9800 Se

[DanteHL2]

well to make a long story short, I got a 9800 SE from my friend (for free) since he was getting a 9800 pro not too long from now.

No modding or any of the sort has been done to the card and he's only had it for a month.

I know the 9800 SE is a severely crippled version of the 9800 but it ran pretty good for a while in my comp. but then I began to see artifacts...

It ran good for ohhhh....mmmm 2 weeks then the graphics started to get choppy. In NS I would always get 60 FPS no matter what with it...then my FPS jumped to 72 one day (really didn't care since 60 was perfect) and now when I get near structures (such as turrets, aliens etc.) my fps drops to 30-40 fps.

I know something is wrong with this and my friend has the one year warranty still on it. I could just get him to return it and get a new one since I really have no clue what is wrong with this one. What do you think I should do?

oh yeah P.S.

Forgot to say that around Nov. 15 I plan on buying either a 9800 Pro or a 9800 XT. pends on how much prices have dropped since then. Thanks again :afro:

 

[Asus]

Did you change the refresh rate of your monitor or turn Vsycn off/on?
It sounds like a setting was changed rather than the card went bad.
Going from 60fps constant to 72 or different fps sounds like a vsync/refresh rate issue or maybe upgraded drivers that resulted in changed settings?
I would go ahead and leave Vsync on and default refresh rate for games if you dont want to mess with it and if 60 fps is fine for you.
Go through display properties by rightclicking on your background and go to settings/advanced and check your settings and set them as you like. You can always reset to default.

 

[dawdler]

Well... Define artifacts? It could be a card problem, true...

Though since you got it for free (and is gonna buy a new card anyway soon), I would personally advise the following:
Reformat the computer, reinstall latest drivers, see what happens. Failing that, get a new fan/heatsink! Add lots of thermal paste on the core (factory paste can be... yucky...), add ramsinks, and see how good it runs. If you are lucky, you might some more performance out of it.
See it as something to practise on, its free

 

[DanteHL2]

tried what you said dawdler. Nothing changed at all, don't really matter though. Just sucks that I can't play my games for a few weeks (I need a break from them anyways...I CAN play the games but I won't play them with the artifacts...not worth my time) I've already began searching for a 9800 Pro to stick in this sucka. Mainly all I've found so far is Ebay and pricewatch. Some dude just won a 256 9800 Pro for $330....lucky bastage :x Oh well enough rambling lol take care

P.S. I'm not even gonna bother with this card (heatsinks), just gonna use it for non-gaming purposes and get the 9800 pro