Help! My graphics card draws wrong colour pixels

Tpex

Tpex

Teh Cyber Ninja
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2 days ago I got Chronicals of riddick escape from butcher bay and it was playing fine till yesterday afternoon when i was getting this scattering of black pxels thenit started to get relly bad and the scatters turned into slashes here and there with wrong colour pixles usely pink and green after a while it stopped but my charictor had some of the wrong pixels scatter on him. this morning i played for half an hour and everything was fine but when i switched my pc back on and stated to look through some old pc format discs after about half an hour there were scatters of pink and green pixles all arounf my desktop, then later I stared playing riddick again and after like 15 minutes I got the scattering black pixels again and the everything was just all wrong shapped pixels mostly green and pink and i could hardly see a thing, I'v reinstalled my driver and checked my connections. the weird thing is that these wrong pixels only apper when you move things across the screen, the pixels are captured in screenshots and they apper on both my monitors

My system is:
Celaron D 2.8Ghz
1280 Megs of RAM
ATI radion power colour 9250 128 meg in agp slot
3Dfx Vood Banshee 16 meg in pci slot
P4M800PRO motherboard

has been like this long befor the problems started

please help!:(
 
This could be faulty video ram or overheating, check with other games, particularly games that stress your graphics card.
 
Sorry to tell you this but buy a new card. Once this has happend it will allways come back you can't do anything about it.
 
If it's happening after a bit of use, and not when you just turn on your computer, chances are it's an overheating graphic card. Before trying to stress the card, I'd suggest checking if the fan is still spinning (if the graphic card has one). If not, try putting some lubricating oil in the hole at the back of the fan itself, or replace the fan. Otherwise, when the pixel corruption occurs, try to feel the graphic card heatsink to check if it is hot to the touch. If not, then your problem is more likely general hardware failure. Just stressing the card may cause it further damage if the cooling system isn't working properly.
 
The 9250 won't overheat^^ That thing is so old that it uses a passiv cooling.
 
Gixxa said:
The 9250 won't overheat^^ That thing is so old that it uses a passiv cooling.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised, especially if the card's getting old (heatsink/thermal paste not well seated anymore) and in SA's climate.

I built an old PC for a friend with that card, and I had to attach a small fan to keep it from over heating.
 
Well ok true didn't consider that.

What you could try is tu put on new thermal paste tube of 10g cost like 100 Rand. but then again a new card cost ~400. So I would rather invest in a new card than in the old one.
 
Gixxa said:
The 9250 won't overheat^^ That thing is so old that it uses a passiv cooling.
Click to expand...

My first gfx was a 9250 with a passive cooler which I brought 5/6 years ago, strange enough last week my stepmom was complaining about the screen going distorted when playing some old games for 20 or so minutes.

Felt the card and almost burnt my skin off, reapplied thermal paste but still the same.

So I just attached a 40cm fan on and now its fine.

I think the older the hardware gets, the more inefficient it becomes and so it gets hotter...my theory anyways.

After reapplying thermal paste, find a small fan from some old pc and screw it onto the heatsink...oh and try to get some airflow into the case if there isnt already
 
Last edited:
I played Half Life 2 For a while nothing happend,
I donn't do drugs or smoke :)
Iv got a old P1 fan I can put on,
and ja they are "artefacts"
the wierd thing is that they apperd in non 3d environments,
Thanks for all your help il try and see about cooling and post the results
and unfortinitly upgrading is out of the question because I have on R400 :(
 
durban, glenwood.... why?
 
If you where close enough, I might have been able to help you out with a small upgrade...

Why do you still have the Banshee in?

Edit: Is it socket 775 or 478?
 
the cpu is a LG775 and the 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee is for my second screen I have a duel monitor set-up
 
Durban + passive cooled GPU = prone for epic failure.

Well if you get those artifacts in non 3D applications (like you said) then it's most certainly video ram/heat issues. Try putting that P1 fan you have on, if that doesn't help you'll probably have to replace the card.

One way to determine 100% that it's not a driver issue, is to boot your PC into the BIOS and leave it there, if you see ANY artifacts then it's definately hardware. The purple/green splotches you mentioned confirm my suspicious of VRAM failure.

Or you could try phoning Indiana Jones, he's an expert at removing artifacts :D
 
Thanks will try that,
LOL
 
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