New System - Video Woes

[Undeadlord]

Hey all,

I recently upgraded quite a few components of my system since I hadn't do so in quite a few years. So everything seems to install and run fine till I try to run a few games, thats when the video issues start.

Here are my specs ...

Abit KN8 SLI
AMD 64 3000+
Asus EAXX1600PRO 256M PCIe
1 Gig DDR400
450W PS
WinXP

I only play a few games really and nothing too hardcore, mostly RTS games. So what I am seeing is lots of green/off-colored artifacts all over the screen. Depending on what games I am playing they appear differently, but they are all similar. I see this in Supreme Commander, Second Life and Lord of the Rings.

None of my day-to-day computer use has any problems, movies, music, surfing, etc, none of these artifacts appear, only when I start to game.

So what have I do to try and correct this ...

- Tried three different types of drivers, first was the CD that came with the card, then I try ATI drivers right from their site, then finally I even tried the Omega ATI drivers, all three drivers resulted in the same type of errors and artifacts.

- I messed around with the ATI control panel, adjusted Anti-aliasing, filters, speed,etc. all with no luck, nothing I changed or turned off ever fixed things.


My confusion comes from the fact that everything looks fine till I start to game, if it was bad card, wouldn't I see errors all the time? If it was drivers, wouldn't one of those sets of drivers have fixed things? I am just not sure where to go from here.

Any ideas would be VERY much appreciated.


Undeadlord

[Rootstonian]

Do you have any tools that show your video card temperature?

You could try the old "remove the side cover and have a fan blowing in on the card" trick to see if that gets rid of the artifacts.

[Undeadlord]

I can check on that tonight, however, I didn't think heat was an issue because these artifacts occur, within 10 seconds of starting a game. I can't imagine it heats up that quickly. However I think the Asus does have a heat utility included with it, so I will install that tonight and take a look.

Undeadlord

[Rootstonian]

Yeah, that's pretty quick to get hot. You may want to check what kind of amps your PS puts out on the 12v rails; there have been instances of power supplies not being up to par to run PCI-E video cards.

There are others here way more knowledgable on the PS issue than I

You do have the PCI-E connector from the PS plugged into the card, right? LOL

[doddsy]

same artifacts with different driver sets, for me that points to faulty card. i'd rma it.

[Big_Daddy]

Check your PSU first. My games would kill the computer. I replaced the PSU and no more problems.

[Undeadlord]

You know, I thought I was crazy but I couldn't find a power connector on my video card. I thought all new video cards these days had external power plugs on them, but I couldn't see one. Plus the manual for the card was about as worthless as the 15 different languages it was printed in.

I will check that over tonight as well and check on my PSU. I would think a 450W PS would be enough to run a couple HDD's, DVD Burner and my PCIe card, but then I guess I could be wrong.

Undeadlord

[SoloCamo]

It's not wattages that matters most...what brand is your 450w psu?

I had a 420w psu that couldn't run my x800pro...threw in a quality 400w psu and it ran flawlessly.

[AznPoolPro]

another thing you might want to check is also drivers

[Undeadlord]

Solo: Its definetly a no-name brand I bought a few years ago. I will keep that in mind, though, if I can't get it working tonight and heat doesn't seem to be an issue, I will order a better PSU to take that out of the equation.

AznPoolPro: I think changing drivers three different times, Asus, ATI, and Omega, is pretty much checking them as well as they are going to get checked


Undeadlord