GTX485M, crashes with artefacts for a day, then works again? Advise.

[Soor]

So I gave my 485M a good thrashing with 3 solid days of Deux Ex HR everything maxed.

Sometime early on Sunday morning I got artefacts in game, CTD, artefacts in windows, multiple driver recoveries, had to disable directdraw in firefox to stop it from hard-crashing the entire machine (with artefacts).

Checked temperatures, they were good, so I thought ok, the GPU is dying, im in warranty so no baking, ill send off for replacement.

I shot off an email to SAGER and turned off the computer.

Back on it today, and it seems to have gone away. Sunday even the menu in DXHR would artefact to hell. Not today.

I'm unsure what to do.

Send off for replacement? What if its unnecessary? If they test the part on arrival and it works im 500$ out D:

On the other hand, if I go all jackass and jump onto DXHR again, maybe this time I'll break it for good, and without 2D I cant work for a week.

Anyone got experience with this situation? I know our gracious host has baked more GPUs than I've baked cakes ...

[Guest Greeg]

Not sure when you checked temperatures, but did you check temperatures while playing the game? and what temperatures were you getting? I would keep the laptop for another day until you can reproduce the artifacts. (also have you tried reinstalling the driver? driver recoveries always sound iffy to me).

(and are you really charged $500 for sending it in?) Anyways, I'm not sure how the warranty works for Sager, but I would attach pictures of the artifacting (like take a picture of your screen) to help argue for your case.

[Guest Greg]

also, i would check if artiffacting happens in any other games. (or it could just be a problem with that specific game)