video card issue

this happens in both windows & linux alike. upon logging into windows or linux i may have a few minutes or a few seconds, at which point the display will freeze and never recover. i can see the activity lights blinking and hear my hard drive spinning along as if everything's fine.

i have two power supplies that i have tried using with it, one a corsair 750w and the other a corsair gs600w. both have sufficient power for the video card as labeled on box and video card's box.

this video card was bought new at fry's and i am outside of the return period so i would like to attempt fixing it before trying other methods. it worked for a few weeks at the very least before i started getting this problem; i have played starcraft 2 at maximum detail, battlefield: bad company 2 at maximum detail, as well as several other games that require a good bit of hardware to perform well.

however, if i remove the driver completely under any os or run safe mode, there is no issue whatsoever.

here is my setup:

was running windows 7 x32 ultimate, now running ubuntu 10.10 with nvidia drivers

psu:       corsair gs600w
mobo:      asus p7p55d pro
graphics:  nvidia gtx470 (1280mb ddr5) pci-e interface
ram:       g.skill ripjaws ddr3 sdram 2g x2 = 4 gigs

if other info is needed please let me know :)

Asked by Icky on October 26, 2010.

Removing the driver or running in safe mode means the card is running in a very basic mode, i.e. it's clever 3d stuff is not being used so I think it's bad news.

As it sounds like an overheating problem, all I can suggest is that you make sure the fan is running and not obstructed and that the heatsink is properly seated. Other than that, I'm afraid it sounds like you have a duff card. You could try for an RMA direct from Nvidia as their warranty is between 1-3 years depending on the card.

Answered by Tog on October 27, 2010.

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