About Chris Morrison Expertise Installation of cards. Difference between card types. What card is best for your purpose. Driver problems. All video issues.
Experience 15 years experience with building, repairing and upgrading PCs. Technical support experience.
Organizations Help on the Net
Education/Credentials Associates Degree in Information Technology
A Certified
Expert: Chris Morrison Date: 5/17/2008 Subject: Video Card
Question QUESTION: Hey, yesterday i bought a video card from bestbuy GeForce 8500GT(512mb) cause figured my computer needed a video card fora while since its using the poor (64mb) Intel Chipset that came with it. Computer numbers are 512RAM and 2.9 GHz processor. The card was the main part that needed improvement, other than adding some more RAM. I was testing the card on some games and it was fine, then i played some games that i had no chance of playing cause of the lag and old video card, a few minutes - half hour in the screen went all funny with wierd colors and shapes, i was still able to move around but the graphics became distorted. I alt-tabbed and went back in and it went away. Ive been trying to figure whats causing this. It always crashes the game and times so i just end up closing it. I plan on returning it and getting and just switching with another copy of the card. What do u think is causing this?
One more thing i forgot to mention i didnt remove the old card which was in the pci slot, and just put the new one where it belonged, in the pci-e slot and installed the drivers using the cd and it disabled the old card and is the main one in use. Could it be that the old card being still in there is causing this? This doesnt seem to be happening to the games that dont require. a whole lot of great graphics.
Thanks for listening,
Andy
ANSWER: First lets get some updates:
Check for the newest version of direct X - download and install
Check The computer or motherboard maufacturer home page, and download any updated drivers - important to get audio. and chipset.
When you install the new card remove the old one - 2 different manufacturers cause problems. Make sure the nvidia driver and software are removed from the computer.Download the newest driver from nvidia's website.
let me know how it goes
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: hey chris,
i dont know if u received my follow up but i did everything u said. DirectX is already updated. Motherboard drivers are most recent. Old card is out. Drivers installed. I got more ram put in today making total to 2.5 from 512mb of memory that didnt do. Think i should return the card?
Few days ago i bought a new video card (GeForce8500GT - 512MB) and it seemed to be working fine until i tried playing some games, few minutes in the graphics became distorted with random tones colors n shapes. Others told me it might be it overheating but its 47degrees celcius which is fine, thought it might of been my ram, that i didnt have enough. Today i got 2gigz of ram put in making total memory to 2.5gigz, i had 512. Everythings so smooth now but its still there. Before i got my video card i couldnt play these kinda games. Thought lack of my power supply, but it strong enough to support card. Drivers+DirectX are updated.
Heres 2 screenshots of how it looks normally: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/3270/sourcenormalle7.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4755/sourcenormal2kl5.jpg
Now heres 2 screenshots of how it looks after 5-20 minutes into game: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/3935/sourceabnormalft5.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8389/sourceabnormal2ax5.jpg
hoping to hear a reply anytime soon. much thanks.
-Andy
Answer Have you check for patches for the game in question?
make sure the video settings in the game are not exceeding ur card (they shouldn't be but i would check)
Try turning the graphics down a bit and see what happens.
If you open the nvidia control panel -under 3d settings - program settings tab - see if ur game is listed and check the settings. If its not listed add it to the list.
Make sure the monitor is configured and the correct monitor - plug and play monitor doesn't always work.
Try ntune - it helped me with getting hellgate london running right http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html
try leaving the side off the case and see if the problem persists - if it keeps going then we have to keep probing. If it goes away then you have an airflow problem and something is overheating.
