Artifact problem

[tshirtwisdom]

Hello all,
I left my computer on last night and when I woke up there were artifacts on the screen. I immediately turned off my computer, as I know this usually means an overheated GPU. After letting it rest for several hours, I turned it back on and still received the artifacts. I tried "underclocking" the card, and that still did no good. My motherboard has internal graphics, so I figured that I'd just use the internal graphics until I buy a new card. However, I'm still getting the artifacts with the graphics card removed and only using internal graphics. I know it is not any type of monitor burn-in, as there are no artifacts when using it with anything else.

Can anyone think of what's going on? I don't mind buying a new graphics card if it's required, however, I don't want to end up buying one and the problem be in something else.

System Specs:
ATI Radeon 4870 HD
AMD Phenom II X4 920
ASUS M3A76-CM
8BG DDR2 OCZ
600W Rosewill
Windows 7 Ultimate

Also, the artifacts are shown on the boot screen/BIOS as well as within Windows and the Login Screen.

 

[Majcric]

I run my PC 24/7. Reset any overclocking and if still no luck you probably have a bad/aging GPU.

 

[tshirtwisdom]

Ok, but again, I've tried with a different graphics card, the onboard graphics, and still receive the artifacts. How would that explain a bad GPU?

 

[hdfxst]

last week i started getting dotted lines all over the screen and i thought 1 of my video cards were going bad,it turned out to be 1 of the sticks of memory

 

[tshirtwisdom]

last week i started getting dotted lines all over the screen and i thought 1 of my video cards were going bad,it turned out to be 1 of the sticks of memory

I have pulled the memory and randomly placed one into each DIMM and there was no change. I have thought that it could be the motherboard itself, but can the RAM being defective show graphical artifacts?

 

[hdfxst]

it did for me but it went from artifacting to wiping out my windows install in a couple of hours.the artifacts were weird dotted lines.for me it was very time consuming because i had to keep reinstalling windows

 

[Arkadrel]

However, I'm still getting the artifacts with the graphics card removed and only using internal graphics. I know it is not any type of monitor burn-in, as there are no artifacts when using it with anything else.

good news is its not your GPU.

Its fine, if you take out gpu, use onboard and still have that issue, the problem lays elsewhere.

Ok, but again, I've tried with a different graphics card, the onboard graphics, and still receive the artifacts. How would that explain a bad GPU?

it wouldnt, its something else causeing it.


I suggest:

try a differnt monitor, to rule out if its your monitor or not at fault. (check cable ect).
try your card in another pc, see if it works fine.
try borrowing some ram from a friend or something to put it.
try reinstalling windows ect, to rule out its not a software issue.

 

[tshirtwisdom]

I suggest:

try a differnt monitor, to rule out if its your monitor or not at fault. (check cable ect).
try your card in another pc, see if it works fine.
try borrowing some ram from a friend or something to put it.

I don't have access to another PC to try out the graphics card, or access to any other RAM, but I will try out another monitor and just check.

try reinstalling windows ect, to rule out its not a software issue.

If it was a software issue, would it cause graphical glitches before Windows is even started? The BIOS screen, as well as all boot screens prior to Windows being initiated, all have graphical artifacts. I may give a re-install a shot, but I'm not sure that's what is wrong.

 

[tshirtwisdom]

OK, I tested out the monitor with my Xbox, and sure enough, there were still artifacts. So there we go, it was the monitor after all. Thanks for the responses!