GTX 650Ti weird atrifacts and failed driver install

[CycloneTi]

Hello all, recently when i am playing games, not even a high requirements such as Minecraft, something in my system made a weird sound, like a restart noise the fan makes when you restart or just turned the computer on. After the noise, the whole system would freeze for about a minute or so until it returned back.

At first i thought this was a graphic card driver problem so i reinstalled the driver for my graphic card again (the latest one) but the install would not complete and after restart it says im not even using the graphic card, the nvidia application says something the GPU is not attached.

I then proceed to reinstall my windows completely by wiping the harddrive and start up new, and yet when i reinstalled the graphic driver it gives me a fail and gives me red artifacts all over the screen. Is it a damaged graphic card or possibly a power supply issue?

System Spec:

AMD phenom ii 955 @stock
8GB of DDR3 ram
GTX 650Ti Asus OCII version
Asus motherboard
A cheap 550W chinese power supply (i know, its cheap here and imported brand is much more expensive)

 

[hubbardt]

Sounds like it could be an overheating issue.

Do you have EVGA precision installed so you can monitor your GPU temp and fan speed ?
http://www.evga.com/precision/

 

[CycloneTi]

I had MSI afterburner installed before i re installed windows, and the temps were fine, just above 65 degrees after gaming. And even with a bit of overclocking the temps were still below 70 degrees. So i dont think it could be heat issue.

Do you have any idea about the weird fan noise thing? Its like the sound it makes when a fan stop and starts again. Like a power surge?

 

[doubletake]

A cheap 550W chinese power supply

You realize you probably just answered your own question? You never go cheap with the power supply, that is the one component in a system that can bring EVERYTHING ELSE down as well when it fails.

 

[hubbardt]

You can monitor your fan speeds using MSI. Try gaming and see if the fan speed does weird things. I have EVGA and you can even display the GPU temps and fan speed onscreen.

Guess you checked whether a big ball of fluff is trapped in the GPU fan? (happened to me once)

 

[-Jackson]

You realize you probably just answered your own question? You never go cheap with the power supply, that is the one component in a system that can bring EVERYTHING ELSE down as well when it fails.

+1
This might explain the GPU not getting detected in your system and/or the artifacting.

 

[CycloneTi]

Well, I hope its just the power supply, since i only bought my GTX 650Ti 2 months ago and its clean so i dont think the dust could make it go crazy. I'll go to a nearby computer store to check it out then. Thanks guys for the input.

 

[-Jackson]

Well if it isn't the PSU it's most likely going to be your GPU that's acting up. Either way it goes, it's sort of a win-win; If the PSU doesn't solve the problem, doesn't matter since you would have needed to replace that cheap PSU at some point (in the short future) anyway.