MSI 5950 Ultra broken?

[Dark_Neo]

Haven't used my computer for 3D games etc for a week or so now, but since me and my mate brought Dungeon Siege 2 I took my system round to his to play, but as soon as I ran it I noticed artifacts on the screen. Just flickering blocks of pixels a similar colour to the surrounding pixels. I ran the dxdiag tests and at first it had problems but then I disabled my antivirus and it ran fine (without any artifacts), I ran the artifact tester and got a score of 124 on average setting!

Just to point out I haven't even attempted to overclock this card. The temperature stays around 37 degrees C.

Here are my specs:

Windows XP PRO SP2 (Direct 9.0c (along with DXSDK))
1.3Ghz AMD Duron
512MB DDR
4x AGP
LeadTek 5950 Ultra 256MB (TV capture edition)

The only thing I can think of is low power, but I've taken out everything I don't need

[Dark_Neo]

Update: Just ran N-Bench and my great almighty expensive graphics card (well it was at the time) is only just beating a Geforce 2! In fact in the Star Fighter demo it got beaten by it! My results were:

Ninja 1: 1209
Ninja 2: 1366
Grand Touring: 1244
Star Fighter: 816 (there was a lot of screen corruption in this!)

3D Overall: 1158

Any ideas what could be wrong?

Edit: screenshot of artifacts here http://notacake.com/ds2.jpg

[Dark_Neo]

This problem seems to be getting worse. The screen is now getting corrupted during the Windows boot and at most other low resolutions (not BIOS however). The card seems absolutely fine, no over heating at all. My icons and cursors are also getting corrupted, which is really strange, the TweakUI repair icons setting doesn't work for this. I have absolutely no idea where the problem could be, it doesn't seem to be the card, I have reinstalled XP today so it doesn't seem to be that. Somebody help?

[darkrider01]

Sorry that no one seems to read this section......

I have 2 ideas as to what may be causing your problems.

1. Motherboard is croaking.
2. Power supply is dieing.

I would lean more towards the motherboard being the problem if you have a good power supply (Vantec, PC Power & Cooling, Antec, Cooler Master, etc.). However, if you do not have a good (worth every penny of the $100 I paid for mine) power supply, then I would suggest going for that first. If your PSU is dieing, you may be getting undervoltage on your +5V or +12V and that would probably produce artifacts. Unfortunately, the converse is also true. You may be getting too much voltage on your +5V and +12V rails. This condition can and usually will cause permanent damage to your other components. If you don't have a good PSU, get one now.

Using a cheap (came with the $25 case) PSU is like drinking toilet water. You might be ok, or you might get sick and die.

[The Punisher]

I agree with darkrider01, A good PSU is a mandatory component in any system with a power hungry video card. No point getting a great card if u dun have enuf juice to feed it.

[Dark_Neo]

I'm leaning towards that being the problem also, it's a 400W power supply but it is rather old. Problem is having no money

Strange thing is I haven't seen any problems yet under Linux....or any other operating system except Windows XP. But I reinstalled that, tried with two sets of drivers (the ones from the original install CD and the newest ones) but still the problem is there.

[rohit]

Strange thing is I haven't seen any problems yet under Linux....or any other operating system except Windows XP. But I reinstalled that, tried with two sets of drivers (the ones from the original install CD and the newest ones) but still the problem is there.

STrange..
Well, try updating GART drivers, check the card on some other system (If possible), or try another card in this system.

Hope this helps!

[Dark_Neo]

Updated the AGP drivers using ones from my motherboard manufacturor. The screen artefacts seem to have stopped (it's stopped before but then started again so I'm hesitating in saying it's fixed) but I have something even stranger happening now, if I enable Shaders in Dungeon Siege 2 my graphics card (yes the card, not the motherboard) goes *BEEP**BEEP**BEEP**BEEP**BEEEEEEP* rather loudly, and if I don't exit the game sharpish the machine restarts I checked the temperature of the card and it only just past 40 degrees C. I'm very confused when I get my hands on some money I'm getting a new motherboard and PSU, then a new g/card later