Do I have a bad card? GTX 1060

[rh71]

Bad as in malfunctioning. WIN10, Q6600 stock CPU, 8GB RAM, GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L (I know it's old), EVGA GTX 1060 (7 months old)

Device manager shows "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)" after the symptoms I'll list below.

- just while browsing around, mouse starts acting like I decreased the PPI
- screen resolution drops on its own from 2560x1080 to 1024x768 (this is when I checked device manager and noticed the code 43)
- screen becomes wacky, all text is no longer legible but otherwise PC still functions.
- can't even start in safe mode due to freeze at boot

- swap out GPU to old Radeon and same freeze at win logon
- following a YT video, run some backup of the system32\config folder and let re-create, still freezes
- remove 2 sticks of replacement RAM from a year ago (leaving originals) and can finally boot.
- GTX 1060 works fine and shows no problems
- re-place 1 RAM stick back and ok for a few days
- Then it happens again with the dropped resolution (not randomly but after a normal reboot this time)
- ran malwarebytes, it's fine

I'm not convinced it's the RAM since I'm also reading that it's bad video card drivers, but I have Nvidia's latest. Then someone said it could be mobo drivers - the mobo is old and I have their latest drivers. Do I have a bad GTX 1060 card? I'm half a step from upgrading the entire PC if it's an unsupported mobo.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

If you swapped out the card and it's still bad I doubt it's that.

could run hci memtest to check the ram, or prime95

It could also be the motherboard, all pci-e and memory traffic goes through a northbridge chip on socket 775.

Maybe even a small chance of the powersupply being bad, doesn't seem likely though since 1060's barely use any power when not gaming.

 

[Ranulf]

4 sticks of 2gb ram each correct? All the same make/model? I had a similar Gigabyte board of that chipset have ram slots go bad on me. My first test would be on the ram. Begin the process of elimination or either bad ram or dying ram slots. You can probably skip testing the working ram. Take it out and put the "replacement" ram in the slots the working ram was in. Write down what was where at the start so you don't forget.

MemTest86
http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

MemTest86+
http://www.memtest.org

or for in windows...

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

 

[SlickR12345]

My bet is the memory, I mean actually its 100% the memory since you said while removing some sticks of ram you then had no issues. so remove the bad ram sticks and you are okay! EAsy!

 

[CuriousMike]

Having a spare harddisk to install a clean Windows on (and booting only with this disk installed) is often useful to help rule out software.

 

[rh71]

Memtest didn't come up with any errors after running it for a half hour. But I've removed the 2 newer sticks and the resolution went back to normal and GTX 1060 is fine in device manager again. We'll see if it lasts.

 

[Shmee]

When you ran memtest, how many passes? Half an hour is not very long for memtest, should do for at least 4 passes IMO.

 

[William Gaatjes]

OP, i think your GTX1060 video card is fine.
As you mentioned, your ram is bad. Now, it is possible that your ram was already bad during the installation of windows and drivers. And although usually windows will trap memory errors with a blue screen message, it is possible something slipped through. I had the same issue years ago, having a bad memory stick. With memtest after endless testing , one of the two ramsticks would finally produce errors to confirm my suspicion at the time. My point is, that if you had that bad ram installed and installed drivers and windows and whatever program, there might be some data corruption that may worsen the issue. Because even with new installed ram, your windows installation might still be corrupted causing graphic card errors. Best is to get new ram, do a complete new fresh windows installation and i hope you have backed up your most important data like for example study material, music files and pictures just in case that got corrupted too.