Novatech 6600GT 256 getting attifacts after 1 hour of gaming

[UK_MADMONSTA]

I bought a nvidia 6600GT 256mb card off novatech in december 05 I play games like Battlefield 2 , Day of defeat source , and recently purchased Toca Race driver 3 the card runs these games fine for about an hour then i get strange triangles and stuff appear in front of me and can no longer see what i am doing i think this is what you call artifacts. I noticed that older drivers work better but i have tried them all. I returned the card to novatech and they replaced it but i still get same problem if i put my old card back in FX5200 ultra i get no problems apart from poor fps. Any ideas on how to solve this.

[Taxation]

Does this card have a fan on, this is probably due to a heat problem
Have you done any over clocking on this card-lower the memory by 20mhz and the core by 10mhz until it becomes stable

This is what happened to my old fx5200
just do as what i have said and it should work fine after a few minutes of tweaking

[UK_MADMONSTA]

Hello
The card does have a fan. It hasnt been overclocked Iv tried lowering the speed and it made no difference even after lowering by 100 still no better. when i check the graphics temp whilst gaming it says 62 degrees. The rest of the system stays around 32/39 degrees. Iv also tried lowering all graphics settings but still no good. Any other ideas?
Thanks for the help anyway.

[Big Beere]

buy a XFX 6600GT 256mb card :lol:

[UK_MADMONSTA]

Good idea but i assumed that if I buy a card off novatech it should work and im not prepaird to throw away £126 that i just paid. Maybe novatech would be good enough to supply me with a card that works as it should

[Chewie]

If you bought it in Dec 05, then its still under warranty.

Is it the XpertVision 6600GT that you have? cause your description sounds like the one i bought a few months back.

Take it back, but bear in mind their policy is to run it themselves, so they may not replicate the problems you have.

Try running 3dMark05 continously over and over, and see if it plays up.

If it does, i'd guess the card is dying prematurely and should be returned ASAP.

[Taxation]

62 degrees huh, well i thought as cores got better they got hotter, but mine is at 45 degrees and mine is a 7900gt,hmmm.
anywhooo

If it is still under warranty then get it replaced/refunded

[Coops]

The 7900 Series cards will run cooler than previous Nvidia Cards as the 7900 series are built on a new design core that requires less voltage and produces less heat.

As for the artifact problem, It could possibly be a faulty card, however i would suggest doing what Chewie said. Make sure you have the latest Nvidia Driver for your card along with the latest chipset driver for your mainboard. Run 3D Mark on a loop and see if the artifacts come through, if they do then is most likely faulty and if you speak to our Tech Department they can get that RMA and replaced for you.

Best Regards

[djgandy]

My GT6600 runs at 61oC most of the time.
Never looked at what it is after playing a game, but 61ioC is fine.

[UK_MADMONSTA]

OK
If use the latest driver the artifacts are there straight away. If i use old driver ie 81.95 it takes about an hour for atifacts to appear yes the card is still under warranty and I have already sent it back and got a replacement witch as i said was still the same and as i said befor if i put my old fx5200 ultra back in it plays fine alnight long and i can use new drivers. Is there anychance that i can get an upgrade and pay the difference in price or exchange it for an ati card of same value.

Thanks again for the help people

[UK_MADMONSTA]

UPDATE!
I looped 3Dmark05 for 1 hour and got no problems Graphics temp did go up to 82 I guese this is ok as i got no problems. Results from 3D were 3969/3775 the longer it ran the lower it went. If this means the card is fine has anyone got any other ideas. Im thinking maybe the £18 550w psu might be the problem although that dosent explain why i had no problems when benching. AAARRHHGG!!!! im going mad. Going to put the card in my brothers pc and see what happens
Cheers all[/quote]

[Taxation]

Get a good psu for heavens sake

[Chewie]

DOH

if that PSU says Q-tec, Bin it.

As for 61deg normal load.

WOw.

My 6600gt 256 runs 45deg all day long.
Even after a few hours gaming onlineage 2 at full, or BF2, or DoW in MP, i rarely go over 50.

1stly.
Whats the air flow like inyour case, how many fans you got and how are they configured? (in case it is a heat related porblem)

2ndly.
Its a rough guess that your PSU may be putting too much power into the card and caused the over temps, because its **** or dieing (spikes due to poor power regulation and rectification)

Artifacts are a sign of a damaged card, either from excess heat or excess power. oh, and old age with lots of use with demanding applications. I think we can rule that one out ;)

[UK_MADMONSTA]

OK
Thanks all I think id better get a better psu to start with. Im not convinced that it is a heat problem as the rest of the system runs at about 30 / 40 degrees. By the way was that 3DMark05 score (3969) any good

[Nox]

You can get artifacts appearing from RAM or CPU errors too, they are not limited to GFX card errors. The first thing to look for when figuring out your top limit when overclocking. Is the rest of the system overclocked?

I second the advice of stay away from cheap PSU's, if you have a half decent system, get a half decent PSU, the system will need it. There is a 480 Hiper Type -R which is quite nice, have built a couple of machines recently and put these in. They are around £45. If you think thats expensive, remember its protecting the rest of your computer to some degree...

Have you patched the games to the full too?

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

Yeh all games are patched up. And no nothing is over clocked could be the ram as that is about 4 years old and was cheap Ill try a new psu the 1 you mentioned then go from there maybe time for new mobo and ram as this is old still running 266mhz I think my cpu should be ok though P4 2.8

Cheers

[Nox]

When did these artifacts start happening? When you got the card I assume? Have you ever had an ATI card in the machine? It may be worth running one of these 'clean driver' programs that will go through and remove all traces of nvidia/ati drivers and let you reinstall cleanly - its possible there is an old file somewhere that isn't being liked by certain features only in certain progs. Is trying a reinstal of Windows an option? At the moment, it really could be anything :( I would try and rule out software first, as, even though its a pita, its a 'free' check...

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

No never had an ati card. It has always messed around when i use new drivers but is fine on old 1s untill i got toca race driver 3 now even the old drivers give me jip i have reformatted but no luck

[Nox]

Toca, or any computer game, is unlikely to have caused it. Not impossible, but unlikely. You've got the motherboard chipset drivers installed I assume?

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

yeh all up to date

[Nox]

Can you list your current hardware (in the machine) too please, try and be as specific as possible - if I stop posting, i've not ignored you, but i've gone down the pub :)

Nox

[Nox]

have you got more than 1 stick of ram too - ie is it possible to try with just one in?

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

OK pub you lucky git im not allowed till kids go to bed give me a min and ill get the specs

[Nox]

cheers :) motherboard model is high priority on info list if its possible :)

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

OK
Motherboard Manufacture NEC Computers International
Model SiS651

CPU P4 2.80GHz 32-bit
External Clock 133.0MHz
Caches Level1 20KB Level2 512KB

RAM 2 sticks of 512MB 266.0MHz make unkown

Windows XP Home

[Nox]

ok ta - will have a browse/think :) have you tried switching off every option possible? I used to play EQ2 and enabling shadows on specific 6600 card used to cause artifacts, and guess who had one of these specific cards?

Nox

[Nox]

ok, not been able to glean a lot off google, but did/does your motherboard have an onboard gfx chip? if so, is it disabled in the BIOS?

Nox

[Nox]

****...

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/in ... t2189.html (http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t2189.html)

Nox

[Nox]

Download and try the 67.03 drivers - you will probably need to uninstall via add/remove the current ones, and pray they don't automatically reinstall on next boot up.

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

No no on board GFX and yes i have tried running BF2 and Toca 3 with all settings set at low and all fancy stuff of still get trouble

[UK_MADMONSTA]

Cant find 67 drivers goes from 66 to 71

[Nox]

Have a read of that above link - looks like the 6600gt may of been a bad choice for that chipset.

It may be worth looking at replacing the motherboard with an i865/i875 chipset board, which will be backwardly compatible, or trying the BIOS update/coolbits SBA thing mentioned.

Btw, I have two Abit IC7's here, one is the MAX3 - I can highly recommend that model if you do replace the mobo, (its the i875 chipset) and would think they will be fairly cheap now. Another good one is the ASUS P4P800.

Nox

[Nox]

try here for the 67.03 drivers:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=920

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

dont see a link m8

[UK_MADMONSTA]

ah sorry didnt refresh page

[Nox]

erm, odd. oh well, type:

download nvidia 67.03

into google - you'll get a ton of links. I picked the guru3d one as I know they host download links and have used em before.

Nox

[Nox]

heh :) good - i'm not seeing things then (thats later!)

Nox

[Chewie]

ahhhh

I see, nice link nox, like the way everyone is jumping on the 6600gt because it is *new technology* rather than the SiS which is old technology and may be the root of the problem.

Noticed also how this is an old thread that may have died, but the best bit is the last statement from ohgrant


QUOTE(Centrius @ Feb 27 2005, 08:44 AM)
Do you think I can be 100% sure that if I buy a new motherboard, I won't have these problems anymore?



I'm 100% sure. You have the SIS 645DX chipset, I had the SIS 655 on my P4SDX. Every 8x nvidia card I tried had the same artifacts and freezing, my new mobo has an Intel 865 PE chipset and I now have no artifacts and no freezing. Same ram, processor and videocard also get about 1000 more points on 3d mark 2003.


seems nvidia and SiS need to sit and have a powow over an incompatability problem.

This suggests that no matter what new card he uses that is nvidia based, if he trys to use the upto date drivers, he's in for a big surprise.

Just hope your change of drivers helps you UK_Madmonsta, that or if you have a friend with a new ( in last 6 months ) ati card, try that.

aint it great when old tech meets new and decides it don't like each other

[Nox]

Yeah, can't make everything 100% backwardly compatible 100% of the time, the future will be held back too much. Bit of a downer when someone gets affected by it though :( assuming this is exactly the senario, which is looking likely.

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

YeeHaa!!
The driver done the trick lads although i have lost a few fps but at least it works cheers

[Nox]

Glad I could help, was getting concerned you would need to replace the mobo.

Nox

[UK_MADMONSTA]

Yeh im thinking of getting new mobo soon anyhow so that i can upgrade on ram.
Thanks again for all the help BYE!!