Seeing Red.

GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
edited September 2007 in Hardware
The first time it happened, I blamed the death sequence in HL2...

I was driving down Highway 17. I hopped out of the rail buggy to knock some cars off the cliff edge with my gravity gun, when suddenly a mine nailed me squarely between the shoulder blades. As I hit the waves below, HL2's read death sequence greeted me.

Yet as I resurrected at my last save point, the view was still red-tinged. Thinking it was a graphical error in HL2, I exited to the desktop, only to discover that everything was still red-tinged. I rebooted the machine, expecting it to clear. The POST sequence was also red. Uh oh. I switched DVI ports on the back of the card, and it was magically cured. Switching back, I found that the issue had cleared up on the original DVI port as well.

The other day, I was browsing the web, and it happened again. Simply switching DVI ports cleared it up again. But the problem's repeat performance, especially during non-graphically intensive tasks, has me worried.

Originally I suspected the beta nVidia driver that I installed in order to play the demo for BioShock... but the more I think about the bloody POST screen, the less that makes sense.

The video card is a BFG Tech BFGR76256GTOCE GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16, in an Abit AN8-SLI motherboard.

Any recommendations? Is the card signaling impending death?

Comments

  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    Do you have another monitor that you can try to rule out the monitor? Is the DVI Cable integrated to the monitor or removable? Try switching the cable. Next try the monitor on another computer...

    Those are the normal things I try to figure out if the monitor, cable, or system are at fault. If the system is at fault... Still could be something other than graphics card. Heatsink on the GPU clean? Is it running REALLY hot?
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    That sounds more like a cable/monitor issue than video card. You're not unintentionally kicking or yanking the cable are you? Heh.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    Most often the issue you describe is cable/ monitor, but than again I have had cards go a green tinge on me before... Most often when a GPU dies it will give you a nice kaleidoscope display or not work all together.

    It is also possible the one DVI port you are using is going bad... that has also happened to me before.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    I could try a different monitor, although the problem is spotty enough that even if it didn't happen with the other monitor, I couldn't be truly certain it was the cable or this monitor. I suppose I could switch out the cable as well...

    Actually, it is a Dell LCD that uses a VGA cable and I'm using a DVI-VGA adapter. Could the adapter be a possible culprit as well?

    Yikes! So many variables!
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    My first computer did the same thing yours is doing. It's like digital pink eye. The solution is to make sure all your cables are connected correctly. Your card and monitor should be safe, as the problem likely exists between them.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited September 2007
    I'll fiddle with the cabling and connectors and see if it stops happening.

    Thanks for the advice!
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