Vista - Video Messed Up after Reinstall

Ok, so I am almost positive I know what is happening, but I can't give myself the bad news. First the problem:

Video is REALLY funky. Using Vista Ultimate x64. Winodws that are opened all have terrible application windows. They come up but are very distorted and have lines and weird graphics jotting off in all directions. Whenever an application window is moved below the start bar, there is a weird triangle that is generated from left to right corners and extending upwards into the screen about 300 pixels or a 3or4 inches. Opening the start menu also has this affect, which makes the lower right side of the menu to become unreadable. This all started with pixels popping up all over the screen that i assumed were dead pixels until they started moving and flashing in conjunction with cursors, movies, or any other moving content onscreen. Although I have not tried another monitor, I am fairly certain that the result would be the same. The "broken" pixels started getting bigger, until, like now, they are 5 to 12 pixels per blotch. This morning I got the first bluescreen. 0x50. I will update with parameters when I get home.

Now what I think the problem is: bad videocard(s)

Background Info: I have been running Vista x64 on a 80GB IDE HDD and just installed it on 2x500GB RAID 1 (or whatever striping is).

I have tried: Installing old, and new video drivers. When I do this vista stops the installation and says the file is failing. I have contacted NVidia and they have ensured me that I have the right one. I have also tried booting to my old OS on the 80 IDE.

System Information:
AMD Athlon X2 6000+
4x 1GB DDR 800 memory. (2 Corsair XMS2 and 2 Kingston 800)
2x 500GB WD 5000AAKS or 5000ABYS (2 seperate, one of each)
- In a striping raid. I have also tried to take them out of raid, as well as mirror.
1x 80GB IDE WD 800JB with Old vista 64 OS.
2x Geforce 7900 GT (1 MSI, 1 BFG Overclocked (main)) in SLI Mode, and Out.
Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 rev. 2.0


Any info will help. Thanks.

Are both fans operating on the cards ? ?
Double checked BIOS settings for SLI ? ?
Have you tried running with only one card to see if one of them has gone South ? ?

Hi bretzero....

have you tried to uninstall & reinstall the drivers in ''safe mode''...??

do you have a different VGA card to test on your rig..?? you need to confirm its the cards causing this problem, even though you see artifacts it could be the RAM....

can you run Orthos at these settings...... ''blend stress CPU & RAM...priority 8'' for 10mins..
this will confirm if your RAM is dying or not...

i had a stick start to die on me & it used to do exactly what you describe, obviously at the time the RAM was the last thing i thought it could be, but it was...

there is also the possibility one of your cards is dying, try both cards individually in the primary slot, see if the artifacts disappear...

also your PSU could do with being checked with a ''multimeter'' to check the 12v rail, your PSU could be deteriorating & no longer feeding enough power for the cards in SLI, this is quite a common occurrence ..


let us know if any of these help....


SK

More Notes, Guys.

Today, I turned on the system and there were no artifacts, and only one "broken pixel"-type problem during the Vista Boot Loader and that was ALL.

I am running some diagnostics, as well as what you have suggested. Thanks guys.

PS. It has been doing the video stuff for about 3 days so it just going away doesnt mean i am going to ignore the problem.

Ok. So here is the solution. Videocard 1 is bad. Videocard 2 is good. Ram is all good. The ram on the first videocard to be exact. However, since it only happens after the card has been running for a while, I have placed a box fan outside the case, pointing in, as well as swapping the cards but leaving them in SLI. It has increased my success rate substancially. I used to be able to game for 1 hour 10 minutes then it dies, but now it can run for 9 hours straight. Much longer than my normal gaming session anyway.

Thanks for all the help. I soon hope to buy a new videocard, but for now, this is my fix.

if you keep going like that bret, you will have catastrophic system failure, i assure you unless you want to buy all new parts for your system i can only advise you switch back to the good card and that only, if its the BFG, you have a lifetime warranty and you can get a replacement card for free, if its the MSI then you can kiss it goodbye and buy a new one.