7800 GT Problem

choad21 · May 8th, 2007, 03:58 AM

I have refrained from asking the Driver Gods until I felt that I had tried all possible solutions to remedy my problem...so here goes what is going on...My Video card is a BFG 7800 GT OC...

I play Dark Age of Camelot alot...it's the main game I play and have had a problem in it for a few weeks (maybe even a month now)...I thought it was the crappy programing of the game that was causing this problem til I had it happen when I was playing Titan Quest: Immortal Throne (or whatever the xp pack is called)

(This problem normally happens in whatever game I'm playing after atleast 1-2 hours of gaming...have never had it happen immediately and I don't recall it ever happening within the 1st hour of gaming)

The problem is this...either my video goes to a completely black screen, or it freezes with mostly black and possibly some of the User Interface of whatever game I'm playing...

Also what has been known to happen instead of those things is a flicker will occur to show me that the Black screen of death is about to happen and I can quit whatever game and when it gets to the desktop, the screen will be at a very low res (640*480) and will be at a color depth of 4bit...

SO, I have made sure my power supply is providing more than enough power to the Video Card...and it is, or should be according to the 12v amps....made sure the video card is not over heating (it never gets above 63 C, even under heavy load for hours)...reinstalled Directx9.0c and all updates possible...updated mobo bios, all windows updates, all possible cpu dual core patches, and anything else known to a pretty geeky guy...

An even nerdier friend of mine told me that whenever the screen res gets dropped to such a low res it is due to the video driver crashing and it results in the default driver being loaded (might not be correct terminology but I hope you all get the gist)...Is this true? Logically it would seem correct...

I have tried the absolute newest drivers from NGO...tried both the compatibly options as well as the performance and still have the same problem...have tried the 93.71 drivers and problems...have tried the Nvidia official release drivers...and still problems...

Is this a case of the drivers causing the problem and I need to find an older set of drivers that doesn't do this?...or is the video card going out on me?...or is it something entirely unrelated?... or is this something that could be a million different things?

Thanks for any help whatsoever,
Chad

Oh and if you my need entire specs of the PC, please let me know...

IModAmd · May 8th, 2007, 04:02 AM

Ok well for first it's can't be your psu ... is really good psu what you had but i want your config and how many time your os are instaled ? Maybe is that's the problem and did you do defrags of your hdd and registry scans?

Edit: did you try an visual check up of your videocard check if you had enought of thermal paste and if your cooler are corectly putted on your pcb?

IModIntel · May 8th, 2007, 04:08 AM

IS this a new card that you bought? If it is and you had an ATi before, you should reinstall OS. But keep posting some more detail if you can.

choad21 · May 8th, 2007, 04:59 AM

First off...WOW...you guys are fast...and thank you very much...

This card has been the only card I've had in since the fresh install of Windows XP SP2...Now I did have 2 separate Windows installed on this PC on separate Hard drives (thought a HD was going out on me...fixed that problem though...had insane hardware interrupts due to sound card and it's IRQs)

There has never been any other card in the machine...the paste is securely on the Video card, the fan, and all else are attached correctly and secured (not overly tightened but snug like the manual said) and the temperatures never exceed 63 C even in a hot room...

I defrag my hard drives about once a month using O&O Defrag (always liked it) and have used a few different registry scanners...

Btw each time I have installed new drivers I always use driver cleaner pro and safe mode uninstall...

I have done numerous visual checks on both the Video Card and the motherboard...nothing looked to be bulging or corroding (long ago had a mobo go bad and could see the corrosion and bulging on certain parts)

Thanks again...and please ask me all the questions you all need to, so that we can hopefully sort the problem out...

IModAmd · May 8th, 2007, 01:12 PM

Did you do an registry clean up with the tool i said to use ? Win aso registry optimiser

IModIntel · May 8th, 2007, 01:16 PM

Yeah, but a registry error is most unlikely to cause screen corruption. I don't know what to say, try waiting for a response from one of the more advanced members. The worst thing that can happen is that there's a problem with your card. Just as a reference, if you want an Nvidia card get either EVGA or ASUS.

IModAmd · May 8th, 2007, 01:18 PM

If that's dont works go to the retailer and exange it say it's not works properly

IModIntel · May 8th, 2007, 01:21 PM

The equivalent on a BFG 7800GT would be a 1800XT i think, no? Or maybe more 1n X1950PRO, the seond one i mentoned has kick-ass price/performance ratio.

choad21 · May 8th, 2007, 10:01 PM

Thanks for all the input guys...and I have used that Regsitry cleaner in the past...it's not installed on this PC atm...but will try it...

Btw I have used the voltage bios mod to increase the voltage to 1.5v and my problem has seemed to stop (had heard that there was a possibility of the increase in voltage correcting the problem)...will let you know after another hard night of gaming if the problem rears its ugly head or not...

IModAmd · May 8th, 2007, 11:05 PM

Well that's sure if you dont give enought of voltage it's sure your videocard will be unstable but we hope that's will works