I'm at peace with the inevitable possibility that I may need to wholly replace my GPU, but if there's a way to salvage the thing, I'd at least like to try, or else know how to avoid this problem in future.
I've had an 8800gt for a few years now. It's an old veteran now, having been used in my previous computer, and now my newer PC built from scratch. Easily the oldest part of my PC outside the DVD drives currently. I realize that it's use in my old machine was improper, as my better understanding of amps and voltage in regards to power supplies tells me the cards ran underpowered for most of it's life, before finding a more proper home with a superior PSU to feed off of. This easily could be a reason for what is happening now.
Basically, last night I was playing Left 4 Dead 2, nothing out of the ordinary, until suddenly an image of Coach running along in Dead Center went Clockwork Orange on me, spitting a radial succession of image-glitches at me, from numbers against a yellow background to all sorts of odd static.
I immediately shut off the game as quick as the glitching would allow. Always paranoid of potential hard drives failure, I was quite shaken by what I'd seen, especially given my 3d animation class would be a bad experience if I was unable to finish my work due to a dead computer. I performed the usual checks and paused when I felt significant heat on the top of the tower. This was certainly a first for this machine. With the PSU as powerful as it is and an adequate cooling structure to boot, I've never "felt" any true heat permeate the tower. All my fans run silent at 100% anyway, and up till now, this cooling solution has been so hands-off that I've stopped monitoring altogether. And it's not as though I don't take a good can of Dustoff to the works regularly.
But this time, heat seems to have struck my poor old friend lame. A windowed test of the same game with Speedfan on showed a heating trend that has forced me to abandon putting the GPU under large loads. The degrees Celsius rose like a ticking clock as I played. Once the heat reached 97, I pulled the plug on the game. Even devoid of the load, it still took a while to cool down. As of now it is idling at 72 Celsius.
I know the fan is indeed running; I have visual confirmation on that. But I'm wondering if the fan is enabling past it's idle speed or not. I can usually hear it when it compensates for load, and I can't remember hearing the whir.
I tried downloading NVidia System Tools so I could alter the fan speed myself, but there is no option as promised for "automatic/manual" modes, and every attempt to change the fan speed gives me the message: "The changes made were invalid and will not be applied."
I'm honestly starting to think I'm going to have to replace the card. I hear the GTX 460 is well-praised, well priced, powerful, cool and efficient. I'm sorely tempted to get it, but I'll have to wait till Friday just to PAY for the damn thing I'm afraid...
Yeah looks like your card is dying, try putting it in the oven.
And if you are getting a new one, GTX 460 is goood, but there is the cheaper and smaller one gtx 450, thought i dont know much about that one.
Yea its dieing, 72 is to high for a 8800GT on idle, and yea, if you get a new card go for the GTX460 (The MSI Cyclone version to be exact).
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