PC hardware forum: Video card performance deteriorated in a short period of time, please help!

Now this is a very wild stab, but check the capacitors on the board. I had a video card go bad, pulled it, and as I understand, there were a bad set of caps imported that went onto several boards. The slit top on them literally looked like a jiffy pop top after cooking. The fix was less than $8.00 to get replacements and solder them in. Works like a charm again.

Good luck. As I said, this is a wild stab.

Buy an XBox 360 and play Call of Dookie there!

*Not really an answer but may help a bit*
Does the OS run fine? I had a similar issue with my pc but it was affecting the OS at times also. I found that parts of it where Over heating, mainly my FSB chip. I placed a 3 pin fan on top of video card blowing air on my fsb heat sink and problem goes away for a few hours.

I tend to agree with several other posters that the video card is most likely bad. I've had three bad video cards in the last 4 years--2 of three were ATI based.

If you have access to another video card or on-board graphics, I recommend you pull the card to see if your system stabilizes.

Hopefully, that will isolate the problem to either your video card or PC.

Good luck.

I remembered my computer came up the NVIDIA Corporation folder containing NVIDIA PhysX properties in the start menu after i installed call of duty 4, as you said it might force my computer to use integrated graphics. I think it may be the cause of gaming lag.

To the best of my knowledge it could be a few different things. First I want to say check your video game options for video settings. Then the settings in the video card's control panel, like performance and quality settings(antialiasing,anistropic filtering)make sure these are set to application controlled. Then check software options(screen saver, automatic wallpaper changer)if your running a skin changing program like Style XP. Also open up the PC and just take the video card out and reinstall it, the teeth could be misaligned somewhere or it could be defective product. Other than that I'd just reset the video options to default if everything else is to no avail.

Having a system that I had do the same thing, I found out that the processes that are running in the background should not exceed a certain amout. XP runs an enormous amount of background processes, most are unneccessary and bloated at best. My system could not have over 26 processes for the card to perform best, but as time and new programs installed, the processes increased and the video card performance lagged terribly. So, I suggest that you seek information on the absolute least amount of proccesses you need and rid yourself of the bloat and all should be fine. You can see the processes in the task manager of XP and using certain reputable websites, you can determine which are not needed and get to the point of good gaming. I hope this helps. Let me know...

excellent advice, I even picked up some. haha
Thank you.

Sounds like Automatic Updates is running in the background. I always turn off automatic updates for this reason.

This sounds a lot like something else eating up your CPU, not a problem with the videocard. Have you installed new programs that might be running in the background? Are you trying to run additional programs while you run your game? What about the possibility of an infection- is you anti-crapware running and up-to-date? These are the first things that I would look for, especially since it's program response and not just video performance that seems to be suffering. Try running the Task Manager to see what all is running while your computer is acting up.

I recently had an NVidia card go south on my machine. Symptoms were much as you describe - video was choppy and the entire machine seemed to slow down, including slow keyboard and mouse. The video card itself was getting very hot, especially when trying to run graphics programs, to the point of occasionally shutting the machine down. Colors were rendering badly, and I would sometimes get a set of yellow vertical stripes on my monitor. When a video card starts getting errors, any program has to retry and retry the commands. This soaks up main cpu cycles, so everything slows down.

First, try removing and re-seating the card. It might just be a loose connection. If that doesn't help, you'll probably have to replace the card. I hope it's still under warranty!

My first thought is what a lot of people will respond- your problem sounds like the result of malware, some virus or spyware that is taking up system resources, or perhaps the malware has damaged a Windows component. My previous XP PC got malware on it, and though anti-malware programs appeared to clean it successfully, nothing ran quite as well as before. After I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Windows, games and everything else ran much better.
Since you describe only the problem, here are some questions:
Do you use a risky download program such as Limewire? (This program can easily let a virus onto the PC... Torrent downloads are generally safe, but not Limewire- it opens a door for viruses.)
Are there any other signs of malware, especially slow performance? Is the poor performance limited to games?
If you're confident that the problem is not a virus, then some other questions would be:
How many processes does your PC have running in the background? Has anything new besides games been installed since this problem began? (Try reducing the unnecessary processes running in the background by using msconfig or another program.)
Try uninstalling the driver for your video card and reinstalling it.
Do you use the ATI Catalyst Control Center? If so, set it so that the application controls the graphics quality. Also try closing out the ATI CCC, to see if that would make a difference- you can end its process from the Task Manager.
Has there been anything else installed such as a sound card? If so, try disabling this device.
If hardware failure is causing this problem, that would be rare and more difficult to diagnose. Does the fan on the card run any louder since the problem began? If so, that would again be a sign that something in the background is taking up processing power, forcing it to work harder.

Hope this helps,

Glen

I've had about 3 Sapphire cards that I've used in mine, my sisters and my mums computer, I also seen cards in other peoples machines that have failed too.

I thought it was a good idea to get them at the time as they were a lot more cheaper than the other manufacturers graphics cards. However the age old saying here applies - you get what you pay for.

All three graphics cards ended up mainly with "overheating" issues. Overheating issues are normally noticeable when you start playing a game after a few seconds you notice your graphics performance go really slow and then you start getting what appears to be like a "snow effect" on the screen (some random white dots appearing on screen), and eventually leading to a full game lock up.

Firstly check your graphics card, take the cover off your PC and ensure things like the fans are going round (remember look but don't touch when the PC is on - and when it's off touch the case first before touching anything else to remove static!). Sapphire's cooling system on their graphics card certainly isn't the best in the world and I found on a lot of them either the fans are prone to failure, or sometimes Sapphire decide not to even install a fan!

The ones I had in my computer never had any fan on them, just a heatsink. I did think that was slightly odd, seeing as how hot they'd get and the previous card had got fans on and that was slower than the new Sapphire one, but I guessed Sapphire must know what they're doing. Quite clearly not.

If your graphics card hasn't got a fan on it or you can see that the fan isn't spinning this is most probably your problem. Your graphics card is overheating. The cards we had worked fine for a few weeks, until they overheated. Once overheated though you'll be lucky to ever keep them cool again, as they will have been seriously damaged.

It might be time to get a new gpu and if it's only a few weeks old take it back to the shop and see if you can get a refund, although most shops wont cover it on overheating as it's your problem for not checking there was adequate cooling in the PC, especially if you bought it at an OEM store.

I'd highly recommend getting a Gigabyte card as these have plenty of cooling on them and aren't as poor quality as the Sapphires. I had a Gigabyte before the Sapphire, and then after all 3 Sapphires failed I went straight back to Gigabyte, and have not had any problems with overheating since and that was about 2 years ago now.

Windows Live Search is only installed as an add-on to XP if you let automatic updates install it. I agree that it's a horrible update for XP and would add that it's a great example of why Windows users should never let updates install automatically and always use the so-called "advanced" settings (a bit of a joke, IMO) so that you'll know exactly what's included. I tried this out and uninstalled it within one day.

I had a very similar experience with Sapphire GFX cards, starting with a Radeon 9800 Pro in my old 32-bit Athlon XP3000 rig; initially the whole system was on water cooling because of the T'Bred's habit of getting very hot very quickly.
When I built the first A64 system (MSI 7049) I used the 'old' 9800 GFX card, but reverted to aircooling, as the A64 CPU's didn't warrant the use of water; however very shortly after the build it became apparent that the GPU was in trouble - temps up to 75 - 80 deg C, even with an auxiliary side fan blowing directly onto the card.
The display showed exactly the same characteristics that Darren has described, and after a few hours' use failed altogether in a most bizarre fashion.
I've since had a PCI-E (HD2600 Pro) card go exactly the same way, but a 2800Pro made by Asus has no such problems, and nor has the multimedia 3850 card made by Gigabyte, so I can only assume that the cheaper cards are marginal at best.
JB.