Help w/ video card problem

[Gunner]

My video card is a sapphire 1900 GT, and ever since I bought it I've had this problem come and go, but as of late, it's mostly coming and less going.

It constantly produces artifacts at temperatures even as low as 40C. I've tried everything I can think of: different catalyst drivers, omega drivers, vsync on/off, low detail, high detail, AA on/off, AF on/off, cleaned the card's inside, applied AS5, got an extra VGA cooler, underclocked it, undervolted it...

The sapphire tech forums are horrible too, the moderators and support crew are volunteers. They don't care and their only suggestion to everyone who experiences any trouble with their products is to change PSUs. That's all they say to everyone, change your PSU you noob. And when people post back that changing PSUs didn't help they just lock the thread and move on.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=4

By the way I changed PSUs and it didn't help.

Here are some examples of the artifacts. I only get these artifacts, deformed lines sometimes thick, sometimes thin, that shoot out of player models. Sometimes textures are missing on one face of a solid object too.

http://img458.imageshack.us/img458/6233/deaztec0002qq4.jpg
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/5470/deaztec0001nv7.jpg
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/2069/deaztec0003qo7.jpg

This happens across all games, but I can reduce the amount and occurrence by playing on extremely low detail.

I'm running out of ideas, can somebody help me? I don't want to buy a new video card just yet, I'm waiting till the next price drop in 8800s.

 

[skarrob]

I was getting the same thing with my card on BF2. I have a BFG 7900 GTOC I physically removed the card and reinstalled works fine for now just been about 3 days. You got 2 or 4 sticks of mem? Might be a bad mem stick,also try removing one stick and see if your prob stays.

 

[skarrob]

Also does you card have any warranty left? Maybe a bad card. Overclocking can heat one up real quick.

 

[Barney Fife]

This (Maybe) could be hardware related issue than software?
You physically removed V-card, cleaned and installed?

Hm! Let's see what others say about this, I'm not familiar with ATI cards.

Good Luck.

 

[Gunner]

Yeah got 4 sticks of memory, going to try one at a time.

The card should be under warranty, but the thing is if I RMA or return the card I'll be left with no pc for weeks since this motherboard doesn't have onboard video. And I never overclocked it.

I opened it, took it apart and cleaned, the first thing I noticed inside was the insane amount of thermal paste there was. I mean it was overflowing on the sides of the gpu and pouring outside. I cleaned all that and put some AS5. I still get the artifacts, a bit less but that could be just random luck.