Graphics going nuts

[endgameaddiction]

I've been having a problem with Skyrim for months now. On random occasions my Skyrim likes to go all weird on me and starts to stutter and graphically go nuts. The screen with change colors and end up with a black or white screen and Skyrim freezes. Then I will get a driver display pop up after. This been going on for some time. Today about 10mins ago it happened again, but something weird also happened right after. I started to get these little glittery pixels blinking all over my screen on my screen. It's never ever happened before. I took a screen of it so you guys can see. Unfortunately it's the only screenshot that displayed it. And this wasn't as bad as it was showing.

 

 

 

 

All my drivers are up to date, so I was wondering if my graphics card is going out?

[Slammer64]

Sounds like a graphics card going bad, is it onboard or an addon card?

[Jormungandr]

I can only confirm what slammer said, your GPU has very likely reached the end of its lifespan or got damaged due to overheating. Those glittery pixels as you call them are artifacts and one sign of a dying GPU/damaged hardware.

[Akzyra]

Well, can only confirm this. Left my very old laptop running below my pillow and it had stripes all over the display and other funky errors.

Hope you have a add-on card so you can replace it.

[ritualclarity]

 

All my drivers are up to date, so I was wondering if my graphics card is going out?

Yes. I would say so.

[BringtheNoise]

A couple of things you can try to make the card last a little longer....

 

Clean your video cards heat sink and while you're at it clean the air inlets into your computer and the cpu heatsink.

Dust buildup can block air flow reducing the cooling affect of the heatsink.

By cleaning the heatsink air will flow through and the heat should properly dissipate from the heatsink into the air.

 

If your graphics card has a clock speed adjustment setting (ATI and Nvidia should, not sure about Intel).

Then enabled the manual settings and drop the clock speed by 25Mhz on both the GPU and Graphics memory.

This shouldn't give any major performance hit in games but should help with stability.

 

Other things you might look at:

 

Is the area where your computer resides warmer in the spring/summer then it is in the winter.

If in the warmer parts of the year you have stability issues then you probably need better ventilation inside and around your computer.

 

You may also look at graphic card fan speed.

As it may default to a low speed to keep it quiet, but it needs to run at a faster speed while in games. This is to keep the card from over heating while it is being stressed.

 

I recently had to upgrade from an old ATI 6750 because of similar issues. During the winter it was fine, but once the temperatures started to get warm, it started to lock up... I cleaned and under clocked it and ran it for a month...

 

Finally I decided it was time for something a little better.

So purchased an ATI R7 265 (picked it up from newegg for around $140 US).

The new card's pretty much a ATI 7870 with the 256bit GDDR5 memory interface and 2GB's of video ram. It just not clocked to 1Ghz, but It is big improvement over the older card it replaced.

[zzz72w3r]

I have poor wiring in a very cramped small form factor case with a very hot 4870 and the fans sometimes have glitches and the resulted heat will produce this kind of problems.  A smack on the case or restart usually take care of it.  However, if the PC is well ventilated and the problems are persistent then it is more likely the GPU is partially fried.

[squall1150]

yeah id agree with every one else. most likely the graphics card or it could be too much dust inside of it, try realy cleaning out the dust, or stick it under the hair dryer. yes the hair dryer you did reat that right could be the solder. so put it under the hair dryer till the solder reheats to get the connections back but make sure you watch out for the plastic parts.

[kingkong]

all what have been said above might be correct and probable.          but it can be because  you have updated  your driver card  !!!    (check if it is the correct driver.   -    or try to install a prior driver . some times the latest driver can create unrelated buggs)

[endgameaddiction]

@Slammer/akzyra

 

Yeah it's an addon card. I have plans to upgrade maybe this month or next month (http://www.loverslab.com/topic/34430-suggestion-on-upgrade/).

 

 

@ btn2k3/Squall

 

My aire inlets are clean. I dusted out my PC seven days ago when I posted that link above to check my PCIe slot. PC is clean on the inside, but I have not at all checked the heat sinks for both my CPU and GPU. Luckily I have thermal paste and I'll probably apply some on if it's worn too much.

 

@ Kingkong

 

Could be, maybe. windpl did mention (http://www.loverslab.com/topic/34430-suggestion-on-upgrade/) that Nvidia is having bad drivers lately. This problem with Skyrim has been happening for about 5 months now so it's a give or take. I'll consider downloading an old driver if nothing else works. Or maybe I should try that first?

 

 

After restarting my PC last night, the artifacts as Jorm mentioned hasn't happened again. Not yet at least.

[sorsharavenwing]

all what have been said above might be correct and probable.          but it can be because  you have updated  your driver card  !!!    (check if it is the correct driver.   -    or try to install a prior driver . some times the latest driver can create unrelated buggs)

 

nVidia seems to be having some issues with drivers of late. I refuse to run beta drivers because my computer is not a guinea pig. But the last two full releases got installed and promptly uninstalled because they caused me trouble. So if you've got an nVidia GPU you might consider reverting the driver back to something more stable.

 

[ritualclarity]

I am not having problems with the drivers. I am runing the current. 600 series grapics drivers.

 

@endgameaddiction

It is possible that the current issue is related to heat. If you stress test your gpu or really play hard, or even keep in on for hours on end building up ambient heat in the case and gpu it causes this? If so you might try repasting the gpu heat sink. Not for the weak of heart. If you aren't experienced with this sort of action you can end up hurting the graphic card more than helping it. If you are experienced .. you can likely extend the function of this card for some time in the future.

 

Also looked at your other thread. Don't worry if your Motherboard spec ( where you would find the type of PCi x slot you have) is 2.0 version unless you are moving to very big or power full cards. GTX 770 ( or ATI equivalent) or better ( not sure where you would experienced issues and possibly you might not even see any problems.)  The issue is the bandwidth on really powerful cards can be bottle necked slightly in extreme hardware situations. Very old mobo and very new Titan.. ( yes Duh movement but people do try) Other than that choose the graphic card that best fits your budget and gives you a reasonable boost from your original equipment and you should be fine.

 

I moved from a very old LGA775 with PCIx1.0 computer and tried to get a GTX670 to run on it and it wasn't pretty. Changed the Mobo to an AMD 990fx ( PCIx2.0) and the graphic card works beautifully. If you also have a PCix1.0 slot. Go ahead and try it if you want. Your results might be just fine.

[endgameaddiction]

I'll be careful. I've added thermal paste before on my old rig from the heat sink to my CPU.

 

And about the GPU. The 760 seems perfect for a big step and within my budget.

[ritualclarity]

You should be fine with a PCI 2.0 slot. 1.0 slots might be an issue. Any give it a try if your current GPU is going out anyway.

 

Sounds like you have experience and knowledge on the paste and such so you should be good to go. Many of my friends do this off the bat to get better results and cooling. I don't mess With the GPU so much. Heat sink is another matter.

 

Let us know the results..

[endgameaddiction]

Well, I've applied the thermal compound on both my CPU and GPU and that looks like it nailed it. Been on Skyrim for a few hours with no problem anymore.

 

I want to thank everyone here for their suggestions. You guys rock!

[mojodajojo]

I've burnt out so many fx cards and hard drives in the last decade, but the one I got now, I'll cry if the fx card goes.  My cousin built me a cheap beast of a machine with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 690. 

 

Computer has an Intel core i7 processor.  750 watt power supply. Water cooling and a bunch of a crap I don't understand and could never set up in this huge fancy lighted case.  Thing has more fans in it than an L.A. Lakers game.  Still I'm running air conditioning whenever it's on.  And for once I have a huge fast hard drive ( so weird seeing how many TB you have free instead of Gigs), and I don't have to continuously uninstall and install stuff depending on what I'm playing.

[Warnova]

Apparently my 560 just went bad. Happened around 4AM 7/31/14. As I was playing it just randomly froze with a white checkerboard pattern and suddenly lost the video signal. Took my PC upstairs, air blasted a little dust build up and rebooted. POST screen showed just fine, but as soon as it got to windows, it would glitch up again. Restarted again and now I'm stuck at 640 res in windows with messed up colors/b&w mess everywhere.

One last test on an older PC shows the card won't even give a signal for the POST screen. Anybody think this card is worth anything in parts? If not I'll just throw it away. OR BETTER STILL! TO BE CRUSHED (with a hammer) LIKE AN INSECT AT THE WHIM OF ITS MASTER!!!

I already ordered a new 760. I may order a new case as well because my current case only has two 120mm fans front and back. They're strong (not cheap) fans, but I feel like my card failed because the airflow still wasn't enough. Water cooling is out of the question for me. This is the first ever card I've had fail on me. It had a good 2 year run I guess.

[ritualclarity]

Maybe try what the OP did and get some heat sink paste and repaste the heat sink and see if it works. If it does you can still use it or give it away when you get the 760. I usually have an older card just in case something happens to test or replace if needed ..

[Silver Wolf]

Guys, I made a big mistake upgrading to windows 8.1. Now seem like every programs that use DirectX will crash at start up. Already wiped display driver and install the new one (AMD beta driver for 8.1) but still nothing work. Any idea why ?

[endgameaddiction]

Actually, I hate to say it but yeah... it looks like my card is just not up to the task anymore. I was able to run Skyrim fine for a long time yesterday hours after I had post my problem solved.

 

I'm still getting the flickering glitches from Skyrim

 

 

but I'm not worried because soon enough I'll have that 760. On the bright side I replaced my thermal compound on the CPU at least, so that will be good for a very long time.

[Silver Wolf]

If you cant afford a new card now, you may try the "baking" trick. I brought my old hd 4670 back to life with this trick and it worked for nearly one more year

[...0...]

While answer btn... gave which is good answer, you also maybe concider and i reconment this whole hardly install little programs like GPU-Z/CPU-Z/REALTEMP and afterburner you can closly watch your tempatures get all info of your system and with afterburner you can control your fanspeed of your videocard perfectly whatever speed it needs.

[D_ManXX2]

does anyone know if the thermal paste used for CPU is the same fore for GPU ?? i have notcited that thermal paste for GPU seem to be darker in color then my CPU was.

[endgameaddiction]

I need some advice now. I still haven't gotten my 760 yet, but real soon. I decided to downgrade with a slightly weaker card I have from my other rig in the meant time. From a GTX 260 to a GTS 250. I'm just doing this until I get my card because I've ran into a problem with the GTX 260 where Skyrim now completely freezes and there is no way to force it to close. My PC has to force reboot.

 

I've installed the GTS 250 and my display screen is huge. It's like if I booted my PC in safe mode. How do I go about fixing this? I've gone to my BIOS screen and it doesn't display anything with GPU.

 

 

I'm a noob. I fixed it.

 

 

@ Silver

 

I had no idea what you were talking about until now. About the "baking" trick. That's rather funny and seems to be pretty high successful. I would have to get more thermal paste for this trick which is another $10, but now that I know after already applying thermal paste, I'll just wait a week or so when I go in to get that 760. I'll keepthe 260 around incase if anything. That is really funny though. The baking trick. lol

[27X]

Actually nvidia's drivers have been rather awesome in regards to skyrim specifically, the main points of contention are UbiSoft games and other games using criware and other middleware of the like, and massive amounts of black and white or ANY "kernel recovery" are pretty much "yo card am dead, bra" situations.