Games Freezing / Artifacting. 9800 GTX + 790i

Gibb

So first of all, here's my specs.

XFX 9800 GTX XXX Edition
XFX 790i Ultra
2gb DDR3
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHZ
500 PSU

So for the last week I've been playing games just fine, Crysis at Very High + UT3 + TF2. But now everygame I play freezes about 10 seconds in. I either get a full freeze, or it artifacts and I can alt ctrl delete. I got latest drivers for vid card.

Heres what I run my 9800 GTX at.

740 Core Clock (EVGA Precision says it actually runs at 738)
1850 Shader Clock (EVGA Precision says it actually runs at 1836)
1200 Memory Clock (EVGA Precision says it actually runs at 1203)

Vid Card runs at 45 idle, but more like 50-60 in game. Soon I'm gonna install the new BIOS for the mobo.

Any help is very appreciated, thank you.

Ego

What sort of artifacting, geometry errors or texture issues?

I'd try scaling back the clock speeds by 100mhz each just to see if it's maybe a cooling issue.

Gibb

Ego wrote: »

What sort of artifacting, geometry errors or texture issues?

I'd try scaling back the clock speeds by 100mhz each just to see if it's maybe a cooling issue.

I tried it, vid card ran 66 pretty much solid. And the game ran fine, played for about 5 minutes. :^:

As for the artifacts, all textures disappear and everything turns a lovely technicolor and everything is SUPER fucked up. But looks like my card is overheating, thanks. :P

(I kept the card at 800 / 2000 / 1200 clocks for pretty much all day a couple days ago and it ran awesome.)

Ego

Maybe just give the cooling system a good blast with compressed air? It seems like the more fins heatsinks have the better they work, but the extra surface area also means they collect dust that much faster. And when you OC you're always just that much closer to the limit. If your old settings are still unstable after the heatsink is cleared, could be that your thermal paste is getting dry, might be a good excuse (well not a good excuse but it's the excuse I'd use) to pick up some fancy thermal grease and see if you can get your core that much higher afterwards .

edit: but if things go back to normal when you're clocked down, at least you know the memory hasn't fritzed . High end video card memory is pretty cutting edge and in my experience it's what breaks, short of cooked cores from cooling issues.

Gibb

Ego wrote: »

Maybe just give the cooling system a good blast with compressed air? It seems like the more fins heatsinks have the better they work, but the extra surface area also means they collect dust that much faster. And when you OC you're always just that much closer to the limit. If your old settings are still unstable after the heatsink is cleared, could be that your thermal paste is getting dry, might be a good excuse (well not a good excuse but it's the excuse I'd use) to pick up some fancy thermal grease and see if you can get your core that much higher afterwards .

Thanks man. Also, I haven't applied any thermal paste. :oops: My fan should be pretty clean, only put in the Video Card last week. Another thing is that it is really fucking hot outside and in my house. :P

EDIT: Played TF2 for 30 minutes no problems. (With lower clock speeds.)

Ego

my CPU is OC'd by 690mhz and it's just the metal to metal connection with the heatsink (and whatever residue was left from the gunk I scraped off). 90% of the time I tweak speeds with stock cooling (in my view overclocking rarely saves you money if you're spending a bunch of cash to do it... though spending cash makes it more fun,) but good thermal interface material can make for a big improvement in heat dissipation. And you get to use it with ALL your current cooling, which is pretty cost effective.

SporkAndrew

Gibb wrote: »

Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 MHZ

Must've taken some effort to find a dual core CPU that performs worse than a 286. At least they were 12.5mhz..

(typo oh ho ho)

Gibb

SporkAndrew wrote: »

Gibb wrote: »

Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 MHZ

Must've taken some effort to find a dual core CPU that performs worse than a 286. At least they were 12.5mhz..

(typo oh ho ho)

Whoopsies. :P