Is my graphics card dying?

Hotlead Junkie

I'v installed speedfan and have been monitoring temperatures as I'm sure my laptop is overheating and causing graphical glitches, stretching and artifacting. To test this, I made a makeshift icepack and placed it under my laptop and had a fan blowing cool air into it's fan vent. I did a few tests with a game (Spore creature trial) and took note of the temperature. I ran it and my graphics card/opengl at the very lowest settings, medium/balanced then everything at the hightest settings and here are my results according to speedfan's readout.



Idle sans Ice pack and fan plus on a cool table surface = 28C-30C
(CPU usage is usually lover than 10%)



Results while cooled with ice pack and fan


Idle = 25-28C
(CPU usage is usually lover than 10%)


Performance/Low = 31-36C
A very small amount of artifacting (CPU usage hovers around 50%-60%)


Medium/balanced = 47C
Some artifacting (CPU usage jumps to around 80%-100%)


High performance = 50C
Very bad artifacting, even the desktop had 'streaks' utnil I lowered my graphics card settings back down to perfrormance then they cleared up (CPU usage hovers around 90%-100%)



What does this sound like? I'v been told anything below 50C is perfectley fine (not sure for laptops) but even when running at 31-36 I get these graphical glitches, although much more minor. Does this sound like my graphics card is dying on me or does it sound like something else?

My computer specs and graphics card


Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2
System Manufacturer: Acer, inc.
System Model: Ferrari 4000
BIOS: Phoenix NoteBIOS 4.0 Release 6.1
Processor: AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology ML-32, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.8GHz
Memory: 1022MB RAM
Page File: 402MB used, 2057MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)



Card name: ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 (0x5653)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5653&SUBSYS_007E1025&REV_00
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 800 (32 bit) (60Hz)



How did this happen? This system seemed to run fine and many new games (Doom 3 and FEAR ran at their max setting but I noticed the system was very hot) but now I'm getting horrible graphical glitches while playing Oblivion or Team Fortress 2 at their lowest settings. Did it fry due to being overheated? My laptop always got very hot when playing these games so if that is what killed the card would investing in a cooling tray prevent this in the future?

EDIT: I'v already done an entire system wipe/reinstall of eveything so I very muhc doubt it is a software issue

I've gotten back in contact with customer support about this and am going to send it off for repairs due to it still being under warranty, but if I know this is the actual problem I'm having and not something else, would investing in a cooling tray help keep the temperature under control? When the system is returned to me will only playing games on medium setting, eg, not trying too hard to push the system keep this from happening again (combined with a cooling tray of course)?

Thanks for reading and I apologise for all these recent threads.

bloodr

Sounds like your VRAM went south on you. Generally speaking if the GPU is bad you'll get lockups, bad VRAM causes artifacts.

Good call sending it back.

A cooling tray MIGHT help but I doubt that is the root cause of the problem. After all it is a LAPtop. You got one with bad VRAM, it happens.

PeregrineFalcon

bloodr wrote: »

Sounds like your VRAM went south on you. Generally speaking if the GPU is bad you'll get lockups, bad VRAM causes artifacts.

Good call sending it back.

Agreed. When you get it back from repair (obligatory "lol Acer" comment, they'll take an age) throw some looping demos on it to stress the hell out of it to make sure it's fixed.

Hotlead Junkie

bloodr wrote: »

Sounds like your VRAM went south on you. Generally speaking if the GPU is bad you'll get lockups, bad VRAM causes artifacts.

Good call sending it back.

A cooling tray MIGHT help but I doubt that is the root cause of the problem. After all it is a LAPtop. You got one with bad VRAM, it happens.

I'v been having restarts/lockups when the glitches get really bad. But what is the fix? Is it a hardware issue or software? Are you implying that the cause of the problem was present when I recieved the laptop (aka, 'you got one with bad VRAM, it happens')? I'm just hoping the warranty covers this so I'm just trying to get a good idea of what the problem really is. If it turns out I was given a dodgy peice of hardware I have no worries about them fixing it under the warranty.

Was there basically nothing I could do to help this happening?

Sorry to sound so oblivious about this, I'v no idea how computers really work, heh.

harvest

If your desktop was getting artifacting then it definitely a hardware fault.

Not all hardware is manufactured equal. Some parts have shorter lives than others, and you happened to get unlucky in this case. The only thing you could have done to prevent this from happening is not to use the computer at all.

bloodr

Hotlead Junkie wrote: »

Was there basically nothing I could do to help this happening?

Sorry to sound so oblivious about this, I'v no idea how computers really work, heh.

Basically yes. Maybe the RAM chips weren't soldered in right or one them was bad and it wasn't caught in the testing process. Using the computer brought the defect out.

It happens, but how often it happens depends on the build quality of computer.