Graphics card issues

[h0ll0w]

I bought myself a Radeon HD 6950 last year end of October I think, and I haven't had any problems with it. Apart from getting less FPS improvement in BF3 than I expected, but that always seems to be the case when I get a new graphics card

Anyway the problems I am experiencing now is what looks like lots of artifacting in Trine 2 and when the game's menus are loading/loaded there are lots of coloured dots all over the screen, they mostly disappear in gameplay, but then the crazy articfacting starts. I run GPU-Z in the background and set it to log while in background, and the hottest I have seen it when tabbing out of Trine2 is 70 degrees. I understand this is sill within acceptable boundaries ?

The thing I find the strangest is that I can't even join a BF3 game. When I join a server from battlelog, it start loading the map and then eventually the game seems to crash, I can still end the process, but then my whole screen is full of the dots again though they do disappear after a while (while I am typing this). Obviously while BF3 is loading the card shouldn't heat up at all, so it stays under 50.

Pretty sure my card is buggered ? lol just now my whole screen lit up like a christmas tree.

Oh btw my PC is not in my house, I took it somewhere, but with all the necessary care of course. Got a Dell U2410 1920 X 1200 screen on it now, just like at home which is a Samsung T260.

 

[Isengard]

It sounds like the card to me.

When my 8800GT started giving me the same issues it would artifact at about 70 degrees and freeze the system not long thereafter. That card had a maximum operating temp of well over 100 degrees so it certainly wasn't the temp. It's most likely a micro fracture in one of the soldered points.

My advice is to get it replaced asap, since the problem is only going to get worse.

 

[grim]

70 degrees is nothing for a 6950, mine regularly goes up to 93 before I can hear the fan starting to spin faster to keep it at that temp.

Being on the loading screen will heat up the card as it switches to it's 3D clocks then.

But the random dots and crashing does point to the card being fried, my first one was fried out of the box, I installed it, ran 1 benchmark on it, went to fetch a drink while the benchmark was running and came back to a screen full of artifacts.

 

[Pada]

What PSU do you have?

Secondly, have you done any unlocking things with your card, like unlocking the extra shaders (and what not) so that it is closer to the HD6970?

 

[Nameite]

Could be faulty ram, better to take it back while it still has warranty