My textures... (UPDATE: My graphics card broke. I think.)

[Chief]

moments after joining any server.
HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEEE


Anyways, details.
Just started yesterday, nothing was fiddled around with. Usually 10 seconds to 1 minute after a server is joined, game freezes and textures are broken. I leave the game and then create my own server, and textures magically fix themselves. Today, after having it happen to me again, I reinstalled TF2 (by deleting the Team Fortress 2 folder in Steam after deleting local content). I don't have skins either.

wat's happening to me

UPDATE: Now it's happening to me on the menu. I'm think that it's because I defragged the folder...
UPDATE 2: Ah hell. Every time I start up the computer, it's starting normally, but the screen keeps on freezing every five seconds. I'm pretty sure my graphics card is broken. Move this to Computers...
DETAILS ON MY COMPOOTER:
CPU Info:              AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor 3500+
CPU Speed:          2186.0 MHz
Sound card:          Realtek AC97 Audio
Graphics Card:      NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT
Network Adapters: Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC - Packet Scheduler Miniport
CD / DVD Drives:  E: HP      DVD Writer 740b  | F: IDE-DVD DROM6216        | L: VO7283H TSG016F
Motherboard:        ASUSTek Computer INC. Amberine M
Modem:                Motorola SM56 Speakerphone Modem
My RAM is DDR2.

[CaffeinePowered]

Have you tried multiple servers?

Like red, blue, and yellow?


Have you tried defragging lately?

[El_Fajitas]

It's lupus. :|

[Chief]

Have you tried multiple servers?

Like red, blue, and yellow?


Have you tried defragging lately?

1. No, but I doubt it is the server's problem. If the textures can screw up in the server I create on my computer, I don't think it's BRBu's servers.
2. Funny you should mention it. Before I played TF2 yesterday, I followed this advice: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/sh...ostcount=1 and defragged that file. Could that be the cause of the problem... even if it was meant to help it?

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Try deleting local content and reinstalling.  Also, check your temps.  Might have damage, you never know.

[Chief]

Well, I'm pretty sure it's my graphics card. The texture problem started to happen to all of my games, and now the screen keeps on freezing every five second interval. Starting up seems fine, but the screen isn't displaying properly. Pretty sure it's the graphics card. EFF

[CaffeinePowered]

The texture problem started to happen to all of my games, and now the screen keeps on freezing every five second interval. Starting up seems fine, but the screen isn't displaying properly

Your card is dying, if you want to prolong its life you might want to consider some alternate method of cooling and/or check to see if the card itself is under warranty

[Live-Free-Or-Pie]

It's lupus. :|

It's never lupis

[Gump]

[quote author=El_Fajitas link=topic=4198.msg136522#msg136522 date=1265946084]
It's lupus. :|

It's always lupis
[/quote]

[Didzo]

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

This is going to sound psychotic, but have you tried baking your card?

If you've really got nothing to lose and it's to the point you're considering buying a new card....

Xtreme Bakeover - baking your video card to fix micro-fissures

I've seen a fair amount of talk on this matter.  Google will suggest as much.  If you're card's basically totaled...what do you have to lose in doing this?

[Kirby]

I can (sort of) recommend the baking method, I baked the X850XT that's in my 2nd PC right now when it had problems, but I did a great deal of prep work on the card (Removing anything w/ plastic or low heat tolerance) with a soldering iron, then I took it to work and put it through an electronics baking oven made to do that, not an oven in a kitchen.



Worked awesome though, card is still running a year later

[beep beep diglett]

on a slightly related matter, i have to overclock to get decent speed in tf2 which means my graphics card is forged in molten steel, and i need a way to cool it down for cheap (btw i dont want to do the motor oil cooling just yet if i can do something easier)

[copulatingduck]

i assume you already upped your fan speeds as high as they would go?

[Turtle]

Karrde link=topic=4198.msg137737#msg137737 date=1266657843]
This is going to sound psychotic, but have you tried baking your card?

If you've really got nothing to lose and it's to the point you're considering buying a new card....

Xtreme Bakeover - baking your video card to fix micro-fissures

I've seen a fair amount of talk on this matter.  Google will suggest as much.  If you're card's basically totaled...what do you have to lose in doing this?

If all else fails you can eat it

[beep beep diglett]

i assume you already upped your fan speeds as high as they would go?

not yet because i dont know what the pos fan in my comp can handle w/o breaking, also i forgot the program to do that (link pls)

[copulatingduck]

ummmm... assuming it's nvidia, they have tools on their website for doing that sort of thing... but you're putting your card's fan into an early grave doing that (if your card is already on the way out that doesn't really matter though)


be warned, anything beyond fan speed controls are finicky at best and fubar'd and bsod'd at worst