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10063
February 2nd, 2011 05:00
Graphics Card problems?
Hi guys,
I purchased an Alienware Aurora R3 a few weeks ago, and have had it since around the 20th January I beleive.
My main question is regarding the graphics card: I have a 2GB ATI Radeon HD 6950. At first, it worked brilliantly - better than I could have hoped for. Within a week and a half, though, I suddenly had a video memory error when playing a game. I checked DxDiag just as a precaution and noticed that on the Display tab, the Total Approx Memory was 747MB. To me, this doesn't seem right. The graphics are now slower to the point I've had to turn them down, and it feels like the card is really struggling at times. Does it sound like I have a faulty card?
The second issue is a minor one that I might as well bring up while I'm here: When I booted the PC up for the first time, I immediately made a System Restore point, and then tried to use AlienRespawn. I put in a brand new DVD, with more than enough capacity, and started the backup. It got halfway through, and then failed without warning - I tried this twice before I got fed up of wasting DVDs. My first question, though less of an issue than my next, is: does this sound like there's a deeper problem here?
I will gladly provide any further details if needed, let me know if there is anything else I can add that will help here.
Thanks very much for your help in advance,
Zack
Edit: PC specification below.
Alienware Aurora (R3)
Processor : Intel Core i7-2600(3.40GHz,8MB L3 Cache,8C)
Memory : 6GB (2x2GB + 2x1GB) 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory
Hard Drive : 1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Graphics : 2 GB AMD Radeon HD 6950
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Tesla1856
10 Wizard
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February 2nd, 2011 12:00
I've never had much luck with the Dell Imaging program. If you want to Image Backup (and yes, you should), use Windows 7 Image Backup or even better ... I prefer Acronis. Backup to a USB flash drive or separate hard-drive.
I wouldn't worry about what DxDiag says about total graphics card memory (it might not be reading it quite right). Use Catalyst Control Center instead or something like CPU-Z, GPU-Z, etc.
ZL1990
15 Posts
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February 2nd, 2011 15:00
The thing that concerns me is that the graphics have felt significantly slower than before - whereas before I was able to run two maxed out high-end games at once, I can now just about run one at high, but not max, settings.
Is there any way I can check to see whether this is faulty?
ZL1990
15 Posts
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February 3rd, 2011 09:00
Apologies for multi-posting, but this issue is continuing and following the announcement regarding Intel chipsets, I am wondering if this could be a result of that issue? (My PC is an i7-2600.)
I would greatly appreciate any advice here.
Edit: Below are my PC specifications, apologies for not including these in the OP.
Alienware Aurora (R3)
Processor : Intel Core i7-2600(3.40GHz,8MB L3 Cache,8C)
Memory : 6GB (2x2GB + 2x1GB) 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory
Hard Drive : 1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Graphics : 2 GB AMD Radeon HD 6950
ZL1990
15 Posts
0
February 4th, 2011 05:00
The PC was barely usable last night, graphics were running very poorly and I was crashing every few minutes (on a variety of games, this is definitely a PC-issue)
I had hoped for some further advice here before I called Tech Support so that I was more prepared to talk to them, but going to call up this afternoon and get the thing sent back.