Starting last night I have been seeing strange artifacts appear in UT99 once I select the server browser on the UT desktop. I get odd lines on the edges of the game, and often see weird multi coloured plaid effects in squares and patterns of squares over the UT desktop. During a map I often see mini squares of colours on the textures on the walls. (Does anyone remember the command that flushes junk artifacts from UT?)

After I quit UT the computer desktop will often have some of these artifacts there too. Refreshing doesn't work. Only a reboot gets rid of it.

Any ideas as to the most likely explanation of what is going on? And what is the best fix for it? Reinstall UT? New vid card drivers? Clear my UT cache?

I just pray it isn't a problem with my vid card memory, or the card itself getting ready to pack it in. The warranty on this Dell ran out two weeks ago.

maybe u need new driver Vid card or have you change somwthing in our vid card?

Nope, no changes made.

Well I fired up UT2k4 and went to Missile Madness. The map playing there was Dragon Spire. Talk about vid problems! There seemed to be a kalideoscope effect centered around my crosshair. I also saw some of the pinkish plaid multicoloured squares scattered through the map. So I voted for Rock Brawl which I knew was easier for the card to render. No problems there, although I saw a couple of letters that were red brown instead of white in the name of the map during that black screen you get just before you enter the map. All other subsequent maps were ok too, although I saw the coloured letters often. Then later I tried Dragon Spire again, and it ran fine.

Now I'm off to see what UT 99 does after a game of UT2k4.

***********************

Well it was certainly fun telefragging away in Crane and Dark City.

No vid problems seen at all.

Temporary visit by Gremlins?? This will bear watching.

Hmm .. was it Tilde-"flushcache" or something like that ?? I can't remember the exact line command that cleared the cache, but that sounds like another type of problem.........

IC

This is best I can do.

I say it's the drugs talking.

I'd say one of two things.

1. Corrupted graphics card driver ( reinstall the driver ).
2. Graphics card is crapping out ( Bummer! replace card ).

If you reload your graphics driver, rerun the graphics setup in UT.

Possibility number three:

When was the last time you took off the case and gave the PCs innards a good cleaning? Sounds like it MAY be that the PC is getting a little hot inside. Try running it with the side off and see what happens.

Other than that, I'd say that that new ATi card is looking better and better ;)

It's heat or the card crapping out or a driver issue. I expect it will be the heat that is causing or did cause the card to start crapping out.

Or is it Windblows XP fault Muahahahaha............ WTF ?? I had to get here before my brutha Q did hehehe


Cheers

Da Chef

Well shite. I didn't even have to start up UT for the problem to surface tonight. It happened right after boot up. I moved the cursor towards the icons on the left side of the screen, and the plaid patterns started. I moved the cursor back to the right, and then to the left over the icons again a few times, and it seemed to make the problem worse. So I did a quick reboot and now all is well. -For the time being at least.-

It's odd that you mention heat. I was wondering that myself, but this Dell has had a noisy fan for over six months. After following instructions that were emailed to me to no avail; I finally got pissed off enough to call Dell India ( *&%#@ why can't I talk to someone in Texas any more?) and we went through a process of elimination. i.e. Did the same shite all over again. (*&^%$#!)
It's not the CPU fan. It's not the fan on the vid card. That leaves the fan in the power supply. But the dipshite in India wasn't satisfied and wanted me to disconnect the cd and dvd drives from their power connectors, and disconnect the ribbon cables. The only reason I could get all the other connectors undone up to this point while he waited on the other end of the phone was due to the fact that I had already sweated and cursed them off previously. I finally gave up and told the fokker that the arthritis in my hands was preventing me from going any farther. (Not entirely a lie. :p ) Supposedly whatever is wrong is still covered because I reported it before the warranty ran out, but I'm still pissed off that Dell feels I should do most of the warranty repair work myself.

The moral of this diatribe is: Don't buy a fokking Dell! They ain't like they used to be. That company SUCKS BIG TIME now, so avoid their product like the plague!
OK, rant over.

To get back on track:

-The fan on the vid card is almost certainly still good. But if it isn't, can it be replaced?

-The inards of the computer are clean. I cleaned when I put in a second hard drive, and I cleaned it again before I did all the trouble shooting BS on Dell's behalf.

-Heat build up seems unlikely, because the computer had just finished booting up when the problem surfaced this time. And the CPU fan is still noisy, so at least it's still working.

Hmmmm... Noisy... I have dealt with a noisy CPU fan before. The problem was that the dust had collected under the fan and was obstructing the blades. If you have a bottle of canned air, blow the $#!^ outta that area and see if any potatoes come out. If not, it is still a good thing to do every once in a while.

Oh, and I totally agree with you on the Dell opinion. I would MUCH rather have a locally built system than one of their rigs built on an assembly line by someone who just doesn't care. Having a PC built by someone you actually talked to will let you know just how passionate they are about PCs, and you will get MUCH better tech support.




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I think if I want new computer. I think I built mine own next time I hope that many year for now
For one thing they don't put that many UBS port on compter.I got six. I have all use they up. Bought power hub UBS half time it does work

Maybe just get another vid out of stock and try it out for a game or two. Have an extra laying around?

Nope. No extra card.

And I messed up in my long tirade there. The second time I mentioned the CPU fan I said that it was noisey. I meant to say the P/S fan is still noisey. I used some dust off on all of the fans, as part of my attempt to clean the computer when I had it open last month.

I went into device manager looking for conflicts or bad devices. All is well, except that I had two vid cards in the list. A Radeon 9700 Pro, and a Radeon 9700 Pro SECONDARY. I tried disabling the second one. I assumed that it is left over from my removal of the old ATI driver and the installation of the new and latest ATI driver for the Radeon family. I did not remove the secondary device in case it's supposed to be there for TV out or a second monitor or something. -I'm not even sure if my oem Radeon supports a TV or second monitor, for that matter.

Since I disabled the secondary device my desktop video has been ok, and UT 99 ran alright. But the UT desktop in 2k4 messed up the same old way tonight. But I did not see any really weird shite like I did last night while I was playing, in any of the maps.

I'm a bit stumped at the moment. It seems more likely to be software rather than hardware, at least that's what I'm hoping. There's no money in the kitty for one of those refurbished Radeons. And they sold out all of the AGP cards anyhow.