Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Display showing hardware corruption

0 helpful
10 replies

by luminous

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I'm struggling to solve this problem.

I have a 2 year old Athlon XP 2500+, that is overclocked to 3200+ standards. I have a 6 month old fanless Gigabyte NVidia 6800 GPU.

Last week, the PC failed to restart once. When it got to the point where the resoultion changes from the low res of the Windows boot screen to the desktop, it all turned black and the machine hung.

The next day, this happened 3 times in a row, before the machine worked

The next day the machine constantly rebooted once it got to where the desktop should be shown. It would boot into safe mode. It then booted successfully into the desktop for about 5 seconds, before lots of random colours appeared across my monitor that looked like hardward GPU corruption.

I changed out the GPU for an old NVidia card. The machine has worked fine till today. When using windows, the screen turned completely white, then hung. On restart, strange vertical lines were shown down the screen instead of the desktop.

Ten minutes later all is fine and I am typing this.

The lines that have been displayed on the screen are different to the lines from last week. Do I have 2 failed GPU's here? Is it a mobo issue? Could it be CPU related?

Ideals and suggestions for faulty diagnosis would be appreciated.

10 replies

by jamesrl

2 Failed GPUs - not my first guess.

I would instead try putting the monitor on another computer to see whether the monitor has somehow lost its ability to sync to higher resolutions. Try plugging it in to another PC, start at base VGA (640x480 x 60 Hz) and then start increasing the resolution and refresh rates.

If it is two bad GPUs, I would certainly bet that erratic voltage on the MB would be a probable cause. Either that or the machine is running very very hot - in which case you might start seeing other problems.

Let us know how it turns out.
James

by dmiles

My gues is that you have a video card problem that may be drivers needing updating

The issue with monitor may be that you have to lower the refresh rate or resolution

The third guess is that you are dealing with a heating problem that is common with AMD and it could be affecting the card itself,check the heating by using the case monitor if available

by luminous

I have an update to the issue.....
I use software called Acronis True Image that takes full images of your machine. I restored to one of these images from when the machine was totally stable.

The issue remains

The issue has also occured once in DOS now.

The monitor is OK, as when the screen corrutps, my music stops playing (if it was)

My machine is running cooler than it normaly does, as I have increased the speed of the fans just in case this was an issue. Case sides are also now open.

I have managed to capture the two most recent failures, they can be seen here:
http://www.romar.e7even.com/IMG_1684.JPG
http://www.romar.e7even.com/IMG_1683.JPG

I do no think that this is heat related, as the machine has crashed when it was first turned on a couple of times.

Currently trying to get my hands on a 3rd graphics card from a machine that is known to be stable and current (as opposed to a dodgy old machien that has not been used in ages)

I have also reduced my clock speed from 200Mhz system bus down to 166Mhz, therefore running the CPU at its specified 2500+ speed.

These comments also apply to the poster below.
Please keep your ideas coming.

Could it at all be related to the PSU? I have a spare PSU, but do not really feel like swapping them around if we can avoid this.

by willcomp

Have you backed off the overclocking to see if that corrects problem? You may be overstressing GPUs or CPU.

That's significant overclocking, pushing the envelope.

Dalton

by luminous

Poster rated this answer.

I've not put my finger on exactly the correct component yet, but it was to do with the overclocking. I've underclocked the mobo and stability has returned, so it was nothing to do with either GPU.

Will slowly increase the speeds to stock to see if stability is maintained and take it from there. Thanks for the tips, really did not think it was anything to do with the overclock, as the only component that is overclocked is the CPU. Did not expect the errors to look like mine.

Btw, totally sure it is not a GPU issue now as I have had both cards running in other machines and also used fans on my fanless GPU card!

by hal 9000

Well the first thing is that you do not need the sides off the case as this doesn't improve cooling if anything at all it disrupts what air flow that there is through the case. The air should be flowing from Front to Back and out a side case fan if there is one fitted.

What it sounds is happening is that the GPU is overheating and beginning to break down under the strain, you could improve cooling to this unit if you can add extra case fans again {Suck in at the front and Blow out at the rear.} Or you could fit a fan to the GPU on either Video Card to see if that improves things. No matter what with that degree of Over Clocking it will be increasing the heat inside the case from the CPU at the very least have you increased the size of the Heat sink to this? Again increasing the air flow through the case should help cool things down. It would also not hurt to block off any holes in the sides particularly the side cover behind the M'Board as you do not want big air leaks there where air can be either sucked in or blown out because it is cooling nothing at all.

Col

This discussion is closed to new replies.