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Graphics card upgrade suggestionsFollow

#1 Mar 28 2013 at 9:03 PM Rating: Decent
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Howdy,

I believe my current card is dying and I guess it's time to upgrade. I'd love to get a new pc, but for now I think all I really need is a new card. The video card symptoms are erratic screen behaviour. After waking up my comp, the screen will go black, then pop back up, black, pop back up, several times before finally stabilizing.
It will also on occasion just go black, with a message about losing its connection, and then the monitor will go in standby.
Also, every once in awhile, it sounds like something is caught in the cards fan blade, but there is nothing loose that I can detect.
Normal operating temp of the card seems to be around 39 deg C or so, and todays latest excitement saw it peak it at 125 before shutting down (losing connection, see above).
I took the computer case off, and blew all the dust out, which wasn't too bad as I had done this a few months back. Seems to help a little, for now anyways.

This is the PC stats:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229118&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

I'm running the EVGA precision software and have the fan speed maxed out.

So assuming the card is the issue, what might the experts suggest for an upgrade for this particular machine?
#2 Mar 28 2013 at 9:15 PM Rating: Excellent
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You have a 700 watt power supply in that machine, so you can really put any of the top end cards in it without a problem, or anything in between. Really depends on your budget and the sweet spot of price vs performance. You do only have a core 2 processor in there, so you aren't going to get a huge improvement with going with a top end card, because the video isn't going to be your bottleneck at that point. I'd start with somethign around this end: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130826 and see how that fits your budget.

What you describe is probably the card, but it could also be the monitor screen backlight capacitor starting to go out, so be prepared to also look at upgrading a monitor if this doesn't work.

You'll want to think about a motherboard processor ram swap at some point in the near future too if you do alot of gaming in general. Even a lower end Core I5 processor is going to have a bunch more horespower than your average core 2 processor, plus the ddr3 ram speed boost, etc. Just for budgeting assuming you can do the swap yourself, you're looking at probably around $300ish to swap the ram processor and motherboard, on top of the video when you start looking at that. Your power supply is fine, the hard drive is adequate but going with a solid state drive would also be something to think about eventyally.
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#3 Mar 28 2013 at 9:21 PM Rating: Decent
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Awesome, thanks Kao.

I sure hope it's not the monitor, it's a 28" Hanns G, and I love it!
#4 Mar 28 2013 at 9:29 PM Rating: Excellent
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Worst case, if it is the monitor, would be one of the main capacitors going out. If you can find someone who can soldier and is comfortable working around some voltage (or a TV repair shop) swapping them out for new capacitors shouldn't be too traumatic. On the smaller monitors its just not worth the risk.
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#5 Mar 29 2013 at 10:28 AM Rating: Good
If $200+ is out of reach, I've been having excellent luck with my lucky 7770 card.

You can grab this one for $99 on sale right now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127687
#8 Aug 26 2013 at 10:37 PM Rating: Decent
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I should have updated this awhile ago, sorry for the necro. The problems seemed to be simply the fan on the video card. The blades would jam every now and then on the plastic housing over it, which would heat the card up as soon as I started gaming and eventually shut the graphics down. I could sometimes manually free them up and get it spinning again, but eventually the fan just crapped out completely.
I tore the old fan off and replaced it with some old, larger fan from a pile of ancient pc parts (had to splice the power cords as they were different). The stickers on both fans had the same power ratings and it has been working fine since I did this a few months ago. The fan is a lot louder and on constantly, but I'm used to it now. So saved myself a few bucks for the time being!
Thanks for all the advice
Necro Warning: This post occurred more than thirty days after the prior, and may be a necropost.
#13 Dec 02 2013 at 10:51 AM Rating: Decent
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Still haven't bought anything, I'm the King of procrastination, but I am pondering pulling the trigger on this card:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=91929&vpn=02G-P4-3063-KR&manufacture=eVGA&promoid=1029

Seems very similar to the one Kao linked above, not sure what the difference is really, aside from a few bucks cheaper and different packaging?

My current card is still working for now, but I had to drop my settings in WoW down from "High" to "good" so I could actually walk when inside the Golden Terrace.
#14 Dec 02 2013 at 11:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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it's basically a newer version of the same card in the link.
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