8600 problem...maybe

Okay so yesterday I was playing Guild Wars i had been playing for a couple of hours with no problems. All of a sudden my game locked up for a second and boom my video card was artifacting like a mofo. I got really scared so just restarted and the problem was gone. I'm pretty sure that this is not normal and I don't really know what I should do. If anyone has any suggestions please share because I'm lost. Btw I'm using the drivers that came with my system I never updated.

Thanks

 

scary stuff.

 

Can you reproduce the problem by running a game that pushes the GPU?

 

What system is it? a Dell? XPS?

And are you checking the temperatures???? and making sure the vent' are not being blocked? You might want to check if they are clean.... and it would be nice if you could get the temperatures..

Also, what is the driver version you are using? Probably this driver you have now, is not really good for this particular game?

And have you tried stressing the GPU alone to see if you can reproduce this issue?

try RT HDR IBL... its free and it stresses your GPU.

 

sounds TERRIFYING

 

Have you checked the guild wars boards to see if this is a glitch in the game (probably isn't).

Sounds like an overheating issue. Have you been playing it on your lap or soft surface like a bed as that is generally a cause for higher temps with any laptops.

Could just be a faulty 8600. Call Dell and get it replaced. They should come out to you to do the replacement.

 

Wow thanks for the quick responses guys and well

1. I have no tried reproducing this again it happened last night around 12 so I stopped playing after I rebooted.

2. I have not tried stressing my GPU I will soon and get back to you on that.

3. I am not playing on a soft surface I am on a wooden desk with a chill pad and nothing is blocking the they fan.

4. Uhh I have an xps 1530 and whatever the defualt drivers are are the one I think they are version 7.15.11.7597 according to device manager.

 

Wow...that's some weird stuff there... I would suggest, just as another more experienced forum member has to me, to update your NVIDIA drivers. I don't know what explains the artifacting though. I've experienced once a problem w/ my graphics card while playing F.E.A.R. My game automatically closed, screen resolution went low, and there was a taskbar note saying my driver failed or something. But nothing major. I just restarted and it went away.

 

Okay update I just ran RTHDRIBL for about an hour my max temp was 78C high but nothing startling. Im sure guild wars isn't pushing my card much harder than that program so it may just be a driver issue. The thing is I have been playing guild wars on this since I got it in mid september and this is the first time anything bad has happened.

 

78C with RT HDR IBL after approx. 1 hr, is kinda normal..

So yeah, probably its driver related (though you say, this is the first time you are seeing this issue)..

Check out laptopvideo2go forum and search with the game name as keyword and see if u see any posts where they report some drivers as being good...

But please remember, while it may fix the issue with this particular game, some other new issue might crop up.. so just try to figure out the optimal driver for your system and all applications you are running... you got to play around a bit.