Graphics card on it ways out?

B

bencot

Active member
Hi,
It started roughly three days ago, i left my computer idling whilst downloading GW2, came back and it wasn't responsive and the screen was covered in grey lines. I rebooted and it went back to normal, so i thought maybe its nothing.

Today I was playing the GW2 stress test, i alt+f4'd out of it, and pixels started sticking, i turned my monitor on and off and it didn't go (computer was still responsive to everything I did, but most of screen was frozen) ( I had gpu-z logging gpu temp and it was at 65c, so nothing hot). Restarted computer and it was fine again until about 1 hour ago.
Two red lines appeared down my monitor, so i turned monitor off and on, still there. After a while all the screen started going weird colours so i restarted. On BIOS screen the two red lines were still there and presisted till windows boot animation where the computer restarted itself.
Rebooted again and it stayed there, got to windows boot animation and got BSOD.

Left it for ten minutes and came back, computer starts up fine, but the screen occasionally sticks and games have started having a roughly 10% fps drop (viewed with fraps)

My monitor is fine, i checked it with my laptop and there were no problems.

Any ideas? Should I request an RMA on my gpu? (Didnt get silver warranty, so are parts still covered, bought december 6th 2011)
Gpu is HD6950 do would I have to wait for them to receive a replacement? (don't want to since guild wars is playable on the 25th ;D)
 
Fear

Fear

Prolific Poster
Just to rule it out have you updated to the latest graphics drivers for your card and had you installed any new software prior to this happening ?

If you have updated GPU drivers try a fresh D/L and do a clean install of them if you had not do the same just to rule out any driver problems there.
 
B

bencot

Active member
I recently did a re-install and I have the latest AMD drivers, so it's not that :(
It's only started over the last three days and there hasn't been an update since then.
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
You could try/report:
1. what's your gfx temps also gfx fans spinning?
2. does it happen in Safe Mode?
3. does it happen in Normal Mode (but while selected lower gfx resolution)?
4. check if gfx card is fitted properly into the socket,
5. as mentioned before, try different gfx drivers
6. try running Ubuntu Live CD and glxgears, and while you're at it... check RAM using same CD, just for a good measure
7. try disabling Antivirus - sometimes it's updates will screw things up (wouldn't bet on that but worth trying)
 
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B

bencot

Active member
Temps on idle at 35c, load is about 65c. Fans are set to auto but spin at 24% idle and 48% load.
Happened when booting into safe mode, didnt get to safe mode due to bsod, but left it for a bit and worked again.
My monitor doesnt really like lower resolutions, and it's intermittent and only happens every so often so cant really test this.
GPU is fitted in slot correctly, double checked it.
Everything was running perfect with drivers up until other day, so i'm assuming its not a driver problem.
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
Download Ubuntu live CD ISO, burn it into a disk. Slot it into CDROM and boot your PC with it.
On the start up menu make sure you select "Try Ubuntu" once desktop is loaded, access shell (xterm, or terminal) and simply type: "glxgears" and leave it running for some time... if it crashes it's most likely hardware. If it will not crash... hmmm back to drawing board.

My feeling is, if it crashes on BIOS and SafeMode - it's most likely graphic card. Could still be RAM or unlikely Hard Drive errors (check it using HDTune [free])?
Have you got any option of sourcing cheap/old PCI graphic card? (a friend, neighbour)
Does your mobo come with built in graphics? If so try removing graphic card and try to replicate the problem on the on-board graphics.
 
B

bencot

Active member
I can use the gpu to play games perfectly fine for hours, it's just sometimes while im not playing games the screen goes twitchy. I cant really download the live cd, im using tethering from my phone to use the internet since mines been playing up for a few days.
I ran memtest like a month ago because my computer didnt want to boot so i reformatted everything and installed everything from scratch. All of my friends have laptops, so i cant get hold of a gpu. :(
I played on fifa 12 and Just Cause 2 last night for like 5 hours without a problem. I'll just see how it goes and take a picture the next time my screen goes weird.
Thanks for the help~
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
Any Event Viewer entries?

press: "Windows key" + "R" and in "Run.." box just type: eventvwr , then hit Return.
Any errors in System or Application section? Ideally you want to try this just after problems with screen.

Hard to say man, I would just swap temporarily graphics to see if that is the culprit... or would run live CD glxgears to see if it's Windows/registry/drivers... but then because it doesn't happen always it may be hard to pinpoint.
 
B

bencot

Active member
No problems in event viewer apart from unexpected shutdown.
Computer has twice within ten minutes gone off, screen shows grey lines or blue lines then automatically restarts.
Worth requesting an RMA? Also, if they no longer stock my gpu what happens in terms of replacement?
 
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