Errors detected in artifact test-what to do now?

[KilledInAction]

Hello

This is my few week old system summary:

GFX: Gigabyte 9800GTX+ 1GB (180.xx drivers)
PSU: Antec EarthWatts 500W
CPU: Intel E8500
MOBO: Gigabyte EP45-DS3P (F11 BIOS)
RAM: Kingston 2 x 2GB DDR2 6400
CASE: Coolmaster Elite 332
OS: Win XP32 SP3

I am trying to troubleshoot why my system is experiencing graphical stuttering/freezing/corruption when the graphics card is under load when playing games.
(note: I do not and have not OCed anything on my system, all stock/vanilla).

The problems start slowly getting worse the longer you play until the game graphics gets corrupted forcing you to ALT+TAB out, which sometimes fixes the problem when you ALT+TAB back in, but more often than not it kick you back to a corrupted desktop an I get a "nv4_disp display driver has stopped working error" and I have to hard reboot.

Here is an example of what the corruption can look like.

This is not from my system but from someone else who posted. The curious thing is that in my instances, I too have teh pshychadelic wierd colors and what appears to be textures from elsewhere in the game being put in places they aren't meant to be!!!

I have logged temperatures and all the problems seem to occur without the GPU temperature exceeding 70degC.

I have run the ATITool 0.26 program's "Scan for Artifacts" test and it HAS resulted in problems in repeated tests.

The curious thing here is that the temperatures being reported are still a very low 65 and 67 degC!! From what I understand this SHOUDLN'T be a problem for the card.

So my next question is: What can I conclude here and what to do next? Is the card faulty? Do I demand RMA/refund etc?

Thanks for help.

 

[KilledInAction]

Gee...kinda quiet around here.
Surely someone can tell me exactly what you can/can;t conclude if you find errors when running the "Scan for Artifacts" test. I mean, what is the whoel point of the test anyway? Is it actually a waste of time?

 

[erocker]

Barring driver problems, it looks like a bad card to me. Uninstall your drivers. Restart. Run Driver Sweeper. Install newest Nvidia drivers. Make sure DirectX 9 is fully up to date. Make sure your chipset/motherboard drivers are up to date. If the problem persists after that, it's most likely a defective card.

 

[sneekypeet]

I agree with erocker. remove the drivers you have now, and run driversweeper, reboot and load a newly downloaded driver. Could be that there are issues with a possible corrupt driver download. I have gotten them a couple of times. usually a fresh copy does the trick.

 

[francis511]

Overclocking is a common cause for artifacting like that

 

[sneekypeet]

from OP's post....

"I am trying to troubleshoot why my system is experiencing graphical stuttering/freezing/corruption when the graphics card is under load when playing games.
(note: I do not and have not OCed anything on my system, all stock/vanilla)."

 

[francis511]

Missed that.

 

[sneekypeet]

it happens