Nvidia Geforce 7900 GS Artifacting--- Need Help!

[Musketman007]

I bought a Dell XPS 400 about three years back and I have played various games without any problems. About 6 months ago I noticed small glitches on my screen while playing World of Warcraft. These artifacts have become increasingly annoying and they seem to occur whenever my video card is stressed above normal web browsing. I cleaned my graphics card with compressed air to remove the dust which reduce my idle temp to about 50 degrees C. It is a stock card that came with my dell so it is not overclocked. I tried lowering the Core and Memory with ATItool without any success. Even reducing the Core and Memory drastically doesn't seem to help. I also have installed the latest drivers without success. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[patonb]

Sounds liike its dying. My suggestion was to lower your clocks, but you did, and still no go.

Next suggestion is try it in another system to dcoble check.

But I honestly think its giving up on you. Time for a new card.

You'll need to pop open your case and give your psu size and Amps on each 12V rail, and if it has a pci-e cable. It'll be a cable with 6 pins just hanging out.

Welcome to the forfum.

 

[Musketman007]

Thanks for the quick reply patonb. I will try the card in another system. I'm not sure what you mean by, "Give your psu size and Amps on each 12V rail..." It is a PCI-E card with a 6pin cable though. I'm new to this sort of thing so I apologize if I have trouble understanding some terms.

 

[patonb]

On the power supply, aka psu, theres a sticker that'll have a chart like the one below:

You see the 12V? Under it is 41A, Well we need the 41A part, and the total Watts, the 550W at the very bottom.

Don't worry about not knowing... We all started somewhere

 

[Musketman007]

Input- 100-120V ~ 11.4A, 50-60Hz
200-240V ~ 6.1A
Output +5V... 22A, -12V...... 1A
375W Max +12VA..18A, +3.3V... 17A
+12VB...18A, +5VFP...2A
The Max combined output current on +12VA and +12VB output is 30A.
Max combined power on +5V and +3.3V output is 150W.

I hope that helps... Here is a image below as well. Also I tried putting the card in a Dell 4700. I got the card in fine, but the little 6 slot power connector to the card doesn't seem to be present in the 4700.

 

[Musketman007]

Couldn't get the image to upload, hope the info helps.

 

[Musketman007]

The Max combined output current on +12VA and +12VB output is 30A.
Max combined power on +5V and +3.3V output is 150W.

 

[patonb]

Your numbers for your psu are just fine, and what is needed. To post your image, I use photobucket to host them.

As I have said your most likely in need of a new card. I'm not that great at component selection, so I'll pass on gpu suggestions, but it'd be a good idea to try it in a system to confirm a dying gpu.

And before someone B****es at you, try not to multi-post... Some people really get uppity about it.

 

[Musketman007]

The Dell 4700 that I'm testing the card in only has a 305 watt power supply and does not come with a 6-Pin PCIe power cable. I think I will have to use an adapter (two 4 Pin Molex to one 6 Pin PCIe). I've read that these adapters come with just about every video card sold, but unfortunately I don't have one. So off to the store in the morning. Thanks for the multi-post advice also.