Any way of scanning VRAM for corruption?

[Guest Triple_Dude]

What the subject and subtitle says.

Here's the deal, I recently have two cases of computer "crashing"/"freezing" and then reverting back to "normal", except with the graphics in the game I was running all messed up (Warcraft 3 looked really messed up with totally screwed up textures on everything. I don't know if this is a GPU issue for VRAM issue...).

At the time, my GPU was downclocked by 25Mhz, but my memory was overclocked by 75Mhz. My laptop specs are:

Dell Vostra 1500

2GB RAM

nVidia 8600M GT 256MB GDDR2 (Default core clock of 475Mhz and 400Mhz for memory)

Windows XP SP2

Before I updated my video driver (I'm on 177.41) from 169.28, I'd occasionally have nvcpl.dll crashing when I quit from Warcraft 3, stating invalid memory address (which could potentially mean corrupt video memory). The error went away after I updated my driver, so I didn't give it any second thought until yesterday when the crash happened, and today when it happened again.

So, does anyone know any program that scans the VRAM? I still have 3 days on my warranty (It's a drop-in depot warranty, so I'll have to send it in...), so if nobody has any suggestions, I might just as well call them in and send in my Laptop to have them replace my GPU.

Any help is much appreciated!

[wook]

i would get it replaced. (just cause you can)

Have you tried 174.74? Try that and see what you get. I have gone from the 177 range back to 174.74. Its still the best by far i think.

[Michael Marley]

If it was crashing with an Invalid Memory Address error, then it could also be a system RAM problem. You should run Memtest86+ and check it out.