Some help for a 256MB GS7900

Well some of you may know (but maybe not), but I've been posting some stuff about the laptop I'm planning on getting when the DX10 cards roll around (and the new santa rosa thing). Or maybe you've seen my posts about helping this old laptop (a dell 5150 with a go GX5200) preform better.

Either way this is a new issue.

My sister got a new laptop from Dell a couple months ago and got a GS7900 (I think its 256 MB). And sometimes when she is playing it with the gfx on high (for City of Villains). There will be wierd spikes and stuff coming out of characters (its like a graphical artifact or something). And then when I play Civ4 on her laptop (when she is asleep), and I have on 'detailed terrain' (I think thats the setting), it will have the strange spikes on certain character/unit models.

It looks like a vertex was drawn way out (sometimes 5-6X the size of the character). I'm wondering what causes this. The card runs well. HL2 on highest settings, Oblivion on very good settings. But sometimes this happens. Also it will sometimes 'switch' to a different model if you alt-tab out of the game and go back in. These are fully legit games that it is messing up on, but reinstalling I don't think would help. I've come to the idea that the problem might be a lack of memory because if I turn on detailed terrain, or if the gfx are up high it seems to mess up more frequently, and it does 'switch' which model is messed up by alt-tabbing. The system has 2GB of RAM though (not sure if that matters).

Also there seem to be little boxes of color on the textures repeatedly drawn, along one edge, little green boxes with little red ones between them. I've seen this along the ground textures in both Civ4, and HL2.

Any idea what is causing this?? And how we can fix it? My cruddy gx5200 doesn't have that problem (althogh I run on lowest settings).

 

Its either bad drivers or possibly overheating. Is the problem constant? As in when you first fire up the game, or does it only happen after you've been playing for a while? First thing I would do is completely uninstall your current drivers, then install the latest Dell drivers and see if the problem goes away. Is the card overclocked in any way? If so drop the clocks back to stock and see what happens. I would also install I8kfangui and see what your temps are.

 

As Iceman said, could be bad drivers or your GPU overheating but I would be surprised playing Civ would overheat the card (it's not a very system intensive game). If your GPU isn't overclocked, then try installing the drivers from dell.com or laptopvideo2go.com.

 

Civ4 is actually pretty GPU intensive. Play it sometime. Just because it isn't fast doesn't mean it's not dealing with a ton of graphical information.

Check the ventilation, upgrade your drivers, check your temperatures.

 

Well it messes up alot more often when the graphics are on high settings. And if it happens it can happen from the beginning it doens't seem to always play good for 30 min and then mess up afterward. I'll try to uninstall drivers and reinstall. Thanks. I don't think it is overclocked, I didn't mess with it, and she doesn't even know how. Right now it has the same settings Dell shipped it with. I'll look for I8 kfangui and post the temps.

Yeah I it was messing up with the default dell drivers so I got on dell and downloaded new ones, but I didn't uninstall the old ones first. So I'm going to do a complete uninstall, reinstall. I don't think it is getting overheated, the fan doesn't get loud (like it is getting too hot). I don't think the GPU is overclocked, but I can I check for sure?

Yep it can look rather pretty, but it doesn't have all the nice effects of modern fps's and whatnot. The ventilation isn't necessarly very good, my sis runs in on a blanket on the couch (yeah I know not a good idea), I run it on a flat table. But it messes up for both of us.

 

Hmm well I ran CoV (highest GFX) and the temp got up really high, but no glitches so then I started HL2 (highest GFX), and the temp got up a bit higher but still no glitches (temp got up to 183 F max), then I unloaded those games and ran Civ4 and got gfx messups, at a temp of 160 (or so). I would have liked to have tested it more but I couldn't get the fan controls to work. I don't think it is a temperture problem. Although it looks like reinstalling the drivers helped some. I still don't know how to check for overclock.

 

Possible causes :
Stupid game design,Overheating,Bad drivers,Damaged GPU (just a small bit).

 

The blanket on the couch has got to go, if she absolutely has to do that she needs to find some hard flat surface to put underneath such as a cooling pad, tv tray, or even a flat sturdy board, aside from possibly cooking the system, the fans will suck in the lint and fibers from said blanket and choke up the system.

As for the gpu, if the problem persists, call dell for a replaceemt if your still under warranty.

 

Well HL2 isn't known for its stupid game design, and I got some screenys of glitches. It could be overheating I got some temperture readings at the times of some of the glitches. I just got the latest Dell drivers so it shouldn't be that. And it could be a damaged GPU, but I hope not.

Yeah thats what happened to me, thats why I moved to the table, but she is firm in her love of her couch. Maybe this will get her to change tho.

And for the GPU if we can check for overclocking and it isn't overclocked, and if the temp isn't outragous, then calling Dell is the last option.

Here are the pics.



This happened at a temp of 168 F, it is a model glitch, that was supposed to be a person.



This one is a texture glitch it shows the little green/red rectangles.



Same thing as the last one, but this time on a persons body. At 161 F.



Another model glitch.

The ones that don't have a temperture listed, I didn't catch a temp rating.


I hope that helps.

 

She can use the couch, just put something hard and flat under the laptop. Do you have settings for AA,AF and such set to app controlled? If not try that( put everything to app control that you can)

It will also help us out if you post your temps in C, thats the common standard of measure these days. 71c (161f) isnt bad, you might want to crank your fans up a little earlier, though that temp is pretty normal for stock settings. If the control panel suggestion doesnt change anything, I would call Dell immediately.

Another thing to try would be a clean install if you havent already, I had some strange goings on with my 7400 on a stock install, they cleard up immediately after a format and fresh XP. You are using XP right? If your using Vista, that might be the problem right there, the drivers have a LONG way to go.

 

Thanks for the help. It did go up to 183 F (84 C) at certain times but that was the peak, and no gfx probs at that temp. All settings are app controlled.

What control panel suggestion? Do you mean the fans? Because yeah it doesn't control the fans at all (the computer retains control).

Yep using XP, she was thinking about doing a format, we might have to do that.

Also we tried defragmenting (maybe that could help), but I'm pretty sure the problem was still there.