Graphics card problems

[Crusayer]

I somewhat recently got a new graphics card for my old computer and it's been doing some weird stuff lately. The weird stuff then got into some severe stuff today so the couple people I asked have no idea what's wrong with my computer.

Problem: Graphics card seems to keep failing. When I play a mmo (it's only happened on Kitsu Saga and on the desktop so far), the screen blinks and says that the graphics driver has crashed and successfully recovered from a timeout or something. Other times, the screen gets distorted pixels and I am forced to manual restart my comp. On start up, it sometimes hangs on a black screen (right before the user selection screen). More severely, I even get BoSDs.

For a while, it doesn't seem like a problem but it's becoming more frequent (6 times in the past 2 hours!) compared to the occasional once a week or something.

The BoSD shows an error referring to nvlddmkm.sys.

Comp Specs:
HP Comp
Intel Dual Core
4 GB of RAM
Win7 32 bit
Nvidia GT 240
250 W, +12V Power supply.

I've already updated my graphics drivers to the latest. I've googled some stuff but I can't get a concrete answer. I'm worried right now that my card is simply incompatible with my motherboard. Someone please tell me what's going on here. =|

 

[Sraigux]

Graphics cards are pretty much always compatible with your motherboard. They just have different speeds (i.e: PCI x16, PCI x4, etc..)

I would recommend taking it out and putting it back in another PCI slot (unless its a slower slot, than just reseat it). Make sure the fan is working.

Edit: How much power does your PSU dish out, and what's it's rating?

 

[ruhtraeel]

I had a similar problem with my 5870. Every time I ran something full screen, the card would lose connection with the monitor and the monitor would go black. Turns out it was my PSU; even though a 5870 alone only takes like 300W and I had a 480W PSU, there wasn't enough amperage. I then took a 600W PSU out of a computer from my dad's company, and now it works.

While I was using the 480W PSU (I could do anything but play games), I asked people if it could harm my GFX card. All of them said no.


By the way, when my onboard 8400M GS started to fail because of inadequate cooling, it did that as well. If I tried to start a game, suddenly things would start to stutter, every different colour on a menu would be outlined, and the sound would continuously stutter as well. Now, every once in a while it boots up to a completely white screen, where coloured lines begin to slowly fade in. Every time it does that, I have to take my laptop apart, hold a hot air gun to the GPU for 30 seconds, let it cool, and then restart it.

 

[Teran]

Make sure fans are not clogged with dust, and that pc is adequately cool, that's a good step 1. Could also try a driver cleanup. There are a lot of useless drivers that will remain on a computer when you update, and could screw with your current ones. Basically, you should always do a complete cleanup of graphics drivers before an update.

Although changing clock speeds can help (lowering in this case, tragic I know, but it'd be for diagnostics), you shouldn't really do it because it voids warranty and that sucks.

In any case, try the other stuff I mentioned, and if you're still having problems, check the wattage requirement for your GPU, because it also may be underjuiced.

Ah so many things, God a computer is just like a wife. You ****ing hate them, but can't live without them. >.>