Something is wrong with my display/monitor/graphics card...

[Guest]

Hey Tom's Hardware people, I could use some help!

I woke up to this when I booted up my PC... this is very strange, considering that I only got it 2 months ago. It's a brand new PC, as far as I know:

*Link removed... for now!*

My PC has these specs:

Windows 8.1
8 GB of RAM
AMD A10-7850K processor with 3.8GHz of speed and 4 cores
AMD Radeon R9 270X with 2GB of video memory

I used DXDiag, and it clearly found no problems. I kept using it again and again, still no problems found, even with the weird pixel corruption on screen. During the strange video glitches, which include strange gradient filled geometric shapes on various web page or user interface assets, I was able to use DXDiag and it said nothing was wrong. The device manager said nothing was wrong.

Is my monitor finally dying? I sure hope so, because I've been needing get rid of this old Samsung SyncMaster932BWPlus for a new 1600x900 monitor. My poor SyncMaster has been struggling to even turn on lately, taking upwards of 10 minutes to turn on sometimes. Making some strange tiny noise as its power on light blinked. It's a very old monitor, probablly around 8 years old. I might try to hook up a much bigger monitor that does work for PCs, and see if my old monitor is the problem.

I will keep you guys posted on any further developments. I can't stand the thought of having to return this PC or take it in for repairs, even if it's under warranty, simply because my entire livlihood as a freelance artist will be put on hold for a week or longer. That will certainly be a painful experience.

 

[Xyos]

Sounds like you answered your own question almost. Find a cheap monitor or borrow one, connect it and test it (Stress the video card, play games run videos, etc). If no errors occur its your monitor. If you DO see errors its your video card.

 

[Entomber]

that does look like a monitor problem rather than a GPU problem, because I can't imagine a GPU would have issues rendering the Windows logo...

 

[Guest]

that does look like a monitor problem rather than a GPU problem, because I can't imagine a GPU would have issues rendering the Windows logo...

It's not the Windows logo. There would be this strange pixelated snow that would react to everything my mouse cursor would hover over. These "snowflakes" are about 4 pixels wide, and usually white, or with strange colors. There are other geometric shapes that would vanish if I mouse over them. It was horrible. What you are seeing there is my desktop wallpaper I am currently using, but just a small portion of the screen. This problem encompassed the entire screen, and wouldn't go away no matter what was on screen.

The problem vanished when I restarted my PC, which brings up a lot of questions.

 

[NerevarReborn]

If it was a one time thing, try to forget about it. Strange things do happen with PCs... If it happens again, something is probably very wrong.

And with what you're saying it sure sounds like it's the graphics card acting up if it comes back. Not the monitor. But can't be certain. Can you try to monitor your GPU temps with some software? See what you get?

 

[Guest]

If it was a one time thing, try to forget about it. Strange things do happen with PCs... If it happens again, something is probably very wrong.

This has been happening since I first got this PC, but on a very small scale. Image glitches and web page user interface assets having strange corruptions... that usually went away from simply scrolling the webpage down and then back up.

 

[NerevarReborn]

Oh. Check GPU temps. Probably not the issue, but easy to check.

Next thing I'd try is to uninstall the card completely and physically remove and reattach it, then reinstall it. I might even try a different PCI-E slot on the mobo if there are other full sized ones.

 

[Guest]

Oh. Check GPU temps. Probably not the issue, but easy to check.

Next thing I'd try is to uninstall the card completely and physically remove and reattach it, then reinstall it. I might even try a different PCI-E slot on the mobo if there are other full sized ones.

Well, this problem seemingly started with the Omega 14.12 drivers... which was not a clean install. I will uninstall all drivers and reinstall them, and see if it helps with any issues.

 

[NerevarReborn]

Why not try Catalyst then, the original? Omega might be the issue. Anyway, do a clean reinstall. But I'd go straight for Catalyst in that reinstall and see if that works.

 

[Guest]

Why not try Catalyst then, the original? Omega might be the issue. Anyway, do a clean reinstall. But I'd go straight for Catalyst in that reinstall and see if that works.

I rather keep the driver that improves performance in many modern games, rather than go for any previous drivers. So I will just do a clean reinstall of the Omega Drivers.

 

[NerevarReborn]

Haven't use ATI in quite some time. If they are just called that now and are official ones, then sure, go for it. but clean install might be key. Could try to revert to one step older drivers as well if that doesn't help.

 

[Guest]

Haven't use ATI in quite some time. If they are just called that now and are official ones, then sure, go for it. but clean install might be key. Could try to revert to one step older drivers as well if that doesn't help.

Yeah, I just did a clean reinstall of the recent 14.12 drivers. Those drivers are way too good, with over 40 features and improvements. There's no good reason to go without them!

So far, every restart I did during that process was fine. The problem vanished like it never even happened. In fact, I was still able to use my computer just fine with these strange video corruptions on screen. Device manager and DXDiag didn't find any problems. I have Catalyst Control Center resinstalled now too, so we'll see if that detects any problems too.

You want to know something even more strange? I played Dragon Age: Inquisition for around 2 hours, and not a single damn problem. Native monitor resolution of 1440x900, vertical sync, fairly high settings, and all those other goodies. Not a single video problem, not a single error with the video driver, not a single problem with my graphics card. Whatever it is, it must be yet another quirk this rather quirky PC has. I will keep you guys posted, so stay with me if any further issues develop, and I will take better screenshots too!