Help! Artifacts taking over my computer!

[bokster]

I've owned an evga 7800gt co for about a month now and all of a sudden I'm getting artifacts all over my screen. It happened last night, everything was fine all day then at around 10:00pm I noticed a few blinking dots on my desktop background. Now there is a lot more of them and growing. It is especially horrible when playing videos, but not too bad in games.

I've tried these steps to help solve my problem (no particualr order):
1)Re-installing latest forceware drivers
2)Rolling back to 81.98 and 81.96 drivers
3)rolling back and updating direct x
4)updating every windows component
4)Use coolbits to underclock/overclock the card
5)Turning off pc to rest for a few hours

So far the only thing that temprorarily solved my problem was getting the optimal clocks with coolbits. It bumped up my clock from 470/1100 to 507/1160 and the artifacts disappeared. After about half an hour they began appearing again.

My temps are 45C idle, so I doubt it's my card running too hot. And I have the latest BIOS already installed in my card when I bought it, so the BIOS flash from evga didn't do anything.

From studying them carefully, they only appear on pictures/videos. And they always stay in a specific area of the picture/video rather than appearing all over.

And trying the card on a different pc is not an option, due to fact that I don't have access to any other pc with a PCI-E slot.

Please help, I can't think of anything else to add right now due to my highly frustrated state, but i will add as much information as I can after this initial post. More details on my rig are on the link below my sig. Thanks

 

[Crescent13]

Wow sorry man. Can't think of much. What monitor do you have? Try going to your bios and setting everything to stock. (your mobo bios not your GPU)

 

[bokster]

I have a Viewsonic 2025wm. You mean set my cpu back to 2.0ghz and ram back to 200mhz? Or just the video card. I never actually messed with the video card in the mobo BIOS.

 

[Crescent13]

Originally posted by: bokster
I have a Viewsonic 2025wm. You mean set my cpu back to 2.0ghz and ram back to 200mhz? Or just the video card. I never actually messed with the video card in the mobo BIOS.

yeah set the cpu and ram back to default.

 

[bokster]

I don't really want to mess with that though. I just got this bad feeling when I set everything back to default and then back to the settings I got now, It won't be prime stable anymore and problems are going to start occuring. I had that experience with my previous computer. I guess it's just my luck. Right now I'm in line for a step up to a 7900gt and just going to try to stick with these artifacts for another month with my temporary fixes. Do I really have no other option?

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: bokster
I don't really want to mess with that though. I just got this bad feeling when I set everything back to default and then back to the settings I got now, It won't be prime stable anymore and problems are going to start occuring. I had that experience with my previous computer. I guess it's just my luck. Right now I'm in line for a step up to a 7900gt and just going to try to stick with these artifacts for another month with my temporary fixes. Do I really have no other option?

If it's the overclocking that's causing the problem... chances are, it's going to happen with the 7900 as well.

Just because you reset the clock speed back to default, doesn't mean it's going to introduce gremlins into your system so you can't get it back to what it is now. If your overclock is that fragile that changing it will mess it up, then how stable could it be?

Yeah, you do have another option... take your computer to an experienced tech who can figure this out for you.

 

[bokster]

Everything set back to defaults. Everything running fine, except, artifacts still there!!! I guess I just got a lemon or something. Can't wait for the 7900gt!

 

[JSFLY]

what are you gpu temps at load?

 

[bokster]

Originally posted by: JSFLY
what are you gpu temps at load?

When playing a game, then alt+tab out, the temps are at 56C. Its not even bad at all in games, I just see a couple miniscule red dots here and there. It's horrible on the desktop, wherever there is color. Right now I'm using photoshop a lot and doing lots of graphic editing and there are red blinking dots all over and its extremely annoying. I'm going to buy a new video card tomorrow and hopefully the problem coincides with my current gpu. If the new video card still shows artifacts, that means there is something wrong with another component, which I hope is not the case!

 

[stevty2889]

Assuming the monitor you have is an LCD, if they are always in exactly the same spot, you might have stuck pixles on your monitor rather than it being a video card problem. Try with another monitor if you can.

EDIT: and if it's a CRT monitor trying degausing it. Also, double check to make sure the cable is tightly connected at both ends weather it's a CRT or LCD.

 

[JSFLY]

Stuck pixels dont appear and reappear.

 

[bokster]

Yeah i got an LCD. Viewsonic 20" widescreen and its awesome! I clocked my card higher now and its been running at 499/1160 and the artifacts have lessened. Actually it changes depending on what I do. Sometimes after surfing there's going to be a whole litter of them on my background, but after I run a screen saver, it goes back down to a minimum, meaning I can actually count how many artifacts there are. I really just hope my the problem just resides on my card cuz I don't want to go through the trouble of figuring out god knows what else could be wrong!

 

[bokster]

I've seem to have solved the problem by turning down the resolution! Anything below 1600x900 works artifact free, but now my screen looks horrible! Does this mean the card can't handle 1680x1050 native resolution? It did before, but why artifact now?

 

[Luckyboy1]

The card works harder at the higher resolutions.

What is your case temp running at when under load?

What is the graphics card running at now (yes, I saw the earlier numbers) under load?

 

[bokster]

Everything is the same, I've only had this monitor for a week meaning its been running at 1680x1050 for that long. Before that, I had a CRT which I ran at 1280x1024. Both before and now, all my temps are exactly the same. GPU idle 46, load 56-60; CPU 32-33 idle, 39-40 load; mobo 37 idle, 43 load. It might just be that the card is bad, because it was running fine for about a month and went bad after a week of added stress. I'm going to get a new card for testing purposes soon so I could pinpoint the problem better. Thanks for the effort though, I'll post back when I get up tomorrow.

 

[Luckyboy1]

Case temeratures?

Tell you what, to see if it's a case temp problem, take the side panel off and run a box fan at it and see if the artifact clears up. If it does, then it's a case temp problem. RAM, all RAM, be it system RAM or the memory chips on your video card are very, very sensitive to heat.

 

[bokster]

Well I don't have a thermometer or anything to check the temps inside my case itself, and theres no sensor telling me what my case temps are, but its not warm at all in there, air flow is absolutely streamlined. The fact that the artifacts go away at 1280x1024 should mean something else is the problem. It does make sense that the memory chips on the card are the culprits, cuz the GPU temp just measures the core, and thats always at 46C no matter what resolution. I'm going to try to cool down the chips, maybe I'll pick up some passive heatsinks for them while i get the new vid card.