Am I just being paranoid?

I recently installed the forceware 179.48 drivers and also the newest ntools. I've tried overclocking and had some screen artifacts and lines so I put my clocks back to stock. After doing that, I was looking at a fairly dark picture and the lines game back, but they went away. I read about the lcd plug or something on a thread that talks about this problem and I tried it, problem went away (or so I thought).

Again, I overclocked and got the lines and minor artifacts on the screen; the laptop locked up so I rebooted. After that, while I was looking at a dark pic it started the line thing again...
Haven't really seen it much, just once after the last oc.

Should I be worried? My 14 days is almost up and I'm not sure if I should go exchange it for another laptop, or just leave it as is.

 

This is just me personally, but if I was in your position, I would exchange it.

After spending that kind of money on something, I wouldn't take any chances. Once again, if it were me, it would gnaw at me and make me wonder if something was really wrong with it...

 

Yeah and that's what is happening to me right now lol, I'm worried that something is REALLY wrong with it, but I don't want to take it back and have to re-download everything AGAIN.

Another thing, I just ran the 3 3dmark06 tests and got a 9233. My temps are in the screenshot is this normal?

 

The lines also didn't appear during the test I don't think.

 

As far as 3dmark06 scores and temperatures go, those are normal. My temperatures usually stay around 70C, which is what your getting. So everything is fine there.

You shouldn't be getting artifacts at all, so return it before it's too late. Honestly, what can you lose? Even though overclocking can cause artifacts and freezing, as long as you don't go too high with them you should be fine and the problems will reverse when you downclock back to the defaults. Unless you overclocked too high, the problems should have went away so return it.

 

Those look exactly like my temperatures. Why does core 0 always seem considerably cooler?

 

I've oc'd it at the most 150mhz each using ntune or ntools, w/e the nvidia tool is. I can CS:S video stress test and my frames went from 120 average to 50fps. and 3dmark locks up. So all I do is reboot and then I think I get the minor artifacts but only when something is dark on the screen... like when I'm on steam or watching a dark youtube vid or viewing a dark picture. After this happened the first time I just rebooted and verified that my gpu was at stock speeds and then unplugged/replugged the power cord; that for the most part stopped the artifacts. The second time I did the same thing and so far I haven't seen any artifacting..

I don't know, I was wondering the same thing lol. Maybe vista just utilizes the power of one core until the other is needed?

 

Just got off the phone with BB and they said that they will have to verify that it is indeed showing artifacts and will run a 10-15 minute bench mark and if nothing shows up I can leave it there for 24 hours to see if anything happens.

 

Good luck with Best Buy. They've been a hit or miss store with me. Sometimes returns go amazing. Other times they give me hell. If you can replicate your problem easily though, then it shouldn't be a problem. It's good that you caught this within the 14 day period.

With 150mhz each, you shouldn't have had this problem. I overclock modestly to 655/899/1750, and you should have no problem overclocking up to 710/950/1750 which is about what you used.

 

Well from what I've read, no two, three, or four graphics cards overclock the same.
I also used nvidia's tool to oc.

One thing that I have noticed is that the artifacts don't happen while playing games, or running 3dmark06 5 times in a row.

 

Well I've been running atitool artifact finder for 15 minutes and put my laptop on the floor to get my heat up to 68c and it's not showing any artifacts... Is this a good sign?

 

20 minutes and it went up to 71c and dropped drastically fast to high 40s low 50s. Didn't show any artifacts.. Maybe it was just my oc that made the artifacts appear? And when I reset the clocks again to make sure that they were at stock speeds made the artifacts go away...

 

i just think you are being paranoid. Do you have the best buy replacement warranty?

 

No, but I'm thinking about getting it later though, but it is still within the 14 day period.

 

Every card overclocks differently, but yours seems to be overly sensitive, which is what is weird. If a trip to Best Buy is an inconvenience and you can live without overclocking, then you should be fine. If you want to try your luck with their return service and try to get a less sensitive card, then you can try that too.

 

I got the the plan this time around. I never had any problems with my P6860-FX. I bought the local floor display to get the better screen 1920 by 1200 this time on the P-7805u and I felt like I needed to have the replacement warranty BB offers. I also am considering the T9800 upgrade path and the replacement warranty makes me feel less worried about it.

If you take it back you will likely get the 1440 by 900 screen. I don't think you will be happy about that. Hope this helps you either way you decide.

 

Yeah I might go get it the 3 year plan.. And I also got the 1440x900 so it doesn't really matter to me.

Have you found any of the T9800's for cheap? I'm planning on upgrading myself.

 

That screen works well too. See what BestBuy can do for you. Maybe walk in and see if they have more before taking yours in. Maybe even check for a 138 serial number on the boxes they have. Who knows.. exchanging it might be a great idea. If you like the higher res screen you might even get one. You could get lucky. Do not accept a restocking fee if it has problems. You said you had artifacts so maybe it does.... Be careful too. BB employees aren't always gentle with these laptops.

replacement plan seems to be a good idea and will give you some peace of mind about your purchase.

 

IMO I don't think the 1920x1200 screen won't be good for gaming since that's a pretty high resolution. I'll keep messing around with this one until I can't stand it anymore and then go in and talk my way into a new one.

 

If you think there might be a problem with the screen or the gpu EXCHANGE it. BB doesnt have to replicate the issue if its within 14 days. Its intermitent comes and goes they will replace it. IMO artifactin, no 3yr plan. LOTS OF FUTURE FRUSTRATION.

 

What was your o'clk settings again?

 

150 each on the nvidia oc tool.

 

I'll try and get an exchange tomorrow, hopefully they will let me swap hard drives right over without any problems.

 

they should i bought 1 and the left key on the track pad would stick every once in awhile. So i brought it in and it took a little convinsing but they swaped hard drives out for me. Just be persistent

 

Yeah, that's my plan.

I also ran 3dmark06 20 times while I slept and had HWmonitor running in the background, the max temp was 74c and that was for the GPU. Everything else was under 60c.

 

I just overclocked them to 700/850/1750 and it gave me 11fps more on counter strike source and added around 400 points to my 3d mark score which bumped me up to 9690! The gpu temp was max 64c running 3dmark once.

Is this normal?
This time when I oc'd I didn't oc both the core/memory 150mhz, that's what I did the first time and it started artifacting, now there's no artifacts. Was it just because I oc'd both the core clock and the memory clock 150mhz each?

 

Well went and traded the laptop in, they just got 6 in last night and I was lucky enough (I hope!) to get the 1920x1200 lg screen.

I had to talk them into swapping the hard drives out but they did it.
With this new laptop there's two things that I'm worried about... I've had one bluescreen so far right off the bat, I'm not sure if that's because of the hard drive being swapped or because of the drivers and the newer laptop/resolution...

I also checked my temps using hwmonitor and it shows my GPU temps as 57c. Is that because of the higher resolution? Or do I just need to "break" in the laptop?

I also had quite a bit of artifacts on this laptop too, no oc yet... Just on the desktop (dark background), so I took off the media bar and pulled off the lcd plug and plugged it back in. So far haven't seen any artifacts...

 

I had windows look up the problem and it said the nvidia graphics driver was the culprit, I'm going to reinstall my drivers and see if that helps!

 

Ran ATI tool for 40 minutes and the gpu got up to 69c with no artifacts. As soon as I closed it and went to the desktop, the artifacts came back and went away... Does anyone think that trying a different driver will help at all??

 

First did you do a clean install of your GPU driver using driversweeper in safe mode?
and as for artifacts and lines on 3dmark06, I got that all the time when I overclocked my GPU too much..

 

There's a guide on here for overclocking http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=342096and the numbers they give are 710/950/1750. I should add it provides stable gaming. I personally like the official Nvidia driver(179.85) not Dox driver. It just seems to run better on my system.