Gfx Artefacts - Help Please!

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Vetseun

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Howdy,

Please help a lurker out...

Biostar Nvidia 7600GT
MSI P965 mobo
2gig ram (apacer i think)
Random 500W psu

Nothing overclocked

I've been getting strange artefacts for about a month. It started out very infrequent and only happened while playing WoW. Screen would lock up with weird pink artefacts, but the music would keep on playing. Every now and then I'd see a bit of movement and then it froze again. I had to reset every time this happens.

At first I thought it was a heat issue, checked everything... no problems.

Also tried updating drivers and re-installing windows, didn't work.

Last night it happened again, hit reset and then suddenly POST screen has green artefacts all over it... that confirmed its a hardware issue. But what is causing it?

I ruled out Ram, as the problem still happened when using them individually.

Is my Gfx card borked? Or is my fong kong PSU not giving enough power anymore? What are the odds of it being the Mobo?

Is there any way to troubleshoot this without swopping parts? All my mates have lappies, so I can't chuck my card in there and I don't have a spare psu lying around.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
definately hardware related if re installing windows and drivers didn't help. Sure it isn't heat related? Only way to tell if it is the mobo, psu or gfx card would be to swop out parts.
 
Have you checked the temperature of the gfx card?

It might be overheating. Maybe the cooling fan came loose, or it is clogged with dust?
 
When it initially started happening I checked the fan on VGA card and it was running, although the heatsink on the VGA card was pretty caked with dust. I only resorted to cleaning the heatsink when the artefacts got really bad (the gpu temp was within normal range every time i checked). Now it happens on POST even when the pc is cold from standing overnight.

Could the vga card's memory maybe have overheated? The gpu didn't overheat, but the memory is placed under the heatsink, and with the heatsink clogged as it was I doubt they got any airflow...
 
Last edited:
Artifacts at post, perhaps it did overheat and is now buggered.... Have you tried reseating it? Definitely need to test it on another machine, could be the MOBO....
 
Conradl said:
Artifacts at post, perhaps it did overheat and is now buggered.... Have you tried reseating it? Definitely need to test it on another machine, could be the MOBO....
Click to expand...

Yup, tried reseating.

Really hoping it is "just" the card, because a replacing a mobo is going to be an expensive outing...
 
try a different gfx card first. Is the heatsink still making proper contact with the chip on the gfx card? If it isn't then the heatsink won't have any effect and the card will overheat quickly.
 
Could be memory on your graphics card thats poked. I'd check the card in another pc.
 
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