constant video crashing

[BabyHeadCrab]

well, i'm at my last straw here before I just junk this BFG 6800ultra OC video card, basically it's given me nothing but problems. Recently in World of Warcraft and other games i'd be experienceing random crashing and very glitchy bizzare graphics, everything from strands of random color shooting from player models to hollow areas of ground, not only this but eventually the game just hard crashed over and over when I tried to play over 5 min. Basically nothing would repair it and I had to restart my computer.

After rebooting I realized graphic glitches in the logo startup screen for my abit motherboard, and even on the ram and hardware countup screen... windows would even start to normally crash. Currently I have graphics exelleration turned off to prevent future problems with this SOB, I finally decided to reformat my HDD to see if it was a driver issue.. but to no avail.. this is my new partition and low and behold as soon as I attempt to install a driver, windows gives me BSOD and I get similar problems followed by crashing. I might add that windows reminds me that the driver is not signed and therefore could be unstable.. but it's worked for me before despite similar holdbacks. Installing any type of driver now gives me bsod.

Does anyone know anything else I could do.. the card was very expensive and I feel trapped here. I've had similar problems but never anything this show stopping.. in other words i've had this card almost a year and been able to play games (almost) flawlessly.. if you dont count replacing the default heatsink/fan because orginal broek down and was noisy, and buying a new PSU because of inadequate power...sigh

I even went into bios and reconfigured everything according to what nvidia suggests.

P.S. I have a BFG 6800ultra OC..... and I'l always regret it lol

should add that even without video card drivers installed, except the temp one windows gives you just to put an image on the monitor, I still get lines and discoloration in the windows loading / hardware booting screens. I just restarted to confirm...

if anyone has a recommendation for my next card that would be appreciated... preferably ati and affordable.. with equal or better capabilities

-thanks for any helpful replies in advance


-bhc

 

[J_Tweedy]

I had this problem with TWO leadtek 6800gts (lol)
It was a case of faulty video memory, caused by a bad 'batch' they produced late last year and it 'slipped' through 'quality control'.
It doesn't always appear straight away either, or until your faulty memory is stressed out enough to show the faults.
Both times i had to return the faulty products, only getting a (beautifully) working one after requesting one from another supplier.
Temperatures on the card may be an indication- they were for me- my working one sits at a good 10C less than either of the faulty ones.
I suggest you RMA this, if the terms of your warranty allow. (replacing the heatsink may have voided it unfortunately)
Good affordable alternative is the x800xl from Ati, available in both AGP and PCI-e, but i chose to stick with nVidia and have since (the working one) never been happier.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

whenever I attempt to install video drivers (tried several versions) as soon as it gets to a certain point I get BSOD and when the computer restarts adn attempts to boot windows, the monitor fails to recognize the signal. The only way out of the mess is to boot in safe mode and to load a system restore point. I cannot install drivers.. or play any games.

now my question is... is this a problem with my video card or mobo..? keep in mind I'm seeing stipes and bizzare dot patterns (similar to weird static on a tv.. hard to explain) on my mobo logo and mobo bios screen as well as the memory check / hardware screen during boot time. But when windows loads I see no stripes or graphic glitches.

 

[J_Tweedy]

Well judging from my experience, its still your vid card- the artifacts i was getting were on boot up BEFORE the BIOS screen, when counting up the gfx memory to 256mb.
Could also be your power supply- not enough juice can cause problems like this- worth checking out. What you got?

 

[Asus]

Generally if you are stressing your PSU too much it will just crash your system. Is the card out of warrenty?

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

my psu is the most beutiful part of my system, 600w OCZ... and yes I believe the video card is out of warranty because of the replaced heatsink/fan

I sincerily doubt the problem is my power supply for several reasons.. just doesnt seem like a power problem at all. No power warnings or anything.