Video Problem

Hardware and technical stuff
1

My video card’s been having problems with overheating - sparkling and tearing while running games. No big deal, I blast a fan into the case and it’s all OK.

But I just moved the PC today - now within a minute of starting up I get the sparkling effect on the screen - not even in 3D; we’re talking Windows Desktop, the BIOS, whatever.

I’m presuming this is a good indication that the video card has finallly just given up entirely, but is there anything I should try before dropping the cash to replace it?

2

Have you tried taking the side off the case and running it that way to see if it works any better?

3

Yep. No dice. I don’t have a fan handy but I’m guessing blowing a fan into it full time would make it work - but honeslty I’m just not willing to do that. It was one thing to run the fan when I was only gaming - but running it whenever the computer is on just isn’t going to happen.

4

YOu’ve tried taking the card out and cleaning the dust and stuff out of the fan? And making sure the fan works?

5

I saw an interesting video of someone removing CPU heatsinks while a PC was running, the effect was much quicker than I thought it would be. Make sure you have a good seal/connection from the fan unit to the GPU. Or, just buy a new fan, they’re about 12$ at tigerdirect.

H.

6

I remember those, they were great. About 4 years ago, right?

The Intel process detected overtemp and throttled back. The AMD processors just burst into flames.