Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

[Cassius55]

I used to have a Nvidia 8600 256 meg GDDR3 card and it died out in less than a year if I remember correctly. One day I just turned on the computer and every thing was messed up, all these colors and pixels mashed up together. The computer could not function at all except for safe mode. Now I am planning to buy a new graphics card and the one I have now, a Nvidia 8400 512 meg DDR2 card is starting to die out with the same stupid crap that happened to my last Nvidia card. In the Nvidia control panel on the Adjust Image setting screen there is all these flashing colors or yellow blue and black on it. The same thing happened with my last Nvidia card only the entire screen looked like this. When I watch videos I see these colors now, it really blows. Also the last Nvidia update I downloaded totally ruined my 1440x900 resolution, it doesn't work anymore. Everytime I set it to that it cuts off 1/4 of the screen. Wtf is wrong with Nvidia? There cards do not last, I remember my old ATI card it never had these problems. Should I get another Nvidia card? Seems like it will die in less than a year.

[VoraciousBear]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

Do NOT get another Nvidia card as none support DX11 at the moment which will severely limit their lifespans. Stick with AMD unless you are willing to wait till next year to see if Nvidia will be coming out with its own DX11 GPU.

[TheHeartSmasher]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

Cassius I am not sure what is going on with your system, but I have not had any problems with my NVidia cards at all. The only reason I have changed them is to get more performance. I used to run ATI, but the last card I had stopped working and I got the red screen of death, even after replacing the fan on the card with an aftermarket due to the fan and other components of the card failing after extended hours of gaming back in the day. I will probably try ATI again in the future though. Since you say this keeps happening which is not normal with regular NVidia cards lets see what might be causing these problems. What are your current systems specs?

Processor:
RAM:
Number of Hard Drives:
Hard Drive Space:
Case
Case Form Factor:
Manufacturer:
Model# of Computer if pre-built:
Graphics Card Manufacturer:
How long is the warranty on your graphics card:
How much did the graphics card cost:
Does it look like a quality built graphics card:
Link to the graphics card you purchased:
Is the graphics card overclocked:
Are you running a stock system:
How old is your computer:
Have you cleaned the dust out of your computer:
What temperature does your current graphics card run at:
What do your other components run at ( hard drive, processors, ram, etc.:
How are the fans operating on your system and your card, are all of them running:
Have you updated your computer's BIOS to the latest version:

[Cassius55]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

Do NOT get another Nvidia card as none support DX11 at the moment which will severely limit their lifespans. Stick with AMD unless you are willing to wait till next year to see if Nvidia will be coming out with its own DX11 GPU.

So all Nvidia cards have short lifespans now? Have any of yours died out?

[Cassius55]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

Ill provide my computer information later, Im going to shut it off for now. I had 1 random restart so I set it so it doesn't restart on hardware faliure, now I have had to restart it 3 times tonight. First the entire screen flickered a purple color and it was frozen then the screen just went black, this happened 2 times again I think and I just came back from restarting it now after the screen flickered a purple color. Every time that happens everything just freezes and you can't do anything. I havn't cleaned my computer, I never have, should I open the case and clean it out? It must be very dusty, it sometimes makes a loud humming noise to.

[jake_]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

Stop downloading pr0n.

[Cassius55]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

Damn Pieces of ****, should I even buy another Nvidia card?

[TGL|FalseLion]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

My 8600 gts crapped out about October of last year. I'd blame the card but my power supply went down with it so that could have been what caused it. I hadn't had any issues up until that point though so I turned around and bought another 8600 cause of the price and its been running for a year now fine....only real issue I've had with nvidia is what they've done with their drivers i.e. they've completely cut out your ability to turn mipmaps on and off or switch from bilinear to trilinear mip maps, they had took the option out to turn on and off the anisotropic sample optimization, its just a pain because some games benefit from these tweaks while others don't.

I don't think my problem was actually my card....just the power supply on top of smoking around my machine, location of my machine, etc.....

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

So all Nvidia cards have short lifespans now? Have any of yours died out?

I never have an NVIDIA card died on me, but I've seen 8400m died in a laptop at work. The 8400/8600 series suffered this problem while NVIDIA switched material soldering ball with TSMC about two years ago. Both parties didn't anticipated this problem. Usually the problem is more serious on laptops due to short heat/cooling cycle, but unlucky people found that desktop parts may fail as well. The problem is almost nonexistent for newer products.

Also, the problem with your computer may be that OS is corrupted, device driver related, motherboard dying or failing PSU. It's hard to diagonize the problem without full knowledge of your system.

[Cassius55]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

So the 9000 serise doesn't have these problems? I guess when I get a 9800 I would have to uninstall my drivers and get the 9000 ones. I just hope the 1440x900 resolution isn't messed up since with my 8400, the latest driver update made that resolution cute off 1/4 of my screen. I probably won't need to use that resolution anymore anyway, since I would have a new graphics card. Man I just farted, damn that smells good.

[TGL|FalseLion]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

So the 9000 serise doesn't have these problems?.

I really don't know...don't know anyone with a 9 series. I know the performance increase from the 8 to the 9 really wasn't that substantial on paper though. I do know with my 8 series part of my problem may have been my oncard fan not being automatically enabled....found that out back in april when i downloaded some nvidia program that allows you to set the chip speeds and fan speed, loaded it up and my fan was set to 0%, not sure if that's evga's fault or nvidia's fault...probably evga's.

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

I have this XFX 9800GTX+ for about a year now, to replace Gigabyte 3870 (not a bad card, but at the time I had some money and the deal was good). It is powerful enough to run anything other than Crysis at 1440 and runs quite even under full load. I am so satisfied with this 9800GTX+ that I wouldn't consider an upgrade until BFBC2 release.

But if you want to get a midrange graphics card now, I would suggest you to get ATI 5xxx series card, such as 5770 or 5750, or 4770, 4850 for the cheap. Just remember to get 1GB version.

[D_ii_4_I3_L_o]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

I have this XFX 9800GTX+ for about a year now, to replace Gigabyte 3870 (not a bad card, but at the time I had some money and the deal was good). It is powerful enough to run anything other than Crysis at 1440 and runs quite even under full load. I am so satisfied with this 9800GTX+ that I wouldn't consider an upgrade until BFBC2 release.

But if you want to get a midrange graphics card now, I would suggest you to get ATI 5xxx series card, such as 5770 or 5750, or 4770, 4850 for the cheap. Just remember to get 1GB version.

I've got the 4870 HD, I want to upgrade another one into it. Good idea? I've heard good things about the x2 4870 HD 1GB, even compete's with the GTX 275.

Another note could you mix dx versions ? :S Like I'm pretty sure im 4870 HD is dx10, and the newer version of ATi 5xxx series support dx11. It wouldn't make sence to mix the two of the different kind, would it ?

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*Edit*

Whow, I was wondering how I could possibly see all the possible spec's on my computer and I always thought that my 4870 HD was DX10. I honeslty saw that my graphic card used to be DX10. So is it possible that driver updates could mod your dx version ? But I have no idea what type of motherboard that I got & powersupply. How could I find these spec's ?

[AvalancheDiode]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

You are fine with 4870 1GB. If you want to get another, just go get it.

Direct3D libraries are highly hardware dependent. Yes, you can do all the calculation with CPU, but that'll be very slow. You can't run DX11 on 4870. The hardware simply doesn't support hardware tessellation in DX11.

For 2x 4870 in CrossFire, you are looking for 750W-850W PSU. Only chipsets from NVIDIA don't support CrossFire. You also need extensive case ventilation and planning if you want to build a two-card system. Heat and noise go up tremendously.

BTW, make sure your computer is not bought from DELL or HP. If yes, then you probably want to learn how to assemble one.

[Cassius55]

Re: Nvidia graphics cards are crap? They always die out

So should I get a 9800? I just hope it doesn't mess up like my last to 8000 series cards did