Guild Wars 2

Sit down with me a while, fill your tobacco pipes. Let us discuss what I have come to call.. a graphical mystery.

Whenever I boot up my computer in normal mode (I am currently in safe mode w/ networking and things run fine and smooth), my screen will. within a short interval of time, become prone to symptoms very much like those you see with an overheating video card. Black screens with red, blue, and green lines. Or colorful lines that outline the shapes on my wall-paper and desktop icons.

Immediately, I cleaned the fan on my card as well as I could. But there was no fix. I then got curious and ran two programs that check temperatures on my video card, and I was shocked.

51 degrees Celsius idle. Normally, that should be fine. But for some reason it is not. Whenever I open a program, be it GW2 launcher, or another launcher, or Chrome, or even those lightweight GPU monitoring programs, I lock up and freeze.

I was only able to get the temperature checking programs to work by Ctr+Alt+Dlt, and letting the program load in the background.. and letting the menu fade back to the Desktop on its own.

My driver, by the way, is also up to date. The card is a Nvidia GTX 280, I have a quad-core i5 2.67 Ghz processor, and 16 GB’s RAM. There is plenty of space on my hard drive.

I would invite some insight, my dear Watson and others whom are listening, some clues as to possible suspects and culprits at play here. For once I am feeling quite clueless, and I need this working by the 31st to get that title!

I am no Watson, but I can tell you my dear friend, that your graphics card is most likely not the villain. Not with the temperatures you are describing.

I believe the most likely suspect is an ailing hard drive, as corruption of data can also produce the screwy colors upon crashing.

I would attempt to reinstall your OS on a different drive and this will no doubt bring your mystery from the shadow to the light.

Madeline ‘O’ Madeline… the problems Fancy Fool describes, are not that of hard drive corruption, but that of a once great, however steadily deteriorating graphics adapter. Within the midst of transistors found deep inside the display adapter lies a torn soul, faulty memory of a withered old fool whom was once a giant in the sea of graphics adapters.

A solution is needed hastily my dear, would replacing the dated old gpu be the solution to Fancy Fools problems? Only time will tell..

In cases like this, the best way to troubleshoot is process of elimination. Removing/replacing one part of the computer until the problem is resolved or point of failure discovered.

You have a core i5, try using the integrated gpu and removing your gtx280 to see if the problem goes away.

Hmm..

So I uninstalled my GTX 280 and ran in normal mode and it is running smoothly. I’ve run memtest on my RAM, and Window’s hard drive check. I think it is my GPU now. Which is a bummer considering how costly that is to replace.. There goes my chance at Emmisary of the Mad King >.>

Of course! You might think me crazy, but I have heard success stories of people baking their GPU’s in the oven to resurrect them. Apparently it can remove those artifacts I’m having. I’m not sure if I should do this, or keep testing for what else the problem could be, but I am only damaging the rest of my computer with these forced shutdowns, and it won’t fix itself.

Yes baking your GPU can fix it. The concept is that the solder joints/connection crack over time with excessive use and the GPU gets unstable.

But by baking it you melt the solder connections back together. Doesn’t hurt to try if last resort.

On the bright side you can now upgrade videocard. Since the GTX 280 is now considered a lowish mid range card. A new modern $80-120 GPU will beat it easily.

Okay. There’s probably a good guide on doing it somewhere. I might go ahead and do it before I sink $100+ on a replacement.

There isn’t a way to replace the GPU memory is there?

Edit: True about a needed upgrade!

Many many guides online to overclock and varies depending on hardware you got. Google around.

upgrading GPU memory wouldn’t increase your performance, and its extremely difficult if not impossible for the typical person. Better off just getting a new card.