Is my 6800 GT dying?

[xxTurbonium]

Hello,

I am going to present to you guys the evidence, and you tell me the verdict.

Card is a 3 year old 6800 GT @ stock with ample cooling and maintenance (dusting with compressed air).

2 years ago: Very hot day. "Snow" in game with a few lockups requiring a reboot. Also played BF2 nonstop for days on end during very hot summer days, though it never crashed or anything.

No more issues until...

6 months ago: Very heavy artifacting in 3D, sometimes crashing game. Light artifacting in 2D. Changed PSU (from old 480W to a new Seasonic S12 430W). Issue was instantly resolved. Turns out the old PSU had burst caps.

last few weeks: Light artifacting in 2D (screen refreshes/repaints fix the issue, never requiring a reboot). Happened about 4-5 times.

2 days ago: Came home and saw this filling my entire screen (my own rendition, but that's pretty much what I saw): http://img.photobucket.com/alb...ifacting_rendition.jpg
Needless to say, required a reboot.
I tried running NVIDIA's nTune stability test for 6 hours overnight (GPU only), and woke up having found the computer frozen. Not sure if it was the stability test itself.

today: I am running a 6 hour stability test again right this moment (not at home so not sure if it's running smooth or not).

Other notes: Games themselves have been giving me no issues ever since the new PSU. Just last night, I was playing Team Fortress 2 for a good 10 hours straight with no issues.

So, is the video card dying? Is my rendition conclusive or not? Kind of weird how it will artifact in 2D that badly, but will run a game like TF2 smooth as butter for hours on end.

I really don't know what to think.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Sounds like its showing its age.

Cards tend to do this. It gets worse and worse.. til bang dead.

 

[Skunkwourk]

dying, get yourself the x1950 pro.

 

[Goldfish4209]

I guess it's dying. If it's temps are ok, try underclocking and see what happens.

 

[xxTurbonium]

Originally posted by: m0mentary
dying, get yourself the x1950 pro.

I'm in Canada. I have limited options on where to look for one.

 

[Syntax Error]

NCIX doesn't have any? Isn't that place like the Newegg of Canada?

 

[Cookie Monster]

7600GT AGP would be a cheaper viable.

 

[perzy]

No it is not. But your gpufan is. They have sleeve bearings that get bad with time and run slower and slower. Buy a an arctic silencer and enjoy. Hurry up though, because if your gpu overheats to much then its' really gone.

 

[xxTurbonium]

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
NCIX doesn't have any? Isn't that place like the Newegg of Canada?

It really doesn't (at a decent price). See for yourself: www.ncix.com

And the "cheapest" 7600 GT I've been able to find comes to 200CAD after taxes and shipping, which is

 

[TC10284]

I would say to try a different GPU fan first. If that doesn't help, you could try underclocking the GPU to see if that helps. Otherwise, vid card = teh dying

 

[xxTurbonium]

NV 5? That sort of thing?