Rainbow pixels = EOL?

[Blitz KriegeR]

So I was playing FSX last night, which crashed (but thats another story = P) so I decided to watch an HD copy of Star Wars. Shut off my PC and went to bed.

Go to turn it on this morning, locks on booting windows.. orange main monitor, solid white secondary. Restarted --> Rainbow pixels both screens. Booted into safe mode and checked for a driver update, downloaded, installed, and restarted. Seems to work.

Play FSX; crashes to desktop after 2 hrs... fine, just used web/email/music before work. Put my PC to sleep for work, came back to wake it... Rainbow pixels. Restart.... Rainbow pixels both screens.... safe mode.... force clean nvidia driver install.... works so far but haven't done anything strenuous.

Not many things cause that kind of graphical corruption; I'm hoping my GPU isn't dying.... I had hoped it would last me till the 7xxx / 6xx days. Going to try some stress tests atm... just wondering if anyone had some 2nd opinions?

 

[Shmee]

try Lowering the overclock, particularly on the ram. Try a reinstall of windows, or run driver sweeper? If it is just dieing, you could RMA, (should be a lifetime warranty card, being a 280, you might get a 580 back) or try the oven method.

 

[Blitz KriegeR]

Well did some OCCT GPU bench an some DX10 battleforge... no errors, no crashes; though I'm yet to restart the system.

 

[Darklife]

From what it sounds like, it might be the pink screen of death. There's a ton of pics online

 

[Blitz KriegeR]

So after last night I shut off my pc and went to bed. Got home from work tonight and it's back to square one. Passed windows loading screen, logo flashes, then greeted by rainbow pixels on both monitors instead of my desktop. Derp. Restarted; same problem!

Booted into safe mode, ran ccleaner, wiped out EVERYTHING and cleaned out the reg. Reboot, Rainbow pixels. Back to safe mode, then used driver sweeper to clean up some more. Sweeper rebooted my PC when it was done and it loaded fine, with no graphics driver. Installed latest 280.26 driver, rebooted, and working once again for the moment.

Will see what happens but the fact that this reoccurred makes me unhappy! I won't have time to tinker more till next week but I intend to see whats going on here!

Update: I did some quick google searching with pink screen of death (seen many GPUs die in my day, some right before my eyes but never actually heard that term before lol!) and found this thread in an old EVGA forum, which coincidentally was also from a 280, that has some pics that look exactly like mine.

Closest one is

 

[Darklife]

I had the same exact problem with my gtx 280. Since it was a bfg card rma wasn't an option.
Supposedly the solders crack after a while, the only possible fix is to bake the card.

It actually worked for me, so who knows.

Here's the thread with a tutorial.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=606658&page=7

 

[Puppies04]

Make sure you add a pinch of cinnamon they are deliclous

 

[Blitz KriegeR]

Well back from work and it's the same shit all over again.

I've heard of that oven trick before, and though it makes logical sense about micro-fractures in the solder joints dampening signaling abilities, I'm weary putting my $600 (at the time!) GPU into the oven lol.

Being EVGA, I might try and go for the RMA option and see what they say. This would be the second time now... maybe I'll get something nice. Then again I'm not pleased at the thought of getting a 460 or some other cut-down core GPU back; anything less than a 560Ti and I won't be happy. I'd settle for a 285 or something. Dammit, I hate gambling!

 

[Grooveriding]

Well back from work and it's the same shit all over again.

I've heard of that oven trick before, and though it makes logical sense about micro-fractures in the solder joints dampening signaling abilities, I'm weary putting my $600 (at the time!) GPU into the oven lol.

Being EVGA, I might try and go for the RMA option and see what they say. This would be the second time now... maybe I'll get something nice. Then again I'm not pleased at the thought of getting a 460 or some other cut-down core GPU back; anything less than a 560Ti and I won't be happy. I'd settle for a 285 or something. Dammit, I hate gambling!

I doubt they'd give you a 460. If they don't have a 280 or 285 (they likely do) you could end up with a 480 if you get lucky.

 

[Blitz KriegeR]

Well it's still happening, but I've been spending so much time at work I haven't tinkered much.

I just can't get through my head why if it's a hardware problem it seems to go away (at least for one boot cycle) by reinstalling the driver.

 

[Blitz KriegeR]

So I got a 470 for my 280. Mixed feeling on that. I know I get DX11 and a newer chip, but a more cut down chip. The theoretical texture and memory bandwidth is actually down from the 280. Off to test some games!