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I think my video card is dying. I was playing Armed Assault last night when all of the sudden I got all of these bright psychedelic colors and corrupted textures and then the game locked up on me. I rebooted my PC and noticed that even the letters and numbers on my boot up BIOS screen were corrupted. I have an Nvidia 8800 GTS and when I checked the GPU temperature in the drivers it said it was running at about 136 degrees F. Is that normal or too high?

Anyway, I took the card out and I blew out as much dust as I could. There really wasn't much dust. Maybe a few small balls here and there. I put the card back in and booted up and noticed that even sitting in my Windows desktop, I get these long blue streaks across my screen.


So, it seems to me that for some reason the video card is overheating all the time now and I assume there is no fix?

Oh well, I guess I'll be buying a new card today.

Sounds to me like the video card's memory is bad.

The same exact thing happened to me two years ago with my 7900GTX. Depending on how long ago you purchased the card, you might want to check and see if the card is under manufacturer's warranty. I only buy XFX cards, as they have a lifetime warranty on their cards.

Sucks that you have to spend the money for a new card.

Softball wrote:Sounds to me like the video card's memory is bad.

The same exact thing happened to me two years ago with my 7900GTX. Depending on how long ago you purchased the card, you might want to check and see if the card is under manufacturer's warranty. I only buy XFX cards, as they have a lifetime warranty on their cards.

Sucks that you have to spend the money for a new card.

Thanks for your info Softball because someone on SimHQ also said that it looks like a bad memory issue. I've had the card for over 2 years and its not XFX so I know there's no warranty. I just cant believe the memory went bad after only 2 years of using it.

Anyway, I just bought a 9800 GTX for $145 from New Egg. That's a great price.

How long did you own that 7900 before it went bad?

One year. I think it was caused by an overheating issue.

Softball wrote:One year. I think it was caused by an overheating issue.

Did it overheat because of overclocking or maybe not good cooling in your case? Maybe bad Nvidia design?

The side cover on my case is always off and I never overclocked my 8800 GTS. That's why I'm surprised the memory went bad but maybe it went bad for some other reason besides overheating?

what is 135F in C? my 260's will run fine till 110C.

Proally had the fan on the card die or get caked with dust. I only buy EVGA cards because they too have a lifetime warranty on them and they have a 90 day step up program

Anyway, hope the new one works for you Panzer

Buffalo Six wrote:what is 135F in C? my 260's will run fine till 110C.

Proally had the fan on the card die or get caked with dust.

I know for sure it was not this because when I took the card out to clean it, it barely had any dust in the fan. I know the fan was working properly since I never heard it shut off or slow down while I was gaming.

Oh well, I should get my new card by Thursday at the latest.

135 is not too hot for a gpu.

bfg also has lifetime warranty. those are the last three cards i have purchased.

Well, I've been using my 9800 GTX for a couple of days now and its been great so far. I've noticed a slight frame rate improvement in most games and this card runs a LOT cooler compared to my 8800 GTS. Idle temp sitting in Windows is about 110 degrees. My 8800 GTS ran at 136 degrees sitting idle in Windows!