[tomgrossi]

Hi. I have a LeadTek Geforce3 I bought off of eBay. The fan wasn't working well so I took a CPU fan I had and put it right on the heatsink. I would think this would give more air than the regular small fan. Still, I am having big stability problems. Specifically, the whole system is crashing. It might not be the card, but I suspect it is since the whole screen turns to grey-and-white shapes that look like the "S"-shape from Tetris. See the picture below, but imagine a bunch of interlocking tetris s-shapes, each about .5" x 1".


I know that my motherboard temperature is low (34c) but I guess the card could be overheating. Still, I think the fan is quite big. Is it possible that it was damaged permanently from prior overheating or overclocking? Has anyone seen this behavior before. It takes down the whole system. Note: I have tried TvTool 9.5.5.5 and 6.8, as well at 55.03 and 44.03 versions of the drivers... all of them crash. However, it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 days for a crash to occur.


What should I do? Thanks. -Tom

 

[Hugo C]

Tom,


First off, download [email protected] and run it for 24 hours. If it works, your CPU isn't overheating.


Second, download 3DMark from Madonion.com and run it for 24 hours. It it works, your graphics card isn't overheating.

Quote:

Is it possible that it was damaged permanently from prior overheating or overclocking?

The only time I have seen permanent damage from heat (same as overclocking damage) was when the component in question (Athlon CPUs - they fry in about 2 seconds without a heatsink) was completely dead. I haven't heard of heat damage just making a component unreliable, though it's not completely impossible.


Now - you didn't change the heatsink, you said? Stock GeForce heatsinks are real POSs, and they glue them on. I had overheating problems at factory clock speeds with my stock HSF. Remove it. Put the card in an anti-static bag in the freezer overnight, put an old CD between the card and the sink to protect the board, then slip a flat-bladed screwdriver between the CD and the sink and twist it until the heatsink pops off. Make sure you're prying the sink from the GPU slug and not the slug from the board!!! It'll make a "crack" sound - don't have a heart attack, it's supposed to. Then clean off all the old superglue with nail polish remover (borrow the wife's). Finally, apply a nice thorough but thin coat of thermal paste, a good-sized heatsink, make sure it's secured to the card (zip-ties through the mounting holes work well) and put your fan on.


Let me know how you get on with all this!

 

[neopolaris]

sounds like bad memory on the card.