New graphics card problem

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BioWolfZA

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Hi guys,

I was hoping someone could help me out with an issue i am having.

I recently upgraded my graphics card from a BioStar HD4890 to now a Gigabyte HD7850. I also put in an asus Xonar DG sound card and a new case, the Coolermaster Elite 430.

Everything else that was working fine before has stayed the same:
AMD Athlon X4 640
4GB DDR2800
Raidmax 730W PSU
Asus M4A78 Mobo
LG W2343S-PF 23 inch

The problem i am having, and that only started AFTER the above upgrade, is that when i am gaming (Eg MW3, TF2, Sins of a solar empire etc.) i get these faint horizontal lines across the screen, that make me think of scanning lines on a tv that sort of go up and down the screen. This is obviously very annoying, and is particularly clear in dark areas of games. The first thing i thought was heat, so i made sure that all fans (case, cpu etc) were securely mounted and i monitored the temps while gaming of the GPU and CPU (Which are NOT overclocked). Neither goes over 60 degrees at any time, even after an hour or two of heavy gaming. I even tried increasing fan speed using speedfan but didnt help.

I also thought that it might be screen tearing due to the higher fps. I know what screen tearing is, and in this case the picture is not torn it is still intact while the lines run over it, like seeing through a ghost. I tried enable Vsync but this only appeared to help a little, although it did help slightly, the issue was still there.

So i did a google search and found that many people with the same issue were reporting that it was the monitor cable, especially where it was a VGA cable as i have. Or the VGA to DVI converter. So i got an unused brand new VGA cable and converter but this did not make the slightest difference. I can't test a DVI to DVI cable as my monitor only takes VGA.

Another suggestion was that it was the PSU causing interference. Now the thing about that is that in my new case the PSU is bottom instead of top mounted, so i thought this could be the cause. To test all of this out i put my old graphics card back in and the problem completely dissapeared! If it was interference, surely it would affect the old card as well? Could the new card be more sensitive? I tried unmounting the PSU and moving it closer and further away from the card while running, but the lines stayed constant.

As a last resort, i tried reinstalling drivers (uninstalling, using driver sweeper etc) but no difference.

My reaction to all of this is to return the card, but could i be missing something? I do not want to return the card only to be charged to have it returned to me saying there is nothing wrong with it.

I would really appreciate any insights and opinions!

Thanks in advance!

P.S. Sorry for the essay, i just wanted to make sure that all the details had been provided.
 
Last edited:
Ok try newer drivers.try diffrent screen.(if it was the connection it would do it in windows as well.try refresh rate to see if its diffrent.

Thats all I can think of
 
What is a biowolf? Isn't that just a normal wolf? Have you tested the card in another machine? Call a friend time.
 
cerebus said:
Have you tested the card in another machine? Call a friend time.
Click to expand...

Yip, looks like GPU woes

Definately not PSU interference (bottom vs top placement would make zero difference to this). I lol'd a bit at this part, sorry :p
 
Downclock the GPU or boost the voltage on the GPU.

This is a typical issue with Gigabyte OC cards.
 
Analog monitor? DVI to VGA conversion? I had a similar problem with my old analog monitor. Try a digital monitor. I am almost sure your problem will disappear like magic.
 
Faint horizontal lines is usually the refresh rate of your monitor. With CRT it flickers faster whereas LCD the rgb per pixel changes but you can still have that.

I have a 7850 and that does not occur. With my 5770 I did notice that but that was because i used a hdmi cable for my monitor instead of dvi. Try testing on a other monitor that has dvi or hdmi
 
I had a issue with a Gigabyte card also, swopped it with a similar spec Asus, and no problem anymore. Google how many people are struggling with them and you will be shocked actually
 
Artifacting typically occurs when you've overclock your graphics card too far without increasing the voltage enough.

This is most likely not a cable, screen or PSU issue.

Previously I knew about the Gigabyte GTX560Ti OC that had this kind of issue whilst playing games, because Gigabyte didn't set the voltage high enough on the factory firmware! A simply increase in voltage fixed all the issues.
This is now the second card from Gigabyte that I've heard about the same kind of issue...
 
Wow thanks for all the replies! You guys are legends.

Yes, i do have the OC version, so based on you guys suggestions, i found out that there is a new BIOS version for the card from gigabyte! So i updated it and it appears to up the voltage to 1.125. So i thought it must be the fix! Unfortunately it did not fix the problem. I tried upping the voltage some more and down-clocking the card using OC GURU II but didn't change a thing.

I went digging a bit more and it seems this is quite a widespread problem with 7850's. The common factor in this is that all the people experiencing the problem appear to be using a VGA cable and a DVI to VGA converter. Upon using a DVI to DVI or HDMI to HDMI connection the problem disappears in the majority of cases.

So, it would appear that i need to get a new monitor with a DVI input :(
 
I had the same issue with my 7850 when using the DVI-VGA converter. Using DVI-DVI cable sorted me right out.
 
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