) it will crash very quickly, I don't think it's the temp of the GPU core, I monitored with GPU-Z and ~5 seconds before a crash it was still reading about 60.
 
doug_7506 said:
Is it OC'ed?

Try removing any OC. Run both core and mem at stock clocks.
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agreed.....if its not overclocked at all......you might even try down clocking it but it does sound like its on he way out
 
primetime said:
agreed.....if its not overclocked at all......you might even try down clocking it but it does sound like its on he way out
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I think I was running it downclocked for the past year or so, just took it down to the lowest I could do with the catalyst tool and still froze after a minute or so of gaming. I guess it's time for a new GPU card :( could it be anything else? I'm just trying to gauge what I might need to replace.
 
Try a different GPU to see if it does the same. Could be some other component that has degraded like mobo.
 
could also be your power supply as it pulls the most amps under gaming load..
 
got another PC to test it on? otherwise it sounds like your GPU is going bad.

if it runs fine during 2d but crashes on 3d then its diff. the gpu!
 
tonyyy said:
got another PC to test it on? otherwise it sounds like your GPU is going bad.

if it runs fine during 2d but crashes on 3d then its diff. the gpu!
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Yeah, I've been streaming music for the last 6 hours and watching youtube videos just fine. Seems like upgrade time ^^
 
UltraVioletDream said:
Yeah, I've been streaming music for the last 6 hours and watching youtube videos just fine. Seems like upgrade time ^^
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if its out of warranty, and you have nothing to loose....there's always the bake method...I would agree its not a bad time to upgrade anyway, but it be nice to have a spare working card in case the new ones has trouble down the road. I personally have fixed an nvidia geforce 280 card that was on its way to the trash can so i was able to run sli for free until i bought my current card. No guaranty it will work but if its broke, sometimes it doesn't hurt to try;)
 
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