Hi, I have been having a problem with my graphics card (Sparkle Geforce 6600GT). It keeps freezing when i'm on the internet and it sometimes freezes when I just open up the 'start menu'.

I have found out that it is a problem with the hardware acceleration, and if I turn it off my PC runs fine. I have to turn it back on to play games and it runs them absolutely fine, but I have to turn it off again to do normal activites on the desktop. So i'm quite confused.

Is there something that I can do to fix it or is the GFX card beyond repair?

AMD AthlonXP 3000+
1GB PC3200 Crucial DDR (512 x2, dual channel)
80GB HDD
Onboard sound
Sparkle Geforce 6600GT 128mb DDR
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Windows XP Home Edition

I'd try the following to see if it helps.

first, download your motherboard and gfx card drivers. If I'm not mistaken, that motherboard has an nforce chipset, so you can download all the drivers from nvidia.com

download directx from microsoft (I think it's http://microsoft.com/directx )

Go to add/remove programs and remove your gfx card and motherboard drivers. If it's both nvidia, it'll probably be rolled into one uninstall...just uninstall all of it.

Reboot...Windows will detect new hardware and want to install stuff, just cancel out of it. Install your motherboard drivers, then reboot when prompted.

After reboot, cancel any Windows installation attempts, then install your gfx card drivers and reboot when prompted. After you come back up from that reboot, install directx and reboot again.

Once all that's done, you've basically completely cleansed all your low low-level graphics and motherboard drivers, as well as getting the most recent drivers for everything. That'll guarantee it's not a bad driver/old driver/corrupt driver that's causing your problems.

If it keeps being problem, you could try updating XP if you're not on sp2 and the latest fixes and whatnot. I'm out of ideas at that point, though.

Well, thanks for your help, but i've came to the conclusion that it's buggered. I tried to load a game and the intro screen just froze and went all garbled as it would on the desktop, then it just restarts my computer.

Looks like a new card now...

whoops... forgot to log in sorry

It could still be a driver issue...not likely, but possible. Before you drop the cashola on a new one, you may want to try it just for the hell of it. Failed that..well...there're some damned nice cards out there now. And I'm not sure how well a 6600 will run Oblivion.

Lol, he's not an RPG guy (This guy is a real life freind 'o mine)

But dude - did you go to the shop you got it from like I said? See if you had a warranty?

Hey Mole!

Yeah, i'm gonna do that tomorrow... i've reinstalled all the nvidia drivers and still the same problem. So I give up on it...

Are you sure it's your gfx card and not just your brain crashing your computer? I mean, that's the second time you forgot to log in! hehe

har har... oh how you make me laugh

Sound like an overheat problem. It may be exceeding its stable temperature.

I thought it was at first, but the gfx card is running at around 51 degrees, while the mobo and CPU are at around 30 degrees...

Thats a good temperature. I hear my 7800GTX could get funny at anything over 80, and atm its running dandy on 60.

Did you have a recent power surge or did you fiddle about with the insides recently?

yea, if reinstalling all the drivers didn't do it, it's probably hardware failure of some sort. Sorry, but the card is screwed. If you still have warranty on it, I'd definetely pursue that. In my experience, stores don't warranty a graphics card for more than a week or three, but the manufacturer may still warranty it.