More computer trouble of late

November 12, 2007 4:12:am 2 Comments Edit , , and

Let me show you what I have been looking at every time I try to play Far Cry or Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast for more than 5-10 minutes:

Screen Fuzz

I get to look at that garbage, for which the only option is a hard reboot of the computer. I have been trying to track down the source of the problem. First of all, I discovered that I was probably pushing my RAM a little too hard (I had the CAS timing set to 2.5 but it should have been 3 ns). Then I discovered that I was inadvertently overclocking the AGP bus from 66 MHz to 68 MHz. I am told that my graphics card (an NVidia GeForce 6800GT) really requires that the bus be locked to 66 MHz. Alas, while I was initially hopeful when on my first attempt after correcting these problems I played 15-20 minutes of Far Cry without a problem, eventually I got stuck with the same fuzz of pixels.

So, let’s analyze the potential culprits:

  1. The system is overheating - I have put a lot of work into fixing this, so I find it unlikely.
  2. My power supply is not supplying a stable current - another distinct possibility given the type of problem. I would find this more likely if I didn’t have a high-quality power supply (an Antec TrueBlue 480W).
  3. My DRAM is hosed - a likely possibility. I would like to run Memtest86 for a few hours to test this, but at the moment my CD/DVD drive is also refusing to read burned media, so I need to replace the DVD drive before I can check this.
  4. My CPU is hosed - I haven’t experienced any computer trouble outside of video games. Processor-intensive tasks such as encoding video to H.264 work fine, so I doubt this.
  5. My video card is hosed - the most likely candidate in my mind. This card has always run very hot, and it doesn’t get extensive use in my computer except when I play games, which is when I am having trouble.

Sadly, if the problem is the video card, I don’t have very good upgrade options. My system requires an AGP video card, which is no longer supported by the video card manufacturers (PCI Express has widely replaced the AGP standard). I think it is silly to put $100 into buying an old video card which would work with my current setup when that money could go towards overhauling my entire system. With that in mind, I have specced out a new CPU, motherboard, and video card. I think I can put together a system which can run the latest games at respectable framerates (at very high/max settings) for only $600.

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