Graphics card issue ? Please help!

[Geskes]

Couple of days ago I upgraded to windows 7 and all was well, great performance, untill yesterday I left my computer on during the night for defragmentation. When I wake up this morning I find my PC with monitor in standby and I cannot get it out of standby. I do a reset and I still dont get my screen on and the pc gives a couple of beeps, then boots without video.

 

Turned power off, waited a while, turned back on and it works. Yesterday I had been trying to get fsx to work but it was stuttering extremely so I quit that and go back to DCS A10. Now I have the same stuttering in DCS A10!! I noticed a lot of messages saying video driver stopped working and had reset. So reinstalled directx, video driver and dcs.

 

No end of stuttering. Frame rates are much lower and it stutters like hell and it seems like there is more delay on trackir. Even if I set everything to the lowest setting it still stutters. Sometimes when booting PC it gives three beeps and no video again.

 

Can my graphics card be dying? I tried other games, I didn't notice frame rate drops or stutters there but I think those games don't load textures all the time, I did have more crashes.

 

I ran two benchmarks including 3dmark and I had 10.010 3dmarks, I don't know if that is normal. I do know that something is definitely not right.

 

I am thinking this is hardware related since i have the boot issues, crashes, and driver stopped working popups but can a graphics card be half dead?

 

Is there a way to test graphics card integrity?

[Slayer]

More likely an issue related to Win7. I've had some auto updates really cause troubles. Did you try to use system restore and bring it back to a few days prior when it was working ok?

 

Other things to check:

 

-Open device manager and make sure nothing is yellow or red.(missing drivers etc)

 

What version Nvidia driver? Check that your GPU fan is speeding up on your graphics card when you are gaming/benchmarking. I've had a few versions of Nvidia drivers fail to control the GPU fan resulting in problems like you describe. The card is slowing down because it's overheating then crashing.

[Geskes]

Thanks for the system restore idea, I'll go and try that now. I did use rivaturner to turn up the fan. (only for that purpose nothing else). I am using drivers 260.99.

 

In the mean-time I did some tests in DCS: A10 with the "framedata" under ctrl+pause.

 

When the triangle count is below 1.5M there is no real problem, only very much reduced framerate then before and slight stuttering. (on all detail settings)

 

Now when triangle count goes close and over 2M, it starts stuttering. When triangle count is 5M I have about 1fps.

 

If the triangle count changes upwards rapidly, the driver crashes and the screen flashes black after which it comes back on.

 

I have monitored gpu clock speeds and it clocks up normally when the 3d application start. Temp doesnt rise over 50C either.

 

EDIT: tried system restore but there are no points from before this problem occurs -.-

Edited November 11, 2010 by Geskes

[Geskes]

Allright, I went to a computer store tonight to explain my issue, along with what kind of beeps the mobo does during startup.

 

He says, well back in the days we would have lots of customers who had bought new computers call in with beeping mobo's and no video. During transport the video card might have moved out of its slot slightly, something like that.

 

So he says technically it cant happen anymore because of how the card is attached to the mobo but you can just try it, remove your GPU, look at it, give it your best wishes, put it back in and try again. So I do that and what do you think....

 

Everything is as smooth as before, even FSX now runs smooth.....

 

Now lets see how long it lasts, off to the briefing room!

[MTFDarkEagle]

Good to hear it's working again!

 

*saying to myself: damn I wish I had thought of that ;)*