Dodgy Graphics Card

iceward · 23-11-08, 03:26 PM

Hi all,

My system is about 4 years old and one that I built myself. It has a AMD 3500 pro, MSI Extreme MoBo, 2Gb Ram and a PCI-E ATI Radeon RX600XT graphics card.

Until recently I have been playing Age of Empires without issue and sometimes for several hours at a time. However now after a few minutes the screen goes black and the monitor goes into sleep mode (as though there is no graphics input). The PC stays on but all I can do is reboot. To get round this I have severely reduced the graphics quality within the game and this has fixed the problem. However when I play Red Alert 3 or LoTR the same issue arises, even with degraded graphics.

Is this just my card giving up the ghost?

Is there any test software I can download to find out?

Many Thanks

Haggisuk99 · 23-11-08, 03:38 PM

ATITool - Overclocking utility for ATI and NVIDIA cards

you can use this to test for artifacts, just switch all your graphics back up in the game, play it for 5 mins to warm your graphics card up then run this program and tell it to scan for artifacts. If it reports any then you card is overheating and may need the fan looking at or if its silent a fan added etc etc, a lot of the time these problems can be overcome by putting a larger or aftermarket fan on like a zalman.

Be careful with this program though you can seriously damage your card if you use the overclocking side of it too much.

-null- · 23-11-08, 03:56 PM

If you can open your PC, make sure the fan is still attached to the graphics card and it isn't clogged with dust. The fan melted off my old gfx card, it was a crap fan and known to have problems and I think it just stopped spinning and eventually, since the card wasn't getting cooled melted off.

The card still worked fine just normally using windows and I didn't realise anything was wrong until I tried to play Kane's Wrath and had similar problems as you.

23-11-08, 03:26 PM	#1
iceward iPod Shuffle Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 19	Dodgy Graphics Card Hi all, My system is about 4 years old and one that I built myself. It has a AMD 3500 pro, MSI Extreme MoBo, 2Gb Ram and a PCI-E ATI Radeon RX600XT graphics card. Until recently I have been playing Age of Empires without issue and sometimes for several hours at a time. However now after a few minutes the screen goes black and the monitor goes into sleep mode (as though there is no graphics input). The PC stays on but all I can do is reboot. To get round this I have severely reduced the graphics quality within the game and this has fixed the problem. However when I play Red Alert 3 or LoTR the same issue arises, even with degraded graphics. Is this just my card giving up the ghost? Is there any test software I can download to find out? Many Thanks

23-11-08, 03:38 PM	#2
Haggisuk99 iPod 20gb Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Swansea Posts: 549	ATITool - Overclocking utility for ATI and NVIDIA cards you can use this to test for artifacts, just switch all your graphics back up in the game, play it for 5 mins to warm your graphics card up then run this program and tell it to scan for artifacts. If it reports any then you card is overheating and may need the fan looking at or if its silent a fan added etc etc, a lot of the time these problems can be overcome by putting a larger or aftermarket fan on like a zalman. Be careful with this program though you can seriously damage your card if you use the overclocking side of it too much.

23-11-08, 03:56 PM	#3
-null- Mini Mac Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 3,135	If you can open your PC, make sure the fan is still attached to the graphics card and it isn't clogged with dust. The fan melted off my old gfx card, it was a crap fan and known to have problems and I think it just stopped spinning and eventually, since the card wasn't getting cooled melted off. The card still worked fine just normally using windows and I didn't realise anything was wrong until I tried to play Kane's Wrath and had similar problems as you.