Problem with GF7900GT

[Lino82]

I'm having some trouble with gaming lately.
Ever since I installed Vista (and went back to XP quite soon after that) I've been getting strange behavior in 3D games.
It first appeared in Black & White 2, the fur of creatures would sometimes create an artifact (some kind of spike shooting out of the fur continuing endlessly), or the textures to the trees would be gone and replaced by a weird pinkish colour.
At first I thought it was Vista, but goping back to XP didn't change a thing. I've also tried a bunch of Official and Unofficial drivers, but that didn't resolve anything either.
It even seems to have gotten worse, since I get the problem in other games too, sometimes even critical errors etc. (games include Fable, the Sims 2, Two Worlds, etc etc)
I thought it might be heat realted, but after cleaning out the dust in the fan and monitoring temp it didn't seem to go hot enough to justify these problems (70°C max).

My system:

GF7900GT (not overclocked)
AMD64 3200+ @ 2GHz
1.5 gigs of DDR @ 333MHz
WinXP pro (up to date)

Any ideas? I'm a bit at a loss here.

[ski]

70 C for that card's GPU is borderline high.
Did you also clean the card's heatsink with a small brush and a can of compressed air? And if it has internal air passage ways, then use a pipe cleaner to make sure it's thoroughly cleaned.
Also, reseat the card making sure it's firmly seated at both ends with no looseness, the fan is running at its design speed, and the fan & heatsink are securely mounted.

If those do not help, and you did a clean reinstall of XP, then see if the same problem happens with the card installed in another system. If it does, then the card may be bad.

[Lino82]

I've just done all that, cleaned it thoroughly, etc, and it seems to run a few degrees cooler on idle, haven't tested it ingame yet.
Just a question, how do I check at which speed the fan is running? And how do I know what the design speed is?

[saphalline]

What's wrong with 70C?? It's a 7900 GT, for crying out loud! That sucker is rated for like 90-100C!

Heat is not your problem. A bad RAM chip or two is/are your problem(s). Unfortunately, it sounds like your vid card has given up the ghost. What manufacturer is it? Should be under warranty still, so I would go the RMA route.

[ski]

If the GPU is running around 40-50 C at idle, then the fan is ok.
Is it possible to install the card in another system? If not, do you have another card to install in your system?

[Lino82]

it is running at 52°C at idle. And as far as I can remember it has never ran any cooler, ****ty standard fan I guess.
I don't have another system or another graph card available to check unfortunately.
So basically the only option I have is replace it if a ram module is faulty? But wouldn't I have trouble in all games in that case?
It is a Gainward card, can't remember if it is still under warranty, will have to check.

[refridginator]

i have the exact same problems lino, xfx 7900 gt. ive had it for about a year and have occasionally opened the gpu temp monitoring tool to log while playing world of warcraft and oblivion. the idle temp has steadily climbed over a few months from low 40s to high 40s, but i havent really given it as thorough of a clean as ski suggested until today. WoW has started giving me major artifacting issues around 3 months ago, and has progressively gotten worse, even when the core gpu temp is at no higher than ~52*C. oblivion has very few artifacts but crashes more often because of the card itself.

i believe its just damage from borderline high heat over time, games with 3d polygons will now artifact right upon opening for me, even when the gpu is at idle temperature. i took out the vid. card to clean it and removed the fan case to find the xfx graphics plate melted to the underside of the fan case, but that material is more heat sensitive than anything else on the card.

im telling you, ever since i got this card ive heard nothing good about it from manufacturers that stock OC it. i would just save the hassle and grab an 8 series, a bigger pc case, and lots of fans or liquid coolant and stop the problem before it starts.

[saphalline]

But wouldn't I have trouble in all games in that case?

Nope. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. It all depends on which RAM chip is faulty. Or if it even is faulty - could just be an overheating problem. Or a pattern confusion problem. Whatever the problem is, it sounds like replacing it is the solution.

ever since i got this card ive heard nothing good about it from manufacturers that stock OC it.

I've never heard anything like that. I know of several factory OC'ed 7900 GT's that are doing just fine. One of the real benefits of the 7900's is the fact that the RAM is cooled with the GPU using a single heatsink design (as per NVidia reference). And I don't really see how an OC'ed 7900 GT can do any worse than a 7900 GTX. But of course, some of them do break. However, I don't think any more factory OC'ed 7900 GT's break than other vid cards, 8800 series included.