GFX 7900 Extreme video card is pixelating...

[Randluin]

I need help!

I leave my computer on almost all the time cus i am on 90% of the time. It's just started pixelating and when I play WoW (world of warcraft) the graphics are jumpy and objects in the game have long spikes attached to them.

Any advice would be muchly appreciated

sys specs:

AsRock dual 939 Mobo
2gigs pc3200 Samsung DDR Ram
300 gig Sata drive
80 gig drive
WinXp
93.71 vers video drivers
directx 9.0c

[Midknyte]

that sounds like the card is overheating or it is OCed too high. what are your system temps?

What is the make and model of the card? if it is a preoverclocked model, try dropping it to nvidia stock specs and see what happens.

[Randluin]

The card is a XFX 7900 GT Extreme 256mb DDR3. It's not OC'd by me, did that once with another card won't do it again. It's factory OC'd.

Now how do i lower the speed of the card?

[Randluin]

I can't find my systems temperatures.

[Randluin]

I check my video cards temperature and it doesn't go above 53 degrees while playing wow. but my pointer in game is still flashy and jumpy.

[Midknyte]

if you know how to overclock, then you know how to underclock. you can use coolbits or rivatuner for that. even if the gpu temp is ok, you might still be pushing the card too hard.

[Randluin]

Or maybe it's one of those bad 7900 cards i just read the article about?

[Midknyte]

the cards go bad because of the high overclocks.

[Randluin]

My card is one of those overclocked ones, it's the 7900 gt extreme. it's clock is 520/1500.

Also when i used rivatuner where u change the speeds it shows 520 and 750, now my case is how do i go lower when those are at the very left of the bar.

I can't go any lower it seems.

[Midknyte]

I know your card is one of the high OCed ones. the whole 7900 OC fiasco is what made Nvidia want to ban Ocing on the 8800s.

did you try coolbits?

[Randluin]

it's on my computer but i haven't touched it cus it deals with registry and i know nothing of registries

[Midknyte]

all coolbits does is unlock the frequency controls in the nvidia drivers. if you enabled coolbits, then go to the nvidia drivers and check your 3d clocks for gpu and memory. drop them down to stock 7900GT speeds and see what happens. that's 450 and 660 (1320) respectively

[fizur2002]

when i had one of those, i used the xfx bios for the non-overclocked version of the card, which xfx suggested that i try before doing an RMA. I will give a link to the bios. This is the latest XFX 7900GT Extreme Edition bios.

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,26/func,fileinfo/filecatid,1839/parent,category/

This is the latest non-overclocked bios.

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,26/func,fileinfo/filecatid,1827/parent,category/

[Randluin]

Can you tell me how to install it?

[fizur2002]

get this utility called nvflash locatedHERE (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Video-Tweak/nVFlash.shtml) and read the instructions in the README on how to flash the bios. You will need a floppy disk and floppy drive inorder to perform this.

[Midknyte]

so you would rather flash the bios and possibly kill the card rather than run coolbits? up to you. you better make a backup of your current bios first. video cards have have several revisions and a bios from one revision may not work on a card of a different revision.

[fizur2002]

i fixed my old 7900gt with this method, the revision just fixes some issues that the previous one had.

[Randluin]

There isn't a readme so i'm hesitant about doing the flash so i think i will wait. XFX gave me an RMA but waiting on that too cus i don't have a backup card. Oh well.

[Midknyte]

I would clock the card back down with coolbits first, then flash if lowering the clocks fixes the problem.

fizur, i think you misunderstood my explanation. there can be multiple revisions of the same card, just like motherboards. If you flash a revA bios onto a revB card, you could end up with a dead card. always make a backup of the original bios. you can then edit the bios with nibitor, then reflash back to the card.