2 Computers, 2 issues... .. why me?

[Gothch1ck]

Alright so let's start with my buddies issue:

PC has odd black flickering during.. well almost everything. From games, to movies, to just tabbing through windows.

We thought it was vista/driver problem. Upgraded to the newest Drivers - no change, Upgraded to Windows 7, no change. The issue has problem beyond visual, during the gameplay of The Sims 3 - the system gets a message that the visual driver crashed and recovered, and the game get's incredibly sluggish and laggy.

This issue doesn't seem to happen on Windows 7 now - but it IS too laggy to enjoy.
Video - HD 4850 (or 4870.. I think 50 though)

Any ideas whatever else it could be?



My issue.. my rig... I had to clean it out and I decided to remove some of the shielding because well.. it was horridly dirty. I discovered something terrifying though. The CPU generic thermal compound was only in a S shape over the chip... this could explain such abnormally high temperatures, could it not? I also discovered my GPU heat sink has a DENT in the copper sink, creating an AIR POCKET that touches the main chip. Now I KNOW this isn't a good thing.

I tried 3DMark Vantage to test my PC.. but it gave me a rediculously low scoring and the recommended CPU.. was my CPU? I am confused.. is 3dMark total BS now?

I have stuttering in games, my temps are off the charts (idling at 63C right now, if you count "internet browsing" idle) Game temps hit 85+

I reapplied what I thought was good heat compound (Arctic 5) in a super thin layer, because I know 'too much, only hurts the cooling'

So maybe I am too out of date for this.... 3dMark score under 7000, Arctic silver 5 not cooling like I thought it would...

Any ideas?

 

[flipp1234567]

1) your friends computer, is it a Tower or a laptop computer? if its Tower, the flickering could come from the Monitor being out of date, or just bad connection with the HDMI port. idk what its called nowadays. and your SIMs crash could be a result of overheating GPU, or some driver failure from something else... i'm not too sure.

2) Your computer, Does your case have good ventilation?(wires out of the way of air pathing) does it have an intake and out take area? do you have enough fans? is there too much dust in there? get a new GPU, seeing as the 4890 (from your updated sig) is quite... out of date. The amount of energy it consumes is most likely the cause of all this excess heat in your system. THe Heatsink for your GPU can also be the cause of the excess heat on top of the energy it consumes.

a Super thin layer is not good as well... it will dry up faster than it should. So instead of applying a "super thin layer", just put a dot on the center of the cpu (not too little or too much) and then place the heatsink on it. then wiggle it around while applying moderate-low pressure so the thermal compund/paste spreads over it evenly. if you put too much it will get everywhere so be careful. the layer should be thicker than ur super thin but not too thick. If thats what you did, then idk whats up...

hop this helped...a little.

 

[Fat.Clown]

1. good video card gone bad.
2. 63C is hot for idle, 85C is still acceptable for under load.
3. spreading thin layer method is fine.

above are my personal opinion.