How to solve iGPU artifact problems?

user4181

Junior Member
Nov 15, 2020
2
1
81
Hello, so I have an interesting problem. A month or so ago, my laptop started glitching out. There were strange artifacts and weird behaviors consistently. I tried:
  • updating the graphics drivers,
  • updating windows,
  • removed windows and installed Linux Mint (as I needed a Linux device anyway.)
But the problem still persisted. It looks something like this:

Screenshot-from-2020-11-14-22-12-26.png


Now based on how this looks and what I can find on the internet, this looks like it is a VRAM problem. Now, since the GPU is an integrated GPU (Ryzen 5 2500U), I should be able to replace the RAM and hopefully the problem would go away if this is the case. However, I know that the Ryzen laptop APUs are not the most stable of all processors. So I suppose my question is this:

Should I just go with trying to replace the VRAM? Or is it an unfixable hardware bug? Or is it another software bug? (I feel like that's unlikely at this point. I've certainly tried a couple of different workaround for the processor and other Ryzen processors, and none have seemed to work...)
 

damian101

Senior member
Aug 11, 2020
291
107
86
I don't think your system would even be able to boot with RAM that produces that many graphical artifacts.
I'm pretty sure it's not the RAM.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
7,383
146
That's likely a defective APU / GPU (onboard the Ryzen CPU). I had the same thing happen years ago with a AMD video card. There's really no fixing it (I had to RMA my video card to be replaced).

I don't know if the CPU is even user replaceable as I've never had a mobile AMD CPU before.
 

damian101

Senior member
Aug 11, 2020
291
107
86
That's likely a defective APU / GPU (onboard the Ryzen CPU). I had the same thing happen years ago with a AMD video card. There's really no fixing it (I had to RMA my video card to be replaced).

I don't know if the CPU is even user replaceable as I've never had a mobile AMD CPU before.
It's soldered, like all modern mobile CPUs.
 

user4181

Junior Member
Nov 15, 2020
2
1
81
That's likely a defective APU / GPU (onboard the Ryzen CPU). I had the same thing happen years ago with a AMD video card. There's really no fixing it (I had to RMA my video card to be replaced).

I don't know if the CPU is even user replaceable as I've never had a mobile AMD CPU before.

That's what I was afraid of. My hope is that it would have been something else that I could fix, but that would not be one of them. I'm surprised this would happen so randomly it seems. Oh well.

Thanks for the help.
 
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