This is a video card problem, right?

[bgstcola]

I finally built my new computer. It worked beautifully until suddenly the monitor was filled with horizontal colored lines. It reminded me of one time I fried my GPU. I could still see the desktop behind the lines and, to my surprice, everything seemed to be working fine. I restarted the computer and the lines were gone. This was befored I had installed any drivers so I thought that could be the problem.

A few days later the same problem occurs This time I turn off my monitor and then turn it on again and it now says 'no signal'. I try to enable my secondary display but it, too, doesn't seem to get any signal. I press the reset button and it is all good again.

I have now reseated my video card and reconnected the pci power connectors and crossed my fingers.

I should mention that the both of the times the lines occured when I was doing regular stuff on the desktop and not gaming. My PSU is an Antec CP-850 so it should have plenty of power.

I didn't take a picture but it kinda looked like this:

http://s18.postimg.org/qs5ld7tu1/Screen_shot_2013_11_24_at_19_13_26.png

Am I right that this is probably a video card problem?

 

[DigDog]

yep, that's a broken GPU. yes, sometimes restarting will temporarely fix it. and in theroy you could bake (google it) your GPU and fix it, but really, you need to send it back to the shop and get it replaced, possibly under warranty.

 

[tenpole]

Have you tried the onboard graphics?

 

[bgstcola]

Have you tried the onboard graphics?

Right now i'm crossing my fingers that the reseating worked.

The problem is...

I can't RMA the card since the problem happens so infrequently that it is unlikely that they will be able to reproduce it.

I can return it, but that would be a shitty move since they will then sell it to someone else who might not notice before the 14 days after which you cannot return it.

I think the only solution is to talk to the shop. I will tell them that I will return it unless we can agree that they will accept it as RMA even though they can't reproduce the problem. Then I can trouble shoot some more and find out it really is the card.

 

[LTC8K6]

Take a video of the problem occurring.

 

[bgstcola]

Take a video of the problem occurring.

yea I will do that.

 

[littleg]

I had this happen on a ATi 9600 (?) many moons ago. It was an electrostatic shock that fried the memory as I recall.

 

[tweakboy]

That is the VRAM doing that. But dont count out monitor ? gl

 

[DigDog]

what LTC said. card broken, they owe you a new one. you paid for that privilege when you bought the card.