Determining the health of a video card...

[tplaner]

After a recent brownout I booted up my computer and had some serious video card issues (screen tearing, lines, etc). I have two monitors plugged into separate DVI ports one is a 23" widescreen the other is just a 19" dell flat screen.

So I swapped which cable was plugged into which port and the monitors now seem to be working fine.

However, I'm not convinced the problem is actually solved. So heres a few questions:

1) Is there anyway to be sure that my video card was definitely causing this and there isn't a larger issue with my computer?
2) Are there any tools to test to see if the card itself is working properly now?
3) Why would swapping out the DVI ports seemingly correct a short?

The card is a Radeon HD 4890, drivers are up to date.

 

[ruu1989]

If you swap them back does the problem re-appear?

 

[nforce4max]

The 4890 is known to have problems as I used to see a lot of them popping up on ebay for $10-20 as is repair with issues from bad vram, bad power vrm, and much more. So I suggest that you get a quality surge protector to help ride out those brownouts and power spikes. As for the health of the card you can try a stress bench and give overclocking and downclocking a few runs. A healthy card will be able to take temps and overclocking fairly well regardless of the sample of the gpu core. Just be sure to keep the card clean and cool. Also keep an eye on the volts of the psu as it can be damaged during such spikes and dips on the grid.

 

[tplaner]

I'll try swapping them back to see if they reappear. What tools would I used to stress bench mark?

 

[nforce4max]

Furmark or Kombuster will do just fine or the next best thing an actual game of your choice.