6600gt texture problems.

[Silversierra]

Recently I have noticed that in some games, the textures are messed up. The game that does this the most is rollercoaster tycoon3. Here is an example of what I am seeing. I also noticed some similar things in command and conquer generals (black ground). This doesn't happen in bf1942 or americas army, or in the aquamark3 benchmark. The card isn't overclocked, I was using the 66.77 drivers, but upgraded to the 71.80(dna) driver to see if that would fix it. I tried messing with the settings, but nothing seemed to help. Is this a problem with my card, or a software(driver or game) problem?
Please help.

One other note. I am running the 6600gt(no power connector) in a nforce4 ultra mobo and am running a 20 pin psu in the 24pin socket on the mobo. The extra four pins are to supply power to the pci-e, if I understand correctly. So could my card be "power starved" and that be causing the problem?

 

[Silversierra]

Does anyone have any thoughts? Would a underpowered video card display missing textures?

 

[Silversierra]

Please...

 

[SkiMaskWay]

I just RMA'd my Leadtek 6600GT because of a problem similar to yours. You might want to try replacing it.

 

[HaVoC]

Well if you read the Anandtech Retail 6600 GT Reviews, you will see many of the retail cards had heat issues because the heatsink/fan came loose. Now the Leadtek is supposed to be one of the most robust HSF setups, but it's possible yours is not mating correctly with the chip, resulting in a gap. Once that happens the temperature will shoot up during 3D games and it's not uncommon to see texture problems such as what you see as artifacts. Are you getting any lockups as that would also point to a heat problem? Try pushing the HSF on more firmly, but be careful not to break it. Otherwise, RMA it.

 

[Silversierra]

No, I haven't had any lockups. I've never seen the temp above 60c(is that too hot?). Usually it's between 45-55c.
Well, I have 2 problems with rma'ing it. 1. then i'd be without the computer for who knows how long. 2. I oc'ed it to see what it'd do 2 months ago(it was oc'ed for 2 hours at 15%oc). So technically I voided the warranty, but it didn't fail when I oc'ed, so is it my fault? Anyway, nvidia has oc'ing settings built in(coolbits), so they must not be against oc'ing it.

 

[Silversierra]

So if I could deal with not having the pc that long, would it be "right" to rma it? How can I check the hsf without breaking it. It looks like according to the link HaVoC listed the heatsinks aren't attached too well.

 

[imported_gusmahler]

I saw the exact same problem in Far Cry. But it disappeared once I patched FarCry. Maybe it's a game problem? I've never seen the problem in Half Life 2.

 

[HaVoC]

Silversierra, like gusmahler indicates, this may be a game-specific problem so try patching your game. Seeing as you are not getting this problem in other games and you aren't experiencing lock-ups, it's probably something up with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.