Recently my PC has started crashing.

2 of the three screens (coming off my AMD graphics card) freeze with lines, the other one (off the onboard graphics) just freezes.



Tried endless combinations of GPU drivers as that was my first thought. Tried dialing back the overclock / not running intensive things but hasn't made a difference.

Happens at random, after an hour it might do it or maybe a day. Doesn't seem to happen in Safe Mode, but as it's so sporadic I can't really test it.

Event viewer hasn't said anything helpful, either.

PC was only built a few months ago, and has been working fine.

Any ideas?

Is it a BSOD, or just this?

Buy a Mac?

I had something similar on my PC, the reason was dead VRAM on my graphic card. But I had single GPU and single monitor... If you had dead GPU at least one of your screens should be still working.

Quote from Mysho :

I had something similar on my PC, the reason was dead VRAM on my graphic card. But I had single GPU and single monitor... If you had dead GPU at least one of your screens should be still working.

I would imagine a GPU hardware fault would probably cause the PC to stop working, and the GPU (AMD 6750) is the "newest" component, bought second hand off eBay...

Maybe I'll try some GPU stress testing software - I don't do *anything* GPU intensive on my PC.

Quote from Bose321 :

Is it a BSOD, or just this?

No BSOD, just a freeze.

Quote from Bose321 :

Buy a Mac?

All jokes aside, while I love my MacBook it's not quite the paragon of reliability advertised. Plus, no OSX drivers for my GPU...

Looks like a busted GPU.

3DMark 11 is downloading. Any recommendations on any other pieces of software to use to test it with?

Quote from Matrixi :

Looks like a busted GPU.

This. Beg, borrow or steal a graphics card you know works and see if it works fine with that one in.

1 hour and 30 mins of Furmark, GPU at 66° C, no crashes & no artefacts etc.

I do have a spare 7600GT on my desk but I was hoping to be able to avoid messing around with drivers etc.

Tempted to think it might not be the GPU

Just over a month ago my ATI 4870 did this:



It was ok for a week, but after that:



and



So get yourself a new video card asap. Or you can try to put it in oven.

I had a HD4670 for 3 years and it didn't once fail. On a HD6850 now for 1.5 years and it hasn't gone wrong. I don't know what you lot do with your cards to wreck them like you do.

Do you use the AMD overdrive thing? That has screwed me in the past.

Quote from Jakg :

1 hour and 30 mins of Furmark, GPU at 66° C, no crashes & no artefacts etc.

I do have a spare 7600GT on my desk but I was hoping to be able to avoid messing around with drivers etc.

Tempted to think it might not be the GPU

About 10 mins after this, I unplugged my iPhone from the PC - 2 seconds later and it crashed. Might be USB drivers...

If you're always getting image corruption like that you posted in the OP, I bet it's the GPU. I highly doubt that a faulty USB driver could cause this.

Its usual to see those kind of screens when the gpu fails, either at the driver level or hardware. E.g When I was overclocking and gone too high/not enough voltage it would do something very similar, Do you use any GPU overdrive/overclocking apps?

I was thinking not enough voltage from the PSU but if you can run furmark for over an hour without it then it may not be that, unless its an intermittent issue.

Have you overclocked the CPU and/or GPU at all?

Quote from Jakg :

3DMark 11 is downloading. Any recommendations on any other pieces of software to use to test it with?

Try Prime95. Stress testing app for CPU/RAM.
If it crashes at all running this then it may be a problem more related to the CPU, RAM or Power Supply.

If you're considering running Prime or Linpack to test CPU and RAM, you should probably replace the video card with the backup one to rule out the possibility of the video card crashing your machine during the test.

CPU is overclocked (but I've backed this off and it's made no difference, and has been running at this frequency long before this issue). GPU is at stock clocks.

Will try Prime next time it dies.

Quote from Jakg :

2 of the three screens (coming off my AMD graphics card) freeze with lines, the other one (off the onboard graphics) just freezes.

You have 2 screens on the AMD Card and one on the OnBoard Chip?

Because if the OnBoard is freezing as well then it sounds like a CPU/PSU issue as if it was only the AMD card then the OnBoard should continue to work?

Quote from DavidTiger :

You have 2 screens on the AMD Card and one on the OnBoard Chip?

Because if the OnBoard is freezing as well then it sounds like a CPU/PSU issue as if it was only the AMD card then the OnBoard should continue to work?

I would imagine IF my GPU keeled over I would expect the driver might kill the OS as well.

GPU fault doesn't have to happen at load. My old GTX 295 just kept locking up the system (almost exactly like yours) even on idle. Just completely random.

Like has been said above, borrow a working graphics card and that'll atleast rule one component out. I suppose RAM/CPU could be faulty too, but they result in BSOD in 99% of the problem cases, not graphical anomalies.

Give it an helmet!

Its a faulty GPU. Pretty sure the onboard card just acts as a sort of proxy, so thats why it freezes too when the main GPU does.

What are you doing on the comp when it freezes? Since 2D and 3D application are handled quite differently by the card the faulty "area" of the card may only be used in 2D mode.

btw, I can force artifacts on my laptop by using some shutdown tool. When I set it to go into standby while VLC is playing a movie, and then wake it up again, I get green artifacts on certain colours. After a restart everything is fine again.

Not to be an arse or something, but why such a long thread needed by this? It's clearly the graphics card what's broken. And I'm pretty sure you (Jack) knew it way well before posting this but hoped on something else.

These kind of things take 10 mins at my work... Dead GPU? Swap out for another, reinstall drivers and put it on a burnin test.

Quote from Matrixi :

GPU fault doesn't have to happen at load. My old GTX 295 just kept locking up the system (almost exactly like yours) even on idle. Just completely random.

Like has been said above, borrow a working graphics card and that'll atleast rule one component out. I suppose RAM/CPU could be faulty too, but they result in BSOD in 99% of the problem cases, not graphical anomalies.

In Windows, my MBP used to hard-lock for no good reason (later figured out to be shitty RAM).. but only at idle and in Windows. Running games for hours and hours was always fine.

Computers are weird. Idle was apparently more of a bother than under load.

Quote from ACCAkut :

What are you doing on the comp when it freezes? Since 2D and 3D application are handled quite differently by the card the faulty "area" of the card may only be used in 2D mode.

No real common factors, no 3D applications but I thought Aero in 7 was always hardware enabled

Quote from Scrabby :

Not to be an arse or something, but why such a long thread needed by this? It's clearly the graphics card what's broken. And I'm pretty sure you (Jack) knew it way well before posting this but hoped on something else.

These kind of things take 10 mins at my work... Dead GPU? Swap out for another, reinstall drivers and put it on a burnin test.

I have to be honest I hadn't even considered a hardware fault - I'm used to artefacts or crashes from faulty GPU's, not a whole system freeze.

I thought it was graphics related - but drivers. But no jiggering with the drivers seems of helped...

Error in drivers will almost always result in a BSOD.

nv/atixxx.sys blablabla

This is hardware . My GTX560 freezes up once in a while and giving some green screen and freezing my whole PC... But that's very occasionally when gaming, and gaming doesn't happen that much anymore these days

Quote from Jakg :

No real common factors, no 3D applications but I thought Aero in 7 was always hardware enabled

This. 2D graphics nowadays are just 3D graphics with everything flattened. It's been a while since cards had dedicated, separate 3D and 2D processors.