Stop gaming on 8600m gt?

Here is what happend a while back. I was playing Mass Effect 2 and after a few minutes I started getting artifacts on the screen which quickly turned to rainbow sparks and much of screen started to melt away rapidly, I quickly turned off the system. Back on later and everything is running fine no sign of any artifacts or any lasting damage.

Now all this was a few weeks ago and I thought I wait and see if anything happens, since then I haven't played any games that are too graphic intensive like ME2, Batman AA etc so far no problems everything is running as it has always been. I do still play CoH and some other games.

My 8600m gt is ddr2 version and temps only very few times go above 70c. I'm just weary of playing anything too intensive. Good idea to play it safe? Thanks for opinions.

 

monitor gpu temperatures and stress levels when those artifacts start to happen again.

Also, reduce your settings. You dont want a blown out card!

 

It depends on what was causing the artifacts. If they happened because your machine was overheating or because of driver problems, then not gaming will avoid the issue. However, if they happened because the card is dying, then you're merely delaying the inevitable: it'll just take a bit longer to die.

Since your machine has worked fine for a few weeks, it might be something specific to Mass Effect 2 rather than a more serious problem.

 

Bingo, we have a winner !

Similar thing happened to my Vostro 1500 which is basically the same machine. I opened it up and the thermal paste was dried out and the heatsink fins were clogged with a layer of dust which was cutting off airflow. My 8400m GS was hitting temps of 75c and my CPU was in the 65-70c range. Once I replaced the thermal paste and cleaned out the heatsink fins my temps dropped by 25c both for the CPU and GPU.

 

If the card is dying you should see more often artifacts. Go ahead and play ME2 and see if the artifacts happen once more. The bottom line is that you can't judge your card by a single event.

 

I may be wrong, but Im betting based on your story that your card will die very soon. That doesn't sound like overheating or drivers in my experience.

 

Maybe replace your monitor if it started melting...

 

How old is your laptop ??? You may want to check with Dell as I thought they has extended the warranty for 1 year past the original warranty on all the laptops with the Nvidia cards like the 8600M GT as they were prone to go bad. I hope this helps. God Bless

 

Its over two years. This is a single event thats happened with my 8600m but it was artifacting badly but so far I'm in the clear. Anyway we'll see how it goes.

 

Dell didn't extend the warranty on the 1520 or 1720, JDELUNA - presumably they figured with a larger chassis and thus better cooling it wouldn't be as much of a problem.

Bingo, we have a winner!

It could indeed be something specific to Mass Effect 2. I have the same base laptop and GPU, and experienced BSODs (XP) and heavy artifacting (Vista/7) at sporadic intervals (5-30 minutes approximately until they started; artifacts lasted a few seconds and BSOD until I restarted) in the game Burnout Paradise for quite awhile, however, lowering my graphics settings caused all those problems to go away. Apparently one of the fancy effects was causing problems with the driver and/or on the card. Since then I've played both that game and others a decent amount with no problems. So if you continue to have problems in ME2, try lowering the fancy graphics options and seeing if the problems continue. They just might go away.

Temp-wise, I wouldn't worry. They could be better, but they aren't in a problematic range.

So I wouldn't stop gaming just because of this. If it starts cropping up in other games where you know it's been fine before, then it's time to start worrying.

 

Yes, there isn't any extended warranty for the 1520s and 1720s... The same goes to the Vostro 1700 as well. Notice in the forums and else where that there are very little 8600M and 8400M failures in these 15" machines and even lower (or virtually almost none) failure rates on the 17" varients, one of them being mine which has been running overclocked and artifect-free for the past 2.6 years and counting.

There may be two possibilities why the G84 lasted so long or -possibly- taking a waaay much longer time to die as opposed to other machines: Its Cooling System, and secondly the Dell proprietary design Removable "MXM-like" GPU as compared to other machines, which are mostly soldered or MXM II standard.

I would say the artifecting, well again its game specific. Or possibly driver issue. Then again I'm not saying right or wrong, or who's to judge what's going on the screen, but some people claimed that messed up graphics that they see, they call "artifects", when actually -can- be a driver or even monitor issue.

What drivers are you currently using, PCgamer? You may want to get a camera ready when you see the problem happens again, I cannot fully judge & confirm whether its artifecting or not without seeing what's going on screen.

Hope this helps, just keep monitoring it for the time being, yah?

 

Im using an 8600M GT in an xps1530. But is GDDR3 not 2 as in thenlatitiude.
Im replacing my laptop as it is struggling with games like just cause 2 . BFBC2 plays fine but slows down sometimes. I love playing games on my 46inch samsung led , but with the 8600M GT cannot handle the resolution with many artifacts appearing. So I am buying a new system in a couple months to coincide with the release of Crysis 2 ,. Medal Of Honour and Call Of Duty Special Ops.

 

I have the exact same problem with my 8600m gt. Its due to overheating, the 8 series are prone to failing/dying due to bad materials.
I usualy get rainbow sparks and purple tiangle lines. Also, sometimes I get a black screen during the rain map (the one on the boat) in cod4 but that is not due to heat I think.
I suggest you stop playing that game unless you want your card to die. The symptoms on my card appeared previous summer while I was playing cod4. I haven't played it during the summer again and almost 1 year later my card still lives.

 

The above is true BUT it mainly affected those Nvidia GPU's soldered to the mobo's. The one I have (Vostro 1500) and that of the (Inspiron 1520) OP are plug-in cards and those were pretty much trouble free unless you overclock it or have a heat issue due to clogged airflow or bad thermal paste.

 

I think a single event is not enough to cast such a judgement.

 

It sounds like your card is on the way out. High temperatures, and more importantly, temperature cycles are what will eventually kill the defective Nvidia cards. A card thats regularly going up to 85C and back (eg whilst gaming) is obviously going to die quicker than a card that never gets highly stressed.

It sounds like you've reached a point where you're going to start having trouble in the near future. If you want to prolong the life of the card as much as possible, you should stop gaming on it. Thats not the answer that you want, heck thats not an answer that anybody would want, but thats the reality of the situation.

 

Despite your card to be the 8600M GT, which is known to have a high fail rate, based on the situation you described, I don't think your card has suffered the infamous overheating scenario. Your temperatures are still average and safe, so I doubt it has burnt out. In addition, the artifacts never happen in anything but ME 2. So that leads me to ME 2. You see, ME 2's UE 3.5 Engine somehow artifacts over unstable clock numbers from overclocking (I use ME 2 believe it or not as a stability test for overclocking. Once I see artifacts in-game, I turn it off and start lowering clocks). So I think it is a ME 2 problem and not your card dying, even though you should be careful and nurture the card with care just in case it does.

 

My 8600m GT ddr2 died in my old Acer 5920g and it wasn't soldered into the mobo.

 

I have the same acer and its due to the bad cooling design. If its any consolation, it is possible to replace the 8600m gt of your acer 5920g with an ati hd 4650 since its not soldered into the mobo. Here's a link to the right NBR thread how to do this http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/396320-acer-mxm-models-cards.html

Aside from the overheating issues, I think that if any game causes your gpu to show signs of failure like rainbow sparks and purple triangle lines, I see no rational reason to keep playing that game and risk a dead gpu (unless you still have a warranty, in that case fry that gpu and ask for a new one), no matter what the temperature is. My gpu started failing after it reached temepratures around 92-94 celcius, but after a couple of times it already starts at 70-80 celcius, which in my eyes is clearly a sign of deterioration...

 

The temps on my 1520 are pretty low (~70 or ~80 when gaming). However, I got some serious sparks and triangles while playing MW2 the other day. They persisted to my desktop and my shut down screen.

On a side note, I can barely play GTA IV with the new update. I'll hopefully have a HD 5850M soon