Is my GPU defective?

Got my laptop July 20 this year. Came with 9500M GS. Read that many 9 series nVidia GPUs are defective.

I was just playing Halo Custom Edition on 1366x768 maxed out, and I noticed in Blood Gulch sometimes pieces of the map would flash. I'd see a dark area flash bright a few times, and if I zoom in and look at a hill I would see bits of a map sticking out of it and then disappear. Is this evidence of a defective GPU? I don't see this in other games like COD4 or Crysis since they have an optimal settings button.

 

What are your GPU temps? Sometimes games just start glitching up due to drivers.

 

Dunno, but my CPU was roughly 65 Celcius.

 

Sounds like a glitch to me...

 

If your GPU core starts to fail, you'll most likely get a locked up screen forcing a reboot. If your video memory is failing you can end up seeing dots all over the screen kinda like snow, or colorful "zigzags" all over at random moments.

Do a google of "video card artifacts" to get an idea of what to look for.

But remember sometime a bad driver can also produce the some effects.

IMO it sounds like simple graphics errors (glitches/clipping etc).

 

Yup I think it's just halo acting up, the demo too is glitchy as hell on my 8600m gt... Since you have Vista why don't you just get halo 2? Works way better.

 

Fred, I have the same problem. Looks like you're running Vista too. Halo works fine in OS X, and does this to me in Vista as well. Don't think its a GPU issue, but the game not liking the OS.

 

i had the same issues while playing guild wars, sometimes an alt+tab would fix it sometimes not.

Im running xp and the temps where normal or at least no overheating (70-75C rivatuner)

The problem was the drivers dunno why, 177.44, if i return to those i get the glitches again (tested).

Now im on 177.79 and all fine

u should try different drivers. hope it helps a bit

 

Are you guys overclocking while playing? These issues stem from overclocking your card while playing games. (I stopped because of it) Try playing without any OC, and see what happens

Some games can be played OC'd no problem(cod4), but poorly optimized ones like TES4 Oblivion, or Halo, will experience weird problems.

 

Check this report of Nivdia:

On July 3, Nvidia reported that large quantities of defective graphics chips were shipped. The packaging materials used for the graphics chips are being blamed as the cause of the problem. According to a Wall Street Journal article, critics are not satisfied with the way Nvidia and two notebook manufacturers, Dell and HP, are addressing the situation.

Both Dell and HP have said that they will not repair any notebooks with the potentially defective graphics cards until they fail. Nvidia, in its defense, said it cannot recall its customer's products.Nvidia has yet to announced a recall for the defective chips and has not disclosed which chips are defective.

Customers of Dell and HP are speaking out - it is not comforting to know that their notebooks could fail at any time. The BIOS updates released by the companies is not guarantee to fix the problem, only reduce the risk of failure.

This story is sourced from the Wall Street Journal on August 19, page B3. 'Chip Problems Haunt Nvidia, PC Makers CEO Defends Response' by Don Clark.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4483

There is an post that i cant find about which models are, u should check if your gpu card is one of them.

 

I seriously doubt that has anything to do with the problem.

 

Yup, it's either a problem with Vista or the drivers, as most of us are running Vista... [thin foil=on]Maybe that's a scheme by Microsoft to make us buy H2 since it's a Vista only game if we want to get our Halo fix...[thin foil=off]...