HD6870 artifacts, artifacts everywhere.

[jimbobrlw]

So about a week ago I upgraded my system with a Noctua NH-U12P SE2, Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe and the Gigabyte HD6870 so I could play Battlefield 3 and I've been getting some pretty heavy artefacts off and on.

Before that I had a Sapphire HD5770, no sound card and the stock cooler.

It never happens when I'm in a game, only when I'm doing stuff like browsing the web.
Sometimes the whole system freezes up for a few seconds and it says the graphics drivers have crashed.
The sound card has been crashing like crazy also, sometimes all sound on the computer just stops and sometimes it just blasts loud noise until I restart.

I also should probably mention I had to move the ram to the far 2 slots because the cooler was covering the 2 close ones.

I've tried the graphics card in other computers and it works perfectly.
I've tried reinstalling the drivers for both cards.
I've tried reinstalling windows.
I've tried a different DVI cable.
I've tried under clocking and blasting the fans, open case with a desk fan blowing on it and closed case.
I've tried updating my BIOS

My system is:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Kingston HyperX KHX1600C8D3T1K2/4GX (2x2GB) DDR3
Seasonic S12II 620W Power Supply
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 Motherboard
Gigabyte HD6870
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe

All out of ideas here. It could be the motherboard, PSU or the Ram but I'd have trouble testing that.

 

[wa1]

Tried take out Soundcard and unsinstall it? I'm suspecting your soundcard, but we must know that for sure, so try it...

 

[jimbobrlw]

ok now I've tried.
changing the slot of the graphics card.
removing the sound card and uninstalling the drivers.
reformatting again.
resetting bios to default.

another problem that I've been having is when i try to over clock the graphics card the system becomes very unstable and often blue screens right away.

 

[draggoth]

I usually look at the PSU when problems occur after GPU upgrade, but yours looks ok, Seasonic 620W should hold up just fine.

I also should probably mention I had to move the ram to the far 2 slots because the cooler was covering the 2 close ones.

Now that's some really good info, if you moved your RAM into different slots that could cause instability. Generally it's much better to have the RAM in dual-channel slots, that is using same color slots. In your case, if you put the RAM sticks one in a black slot and the other in a blue slot that's a no-no Try changing your RAM into the black slots and use Memtest on your system bare bones to help you isolate the problem.
Check out these links:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ASUS-M4A89GTD-PRO-USB3-Motherboard-Review/938/4

http://www.memtest.org/

 

[jimbobrlw]

I tried putting RAM in just one slot and its still happening, I cant put them in one channel because the heat sinks on the RAM and CPU are too big.
I might try buying a new motherboard and RAM and see what happens.

 

[jimbobrlw]

Best answer selected by jimbobrlw.