Gaming Having weird problems lately..

OmerMe

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2007
Messages
491
Trophies
0
Age
31
Website
Visit site
XP
401
Country
Iceland
Ever since there was an update to my graphic card's driver. (NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT)
I've started getting BSODs. I've had some not long ago because of the drivers too, it couldn't get to nv4_disp.dll. But then I updated my drivers and it went away, now it's back.

So I've tried uninstalling the drivers and then installing them again, I haven't gotten any BSODs yet, but my Firefox seems to get graphical glitches occasionaly (also used to happen but disappeared), and now when trying to play Portal 2 through Steam, some lines just appear and disappear all the time, and sometimes the ground is blue, sometimes it'll start and I'll hear Glados and my jumps and shots but all I can see is weird glitches all over the screen.

That's the biggest problem right now, not being able to play. But even if that'll be resolved, before I had that I had another problem:
When trying to play Portal 2 with a friend, my screen would go black saying "Digital power saving mode" and then just black (LG screen), and then audio would repeat itself until I restart the computer.

I've had that when playing Darksiders and Team Fortress 2 before, but for all I know it just disappeared until now.

No idea what to do on both cases, for the first one all I saw was people suggesting to uninstall and install the drivers back, that's for the BSODs, couldn't find anything about the graphical glitches.

For the power saving mode all I could find was either get a new screen (mine is really old, LG faltron slim, 16" if I recall correctly.) or update my BIOS, which I don't really want to mess with.

So I don't know where to post any of this, and I thought I should just try here.
Thanks in advance if anyone is willing to help.
 

Originality

Chibi-neko
Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2008
Messages
5,716
Trophies
1
Age
35
Location
London, UK
Website
metalix.deviantart.com
XP
1,904
Country
my screen would go black saying "Digital power saving mode" and then just black (LG screen), and then audio would repeat itself until I restart the computer.
That's the graphics card crashing. This can be caused by driver mishandling exceptions (unlikely), insufficient power, GPU failure or vRAM failure.

As above, sounds like the final throws of a dying graphics card.
 

OmerMe

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2007
Messages
491
Trophies
0
Age
31
Website
Visit site
XP
401
Country
Iceland
Guess I will then. But it'll take some time, with the Wii U coming out i'm going to spend a lot of money soon. (especially since I'm going to get a NTSC one, importing that cost a lot..)

Any suggestions as to what video card I should get? A friend told me to get the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460, which he too has.
 

OmerMe

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2007
Messages
491
Trophies
0
Age
31
Website
Visit site
XP
401
Country
Iceland
I game from time to time, so I do need a powerful one.
What's the difference between the 660 and the 460? Over here I see that the 660 is about $512 and the 460 is $250, and I don't want to spend too much money on this right now.
 

Attila13

Praise the Creep!
Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2010
Messages
1,253
Trophies
1
Age
30
Location
Creeping in your dreams!
Website
gamesystemrequirements.com
XP
2,637
Country
Romania
If you don't do extreme/serious gaming than I'd suggest the GT 640 it's a decent card for it's price and it won't crash the bank being priced between 105 - 120$ (US). Remember, it's a GT card no GTX. :P
It has 2GB of GDDR3 memory with a 128but interface a 900Mhz GPU clock, 384 CUDA cores, has DX 11, it's 3D Vision Ready and it doesn't require additional power since it consumes only 65W.
Fairly decent if you ask me. ;)
But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
 

Originality

Chibi-neko
Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2008
Messages
5,716
Trophies
1
Age
35
Location
London, UK
Website
metalix.deviantart.com
XP
1,904
Country
$500? I only see it for $230.

Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133470&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-Video%20Cards-_-PNY%20Technologies%20%20Inc.-_-14133470&AID=10440897&PID=3962334&SID=

EDIT: the difference is 3212 in passmark against 2369 for the GTX 460. Both are fairly strong graphics cards, but the 460 is getting a bit old and won't be able to max out the newer games.

note: this is the GTX 660, not the GTX 660 Ti. the Ti version is a GTX 670 Ti with some stuff disabled to make it cheaper, and costs $300.
 

OmerMe

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2007
Messages
491
Trophies
0
Age
31
Website
Visit site
XP
401
Country
Iceland
Note that I live in Israel, electronics (and almost anything else) are much more expensive here.
Don't really have a way to buy from another country.
I guess I'll wait a few months and will get a 660 around December-January, I don't need it too much right now but I might in the future.

Just saw a GTX 660 made by Gigabyte for about $350, I'll probably get that when I get one. Thanks.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
    HiradeGirl @ HiradeGirl: Have a nice day. Life. Week. Month. year.