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XFX 8800GT Extreme Edition; Artifacts!!!

Joined
Aug 11, 2007
Messages
27 (0.00/day)
:banghead:

I just got this card, and put it into the following system.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ EE
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-675
MSI K9N Platinum motherboard
Antec TruePower 2.0 430-watt PSU (+12v total 31A)

Just watch the video, it explains everything.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_V7U_MPeXWA

Please give your opinions on the artifacts shown at the end of the video. Is this overheating? Or a driver issue?

The core of the card never gets above 65C..as for the memory I have no clue.
 
I would say its bad memory. rma the card. gotta say you dominated those dudes in crysis though.
 
temps may be the problem. run your fan at 70% and see if it still does it. are you overclocking the card?
 
My suspision is overheating memory. The card came factory overclocked at 640core/1620shader/1900mem and I have not touched the clocks at all.

Ill try raising the fan speed and see if it helps.

Should I raise it in Rivatuner or thru nTune

oh yea i did totally own those guys. I like the part where I have the dual pistols and I totally rape 3 of them lol.
 
either would work. i run both of my GT's with zalman vf-900's and temps are about 20c lower than stock cooler.
 
I OC... i get that SAME screen.
it happens when either the MEMORY or the SHADERs are clocked too high (too much on core causes blank screen), the way you can tell is if the system freezes- can you alt tab out? if so, then its the shaders... if the system freezes at that screen then reboots, then its the memory (at least for me) but its exactly the same screen as the one you showed in the vid.

EDIT... use rivatuner to lower the memclocks, if the shaders are doing that, then flashing to a bios with 1.1v will help. (unless you have a bad vcore/vmem regulator in which case RMA is best option) - my card is clocked at 721/1839/2060 ATM with 1.1v flashed bios.

overheated memory may be an issue for u, idk i took off the stock cooler before ever installing the card - but its more likely your core would overhead b4 the memory does. I would bet that shaders arent getting enough juice - or you have faulty memory.
 
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i havent tried alt-tabbing, but the system just freezes; it doesnt reboot itself. it tries to keep working because it freezes with the red squiggly's on the screen, then i hear a bit of sound (from the game) and then it freezes again, then a little tidbit of sound from the game, and then freezes again.

ill try alt-tabbing in a bit, as well as raising the fan speed.
 
boosted fan speed to 50%...no artifacts! w00t!

good to hear. it does sound like they clocked your card too high from the factory. i still recommend a better cooler.

have fun playing crysis problem free!
 
boosted fan speed to 50%...no artifacts! w00t!

Try automating your cards fan. Works great for me. Under 51C running 60% it's quiet enough I can't hear it. At >55C I have the fan going 80% and at >60C 100%.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/article/449/

This guide works for the 8800GT.

Also take the fan off and clean the factory crap off and use your own thermal compound on the GPU. When I did mine a piece of tape was covering part of the fan intake!!
 
well i didnt solve the issue in bioshock. its still occurring. i even lowered the core to 625 mhz, and the same damn artifacts came up.

ideas?
 
use rivatuner to lower the shaders, forget about core, rivatuner lets u lower them independently... are you getting enough air in/out of your case? There might not even be a reason to lower anything if youre just overheating, you might need better cooling. - if your clocks were really too high, then upping your fanspeed would have done nothing for the artifacts in crysis.

Also try upping the core back to default and lowering the memory (its impact is fairly minimal anyways)...
 
come to think of it, there really isnt any airflow around the card whatsoever. my CPU is watercooled; i have 2 80mm fans in the case and an external 120mm radiator...

Also, as a sidenote...and this is very interesting. I lowered the memory speed from 950mhz to 913mhz and the artifacts went away in Bioshock. The fan was at 50%...highest the core got during Bioshock was 60C. I know this because I ran Bioshock in windowed mode with Rivatuner temp monitoring open on the side.

Most likely, there is shitty contact between the heatsink and the memory.

I ordered one of these the other day

http://www.coolitsystems.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=163

If that doesnt help, I'll have to either RMA or look for aftermarket cooling.
 
nah man... Qimonda chips that are used on the 8800GT arent meant to run at those timings there are reviews all over the net about it - some people get lucky and their mem can OC and some cant even get past 910MHz... the memory is most likely not overheating. But on the bright side, it looks like u got some OC room on the core/shaders. I bet you hit 710/720 core and 1800MHz shaders easy. (watch the FPS climb)
 
so you are saying that the memory is just completely uncapable of running at certain speeds? i suppose i can believe that.

I'll see how high I can re-raise the memory before it starts to artifact again, and then ill keep it at that speed.

Ill let you guys know what speed it is.
 
hey man... i tried to find a source, but could not find anything other than the original thread that i read it in... consider my last post hearsay haha... sorry
 
If the card isn't capable of being artifact free (regardless of the game or app) at its factory clocks then rma it. You shouldn't have to change the cooler or downclock it just to get it to work.
 
but then why would the card only artifact in two games? bioshock and crysis will not artifact if i lower the memory from 950mhz to 913mhz. All other games can run perfectly fine at 950mhz mem speed. i am beginning to thing that this is some sort of imcompatibility or application issue, not the card.

thoughts?

i have talked to XFX support team and they think the same thing, but are still unsure.
 
yes the one advantage with buying factory overclocked is the guarantee to work factor.. send it back.. but its a problem with water cooling.. lack of airflow in general..

trog
 
Because other games aren't as intensive and won't push the memory to the point where it artifacts. Just like an unstable processor, it might boot to windows, might even run superpi, but when you bombard it with calculations for hours it gives out (a la stability testing)
 
is it me or are you playing in easy mod ?
 
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