Artificats in games or overheating on my 7900 GS GO?

[wildlaser]

I have a dell inspiron 9400 / e1705 2ghz t7200 2gb ram with a 7900 gs go (128 or 256mb, whatever it came with a few years back?, first half of 2007, I think 256).

Anyways,

it gets really got, and I get causes artifacts/ crashing on many games.

I am unsure if this is solely due to the heat, or it could be this card / drivers, I've tried tons of different drivers.

Has anyone else had these issues with this card alone?

[mr_noname111]

Did this problem start occuring recently? If so, I think it might be starting to fail. Try playing a game you played back in 2007 when you first got the laptop, maybe even with the same drivers as then if possible. If it still artifacts, I think we know the answer.

[skier]

more commonly than heat is driver issues, a few weeks back i played L4D and it started to artifact after an hour and a half, then rebooted, and it artifacted after 1 minute or less after that, i was on the newest drivers(this is my epic driver choosing method- ) i asked a friend in ventrilo to say the first month that popped in his head, it was october, so i downloaded the most recent october driver release('08) installed, and i havn't crashed since.

[ibleet]

I have the same laptop with similar (not exactly) the same issues. Mine was overheating. I tore it down to find massive dust deposits in both the CPU and GPU exhaust fans. I cleaned that out and installed ik8fangui and now I run my fans at full speed. Those 2 things alone lowered my temps over 20c and I have been trouble-free ever since.

I also had a 9400 that had constant screen artifacts. After eliminating the LCD and cables as the culprit, I ran system diagnostics and found that the system failed every video memory test. I replaced the card and it runs like a champ. By the way, this laptop was also running hot and loaded with dust. I repeated the same process as above.

Things to try first...drivers: remove the device drivers, run driver cleaner pro, reinstall new driver. Hook up an external monitor to eliminate the LCD as the issue. Tear down the laptop...clean and reseat all components.

Hope this helps a little.

[wildlaser]

Thanks mucho for all the suggestions...

ibleet, glad to know....


I suppose it could be any of these issues... The timeline is a bit fuzzy, I bought this for gaming but didn't game much after buying it, till a while later (2+ years).

I know other games seem to work fine, it's the higher demand games/applications. Seems to run hot as is, but I recall it was kind of this way before too?

Seems like it..

I know the driver support is poor for some newer games, but it seems like a combination, or rather heat, as it would get worse as the system got hotter. Maybe it's different for some games... A bit, confusing, especially now, late at night...

skier, that is funny with the random suggestion working. sometimes synchronicity / the universe, works like that.

ill give it all a shot.

[wildlaser]

Well, I still have this problem...

I am wondering, might it be worthwhile to re-install the ATI x1400 that came with this Dell E1705 / 9400...???

Is it a 256 or a 128? I am thinking 128, and my GEFORCE 7900GS GO is the 256 ( not 512)

I mean when I think back, my fan wasn't always running when I had the ATIx1400, and the games I played worked fine, warcraft...maybe not on max settings, but I can't use it now as it heats so much..

I followed advice on this forum to put in this card, and even sprang for the extra heat sink, and made room for it, and it still seems to run hotter than other peoples cards (without any of us applying thermal paste, which I aim to do as well)...

What gives? Seems kind of bogus to me.... thing runs hotter than other peoples posts, and those even fluctuate.
It's annoying. Makes me want to sell this laptop. If I can fix it all, then it's cool for now I suppose.

EDIT: Man, looks like I still need to do the driver removal/cleaning/update, and clean the inside, reseat components, apply thermal paste, everything....... Have to find my tools...
I suppose I don't want to take it apart and put it back together so many times to see WHAT it IS, but if ALL OF THAT still leaves me with the same problem, than perhaps the card is somehow bad??? I'll run all the tests on it too, to see if fails all the memory tests as above poster said, but really, I don't get why it would even work and run hot if the memory was bunk?