So, I've been playing the Tabula Rasa Beta for about 3 weeks now, the client leaks memory and the system degrades over time, so I decided to get more memory because the 1GB I had is 266Mhz and I thought getting more and faster memory would help compilation time as well as games and 3D editing software. Anyway, I got the memory yesterday, 2 1GB DDR 400 sticks, I put them in, start the machine and everything is smooth, I start TR and I get a lot of random crashes, the system degrades and finally BSODs, when it comes back online, the graphics are all screwed (even before loading the OS, during the BIOS memory test console characters show "extra" plotted pixels), the OS shows bad graphics (missing icons, garbage pixels, etc) and BSODs shortly after logging in. I ran memtest for 6 hours and the memory I bough is OK, no errors whatsoever, I replaced my card (geforce 6800 AGP) with an old geforce2 mx and the problems don't show there, I loaded failsafe mode and uninstalled the NVidia drivers, and the system is fine (as fine as it can be running generic video drivers), though the garbage pixels still show on the BIOS console and loading Windows logo, so apparently the card is the problem. I didn't run any other games, but at one time I ran Blender and XSI at the same time, they both ran fine, the problems always came after running TR, I know their client leaks memory like crazy, but is it possible for it to somehow manage to damage my video card? Right now I am thinking that the Game noticed the upgrade and tried to run with better graphic settings which triggered a bug that caused my problem [sad]. So, is it possible for a bad shader to damage a GPU? I would test other games, but right now I can't. Thanks in advance for any help.

Could it have overheated? I've never heard of bad shaders destroying a card.

Did you try taking the new memory out again and see if the problem still exists? If you take your memory out and the problem persists, the card may have a problem. If the card works without the memory in, it may be overheating or power supply.

Hmmm ... is some kind of memory address overlap a possibility?

Overheat is a possibility, the Video card fan is fine though, and I have a huge noisy CPU fan because last time I had to do an emergency upgrade it was because of a burned CPU. I did found out that the nbfan on the mobo is dead.

I took out the memory and placed the old one in, no improvement, whatever happened seems to have messed the card [sad].

I did take the card out and dusted it, it shows some improvement (less garbage pixels), but still won't work properly with the nVidia drivers.

Is there a diagnostic tool or a firmware upgrade thing that I could use to reset the card ROM?

Thanks again.

Well, it seems (according to google) that the problem is fried VRAM since the usual overheating solutions do nothing, I am still wondering if TR had anything to do with it (its a BETA after all) or if it was a ticking bomb all along as the card is about 3 years old. Well, I've been putting off the x86_64 dual core upgrade for too long, I guess its time to start.

I would say no for it damaging your graphics card although I'm not an expert.

A shader is just a program like you'd create for your CPU, ableit for a different hardware architecture, so it would be similar to having a program burn out your CPU. Having said that these guys might have missed something because on the earliest of early CPUs you could fry them by putting them in stupid loops.

I would at least try to re-flash the firmware. Also, you could use an overclocking tool to underclock the ram and/or core speed to see if that clears up any of the artifacts. At least then you might be able to confirm what the problem really is.

Quote: Original post by Metorical
Having said that these guys might have missed something because on the earliest of early CPUs you could fry them by putting them in stupid loops.

That was my reasoning behind the question, I remember stories of fried Monitors because of newbie programmers fiddling with ASM as well.

Quote: Original post by ravyne2001
I would at least try to re-flash the firmware. Also, you could use an overclocking tool to underclock the ram and/or core speed to see if that clears up any of the artifacts. At least then you might be able to confirm what the problem really is.

Yes, thats the same idea I had, I downloaded nTune, but without the drivers installed or in safe mode it ignored the GPU and with the drivers installed it didn't get to the point where I could actually run it before the BSOD.

Anyway, I borrowed a 6600 from my brother that has more vram than mine, I would still like to fix the 6800, but really the best option for me, if I had to spend any money, would be to upgrade the whole system (The MOBO is AGP, so need to upgrade it to use PCI-E, which starts a snowball or domino effect for the base components).

... I have the following=

2.4ghz amd something something
2x1GB pc3200 (400mhz) ddr
7300gt silent(broken?)

i WAS betatesting tabula rasa - i closed TR down, and went to another game to do some stuff (eve online if you wonder)

i began experiencing random(and sometimes not so random) crashes - finally my screen starts filling up with orange-ish stripes, wich within 1 second fill up the screen.

as i am a noob with computers and stuff i figured it was some sort of odd crash, i thought it'd close down any second now... after about 10 seconds my comp reboots, when the bios logo shows, it has yellow stripes across the screen at some places, has to do with color i belive.

anyway, goes on to winxp loadscreen - same thing there.

is about to enter login menu-ish thing, and bam! screen goes black, and comp reboots after 10 ish seconds - i then go to failsafe mode and read that my graphics card drivers ran in to some sort of problem, and recommended me to update.

i did just that, installed and rebooted - same thing again.

back to failsafe mode to disable drivers.

currently running with the generic drivers with *garbage* blocks of pink all over my screen.

when i scroll down they form lines, too!

woo! pretty pink -.-

btw sorry if i'm necro-ing this post or something but i googl'd "can games damage video cards?"

anyway... since i'm a nubster, what can be done? is it possible to save my card? =(

if not i'll just buy the new 8800gt

Yes, your card is likely dead. Get a new card.