Artifacts
 

After a hard drive crash this weekend, I had thought that my artifacting issue had been fixed upon installing a new power supply. I was, sadly, mistaken.

That is, I get noticeable, albeit not too severe, artifacts in most things that require 3D rendering. (That is, games.) I'm confident--after nearly three years of this happening--that the issue is not heat-related, since it occurs if I play a game even right after my computer has started. (Also, it was fine--absolutely fine--right after I put the new power supply in. The artifacts spontaneously started coming back. Interestingly, it started right after I had opened Finale 2006...)
I had thought that my system RAM could be at fault here. I do need to run memtest to see if it is still 'good,' but I figure that, with artifacting so constant, some other aspect of system performance would also be hit: applications would behave entirely erratically, etc. It can be thus assumed--as I see it--that after about three years of this artifacting issue the problem would have caused some sort of an equipment failure, but such is not the case.
The strangest part comes in how artifacts will be gone on some days, even when the temperature within the room that the computer sits is the same as prior days (and, for all practical purposes, the machine's internal temperatures are about the same as well). (This is what perplexes me: to have this issue recur semi-sporadically prevents me from pinpointing the cause.)

So, I don't know which part to blame. The fact that artifacts are completely gone on some days seems to indicate that I have some sort of configuration setting wrong. (The graphics card, a Geforce Ti 4200, has never been overclocked--the same goes for my CPU and RAM.) I have been over all configurable options for the driver of my card a few times, but I have found no option that has corrected my issue.

In short, does anyone know what might be causing my artifacting issue?

Are the drivers for your graphics card up to date? This could sort out the problem. Or it could be that your graphics card is on it's last legs, or just simly out of date. I'm not too sure when it was first released, going by the number though it looks as if it's a few year old.

I doubt that it's "on its last legs," as, again, it's been doing this for about three years now. My drivers are the latest version; I have tried nearly every version that supports my graphics card.

I really need to run memtest to see if my RAM is at fault.

It's the video card. Either drivers (which you say are up to date), or hardware being bad (or too hot) causes this.

Try another card, and see if it works.

Trust me, I had a Geforce MX 440 once, and it gave me artifacts for at least 6 months before it died. Get an el-cheapo card (or steal one from another PC) and try it out.

He states it can't be heat-related.

Artifacts are video card related only.

Either its not getting enough power, or its overheating, or the memory on the Video card is going bad and/or overheating.



Just because you just turned it on doesnt mean it cant generate heat.

I had this kind of problem not so long ago and it was my video card that overheated sometime and got damage... lucky for me I was still under warranty so I got a new one free. The problem come from the video card, so I suggest to change it.

Hence it being a bad card *or* heat related. Just tried to offer a more complete answer.

Artifacts aren't just video card related: faulty system RAM is also an option. (This happened with a CAD workstation at school.)
I never said that it couldn't generate heat after I turned it on; I meant that the temperatures are far too low to cause a problem.

I will, though, try a different video card. Though, now that memtest has crashed on me, I'm betting that it's the RAM.

Wow bad RAM, say it an't so.

you sure about the heat? I can from a cold boot get my GFX card to 75'c in about 2 mins. If its not heat then its a bad pipeline on your card, if you have a Nvidia card use RivaTuner to disable them one at a time and see if you can isolate which one it is

Oh it could be voltage related I guess, you could try finding a way to up the voltages supplied to your card (I think the AGP voltage can be changed on some motherboards)

Haha yea Gil, I can turn on FEAR right from a cold boot and my X1900 can be at 90c.

luckily card is rated up to 120c.