Maximum PC

So I have Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS. It's done me well enough for a few years now, but recently it's been going bonkers on me. List of recent symptoms below.

1. Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft all lag horribly for 30 seconds or more every couple of minutes
2. Left 4 Dead 2 texture maps get replaced (only random tiles though) by green and rainbowy colors.
3. Team Fortress 2 character polygons get skewed at a particular point and are stretched to some far off point in the map.
4. Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2 both have random shapes/stuff that move quickly in front of the player. They flicker a bit to fast to identify them as anything particular.
5. Tiny little 'hotspots' when moving normal browsing windows around
6. When I turn the computer on after it's been off all night, the monitor doesn't recognize a signal from the computer. Upon a hard restart, the monitor recognizes it.

All this began around the time that updated the video driver to 260.99 (which is the most recent). I've re-installed the old driver once and the new driver a few times since then. Am I looking at a hardware problem or a software glitch? Is this fixable?

Is it passively cooled? That could explain some of the issues.

I'm also not a fan of updating drivers at all unless it specifically states it corrects a problem you're having in the release notes. The 7600GS has not been mentioned in very many the last 2 years. Ours is still running some old 19x version...if that. I'd go back quite a way in drivers and see if the fix is as simple as that. They're suppose to be 100% backward compatible, but history has shown me that this isn't the case. 60% of the time, it works all the time

It has a tiny little fan on it, but it usually makes more noise. I'll open up my box and seeing if the fan is still running.

The little fan is still spinning, and the card doesn't feel insanely hot to the touch. I'll try going back to an older driver.

I just tried a few more drivers. No improvement whatsoever.

I could be imagining this, but it seems to worsen the longer I try to play. This could be my perception since each fix attempt that fail makes more frustrated.

Now's a good time to call it a day and tackle it tomorrow. Cool off, take a shower, do something relaxing not related to your friggin' videocard. Whatever you do, don't lose sleep over it.

Believe me, I know.

Thanks for the tip. But I think I'm beginning to lose my will to fix this guy. I've spent enough time where I think a replacement card might be in order.

I have more patience for hardware than I should, but I like what OC said as I don't think it's too healthy for others to obsess over this sort of stuff. To me it'd be a fun puzzle to figure out, but could be considered corporal punishment in some states to think you'd find it fun

It's good you mention that you feel it's slowing down the more you game on it. That could lead to not just the Video card having some issues, but also the system as a whole could be showing some other related issue. As an example, it could be your page file getting hit rather than system memory causing the slow down. Several of the other issues you've listed really point to overheating, while a couple aren't heating, while another stated issue could be yet another issue...see what I mean? All info and general observations (feelings) can be important.

Since most seems to be a heating issue (IMO) and the 7600GS isn't exactly a spring chicken, I can assume the thermal paste has a large chance of being dried up and fairly useless. Example: I have a 7600GS that's passive. It usually ran hot during a good gaming stint but still performed on par. A couple years back it started bugging out on me. When I put my hand on the sink it wasn't as hot as I remember it. Not being hot could mean that it's not transferring heat well and worth looking into. Took it apart and the pink goo was dust. After reapplying some paste it's back to normal.

Have some compound handy and give it a look. Your sink may be covering and cooling some memory too, so don't overlook those. If anything, you can then rule out heat and have piece of mind that you have fresh goop in there.