Artifacts in and out of game - windows 7

[Joshua1187]

Hi,

System Specs:
AMD FX 8350
Radeon HD 5970
6 GB ram Ripjaw
ASUS Crosshair v formula Z
XFX 850w
Win 7 64

Recently in the last few months little confetti like squares have been showing up in random windows. I tested a game (FFXIV ARR) and it worked fine highest settings so i figured it was just a glitch. Progressively its been getting worse. I tried to play LoL for the first time a few weeks ago and it was all screwed up so i downloaded the latest drivers and it fixed the problem.. kind of.. Well as of last night the problem is worse, artifacts everywhere, its miserable. I tried to run Memtestcl to check my GPU memory but it crashes at startup. I'm guessing my GPU is toast but im not really excited about replacing it.

Current temps HWMonitor:
CPU 36C
GPU 54C

Any ideas?

 

[Nathan Willis]

This is one of few things.

First the driver has problems. Update the newest one and install it.
Boot up into safe mode and uninstall the old driver first though.

The card may just be failing.

The card could be overheating at times.
Open your case and install a fan on it and see if the problem goes away.
Clean all of the dust out of your case too.

Check your PSU. If it is failing or can not put out enough power for your system you will see strange problem like this.

 

[Joshua1187]

Thanks Nathan,

I've already updated the drivers although I didnt do it through safe mode. This started happening on drivers that i had already installed for months without problem.

Ive got a turbine pulling air off of it under it and a card slot fan above it plus a fan above, side, back and several more fans in the front of the case. These artifacts are nonstop now there doesn't even need to be any real type of load on my pc for them to happen.

How do i check my PSU without pulling out some type of meter and shoving it in the wires?

Later today when I have a chance im going to buy a can of compressed air and blow out the case and the card although I dont think thats the problem since the temps are staying pretty low.

 

[Nathan Willis]

Try rolling back to an old driver. The new drive may be unstable.
Make sure there is no OC on the GPU. A program or setting could be OCing it.
Your GPU is showing systems of an OC fail.
If anything has an OC disable it.

How to Check the PSU:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/f/powersupplytest.htm

Good luck! If the GPU has a warranty replace it.
If anything they will tell you it is fine or give you a new one.
Make sure the power connector to the GPU is connected right.
Check all of the computer's connectors.
Make sure the cable to your monitor is plugged in right.
Use another monitor and see if the problems goes away.
Use another cable.
If your using any adapters (Like DVI to VGA) replace them or stop using them.
Do a hard reset of your CMOS/BIOS.
That way you know it has nothing to do with BIOS/CMOS settings.
Pull the GPU and clean the contacts.
Blow out the PCI-E X16 slot.
Put the GPU on the another PCI-E X16 slot. (Or whatever the card interface is)
Try another GPU. Make the computer as basic as possible.
Pull or unplug everything that is not needed to boot. (CD Drives, Drives, PCI Cards ETC)
Test your RAM with MemTest.

http://www.memtest.org/

Run this program to completely remove the old driver: (In SAFE MODE!)

http://www.guru3d.com/content_page/guru3d_driver_sweeper.html

If the problem is gone in POST/BIOS/CMOS then it is most likely a software problem.
If it is just during a game update that game.
I could go on and on!