Bad Video Card?

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 11:07 AM

Hi Everyone,

I'm trying to figure out if my video card is bad or not because I'm having some issues when playing Counter-Strike 1.6. I'm getting some weird white markings/blotches that randomly show up on the maps while playing. It's been a while since I've played... I just started playing again this weekend. I had a different system when I played this game in the past. I know it isn’t normal, but I cant tell if it's a setting in Counter-Strike that needs to be changed or if their actual artifacts that are showing up because my video card is going bad.

Here are some pictures so you can see what I’m seeing on my screen:

http://i29.tinypic.com/110ke1d.jpg
http://i25.tinypic.com/315bwnb.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/23rqxlj.jpg

One point to mention is the white markings get a lot worse when I turn the video settings in Counter-Strike up from Medium(16bit) to Highest(32bit).

The video card is a XFX NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB and the rest of my computer stats are below.

How do I know if I need to buy a new video card or not?

**RockNRoll** · 03-31-2008, 11:22 AM

Is this only in CS? Try 3dmark. Got the newest NVidia drivers? With something like that I wouldn't say it's obvious it's the card just yet. If you had skewed geometry or rainbow textures I might wonder a bit more.

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 11:29 AM

RockNRoll - CS is the only game I play, so I don’t know if it happens with other games! I got the newest Nvidia Drivers just last night thinking that might help, but it didn’t. I also tried running 3DMark this morning... to my surprise my computer was barely even able to run 3DMark06 and I got a score of only 234!!! I used to score thousands of points in previous 3dMark versions!!

**RockNRoll** · 03-31-2008, 12:24 PM

You OCing anything? Also, is that mobo/gfx card PCI-e or AGP? If it's AGP check your bios and make sure AGP fast-writes is ON.

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 12:34 PM

RockNRoll - It's AGP, not PCIe.

I dont believe my motherboard supports "AGP fast-writes". I'm not 100% sure on that (I'll double check when I get home), but I def. dont remember seeing that as an option in the BIOS and I'm pretty sure my motherboard doesnt support it.

How else could I tell if it's the video card thats is going bad or not?

Edit: Almost forgot to answer your other question... Nothing is overclocked. Everything is running at their default clock speeds.

**RockNRoll** · 03-31-2008, 12:46 PM

I'm not sure exactly where that setting should be but it should be pretty much standard with an AGP mobo I believe. I had stuff screw up on me on a new build. Had a microATX mobo with AGP and it came DEFAULT with fast writes off. I tried to run 3dmark06 with a 7800GS and it went about 2-5fps and had major geometry skewing. Turned fast writes on and it was back to normal. Check everywhere in your bios.

(EDIT) Just checked your manual. Should be under ADVANCED CHIPSET FEATURES.

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 01:22 PM

Thanks buddy; I appreciate you looking into that for me. Now I can’t wait to get home and actually try it!

I can relate to what you’re saying about the FPS in 3dMark06. When I ran it this morning I was getting 1fps in the first test and 0fps in the second test! Meanwhile I had a friend of mine with a similar setup as mine run 3dMark06 on his PC and he scored over 1,000 marks so now I know that there's got to be something going on with that video card of mine... hopefully turning on the fast-writes option will fix these problems I’m having and I won't have to buy a new video card after all! (fingers crossed)

When you refer to “geometry skewing” what exactly do you mean? Can you describe what that looks like? I don’t know if I’m having geometry skewing or not.

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 03:05 PM

RockNRoll - I just checked my BIOS and I got Fast-Writes option just like you stated, however there are only two options: "Auto" or "Disabled" and the setting was already on "Auto".

After my computer rebooted I decided to run 3dMark06 again just for giggles and I got a 224. Even worse than the score this morning... horrible.

Something has got to be wrong here.

**RockNRoll** · 03-31-2008, 03:12 PM

You'd most definitely know if you had that. Looks something like this. http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...629-135250.png

What's your agp aperture set at?

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 03:29 PM

Okay, it doesnt look like that at all (thankfully it's not that bad!)

I thought SiSoftware Sandra would show me the GPU temp, but it doesnt. I have no idea what the temp is at. It only shows my CPU Temp which is at 125F and my Motherboard Temp at 176F and I dont think those temperatures are correct. The computer is down stairs where it stays around 63F low to 72F high room temp.

**RockNRoll** · 03-31-2008, 04:46 PM

Sorry lol you misread. I mean AGP Aperture, it's a setting in the bios I think it's right underneath the Fast Writes.

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 06:07 PM

OKay, the AGP Aperture is set to "128M" and other options available to choose from are: 32M, 64M, 128M, 256M and 512M.

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that it's correctly set to "128M" since my card is a 128MB card?

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 06:45 PM

UPDATE: I'm pretty sure it's the video card that is bad. I just swapped out my GeForce 6600GT with an old GeForce FX 5700 Ultra and ran Counter-Strike with NO issues!

However, it would not run 3dMark06 (it wouldnt even load the first video test), but that is not surprising because I obviously stopped using this card for a reason... I used to have it o/c'd and the whole 9 yards so I'm pretty sure it's screwed up anyways, just obviously not as bad as my GeForce 6600GT is screwed up!

So I'm thinking about replacing my obviously broken 6600GT with this GeForce 7600GS 256MB card...

**RockNRoll** · 03-31-2008, 08:32 PM

The card could be throttling. Maybe it's getting hot. Is the fan working correctly? Some of the newer drivers from NVidia actually completely skipped the thermal fan control on some cards. (My 7900GS would not speed up AT ALL in 3Dmode with the newest NVidia drivers a couple months back.) See if it's dusty. You could also try running it for a while, and then feel the heatsink (not for too long of course in case it's real hot) and then feel the card itself. If the heatsink isn't real hot there could be a problem with the heat conduction from the card to the HS/FAN.

**dragflameson** · 03-31-2008, 08:53 PM

Just an FYI: I got in a good solid hour of game play on Counter-Strike using the old GeForce FX 5700 and there wasn’t a single issue besides the fact it's a lot slower and there is noticeable lag when the action really picks up at times.

I'm going to hook up the GeForce 6600GT again in a little bit and give it another go. I'm thinking maybe it wasn’t seated correctly in the AGP slot or something stupid like that. It was pretty dusty when I took it out, but I’ve cleaned it up nicely. The card does have a heat sink fan on it, but I had it unplugged for a long time because it's really loud and annoying... sounds like it has a bad bearing inside it or something, like it’s about to break. I’ll plug it back in for now just to test it out.

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