Graphics card malfunction

[ilovesocks]

Okay long story:

I have a three-year-old GeForce4 Ti 4600 and its fan screeched for a long time before the bearings completely burned out and it stopped spinning and I think the card overheated because the screen went all crazy and I had to shut the computer off.

I took off the heatsink and replaced it with an ATT 36u heatsink/fan that I bought at Fry's. I made sure it spun and all before I tried playing Deus Ex and then Hitman Contracts.

Deus Ex worked like a charm, except for some small black rectangular spots that appeared randomly on certain textures. When I tried to play Hitman Contracts, strangely colored polygons flashed around very quickly, and they seemed to be floating in front of the game, as if I'd be able to see the game if I were able to brush the polygons aside.

So I uninstalled the graphics card drivers (I was using nVidia's version 4.5.2.3) and installed the ForceWare 77.72 driver from this site. It didn't fix it; the crazy polygons just became less colorful and a bit smaller. During the game, the polygons seemed to be extensions of 47's arms, legs, head, and were matching in color. The longer I tried to play, the bigger and more extravagant the polygons became. In a few minutes I couldn't see a thing.

Please tell me this is a software issue! I hope there wasn't any damage to my card. Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Alvin.C]

Re:

Hello,

Your video card is probably 'Artifacting' because the GPU is damaged...most probably due to overheating when the fan failed to operate.

If this is the case...then I'm afraid it's the case of 'Out with the old and in with the new...'

 

[timmer]

yeap alvin is correct, u are overheating. and the card is toast probably now so go get urself a nice 6600gt or something. i mean hell what an axcuse to do so.

 

[BASSMASTER]

yeap alvin is correct, u are overheating. and the card is toast probably now so go get urself a nice 6600gt or something. i mean hell what an axcuse to do so.

The fact that you are describing them as polygons is a sure sign that it's a fried GPU. Like Timmer said, you'll never have a better excuse than that to buy a new one

 

[ilovesocks]

Okay thanks for the confirmation. In terms of my old hardware, what kind of card should I get? I've got a hankerin' for an ATI card, as I've never used one. What's a good upgrade that doesn't cost too much and my old computer will be able to take advantage of it?

 

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

Well, if you wanna good budget card, best price-to-preformance ratio is the ATI 9800 Pro. It cranks out good vid settings n' such, and seems to handle particle effects extremely well. Rediculously well I should say. On lego star wars, when flames would get near the front of the screen my 9800 pro wouldn't even flinch, my 9600 pro would have a heart attack, lol.

Now, a 9800 Pro costs about $170 CAD. I dunno how much USD. Another good card to look for is the geforce 6600gt. A little more pricey, the preformance to price ratio ain't as good, (costs like $240 CAD!) but the actual preformance is better than the 9800 pro. It's up to you which way you wanna try. Remember to completely uninstall your current vidcard drivers before plaing anyother vidcard in your comp, or you can get some problems afterwards, big or small, they're gonna be annoying problems.

 

[ilovesocks]

Oh, good I was looking at the 9800Pro - this one, to be exact. Looks okay? It's the cheapest one with a 256-bit memory interface.