Assistance in diagnosing a possible graphics issue.

#1

Hey guys,

I wondering what would be the best way to diagnose an issue im experiencing that’s pretty much rendered my work station unusable.

The symptoms first began while using photoshop cs6. I had been using PS for some hours and went to use the rotate canvas tool, then suddenly strange graphical issues began to occur, like there were square holes in PS looking through to the desktop and various windows were flickering, then when I went to the desktop, there were random large squares across the screen that went away as i moved the cursor over them. Over all it seems like there was a graphical issue. Windows became progressively unresponsive before the cursor froze and i had to hard reset the workstation.

Upon resetting, i opened photoshop and within 5 minutes the same thing happened again. I reset the workstation then went to open chrome browser, within 30 or seconds from using Chrome, the same thing happened again.

I restarted the WS again, this time i didn’t do anything other than move the cursor around the desktop for 10 minutes, everything seemed fine, so i opened photoshop. After 10 mins or so, i went to use the rotate canvas tool and the problem occurred again.

since this issue started a day ago, ive had to hard reset the PC some 40 times now. I’ve opened in safe mode; one time this issue repeated in safe mode, however i’ve since used the PC several times in safe mode without the issue happening.

ive done a roll back by 2 weeks, virus scans, windows disk check, defrag and no different.

one time when restarting, it said windows couldnt be restarted and prompted a disk check which failed.

I haven’t made any changes to the work station recently, updated drivers etc … the only thing that auto updates is windows.

The only thing i can see is that both Photoshop CS6 and chrome both use graphics acceleration. For example when using the rotate canvas tool in PS and Chrome uses it to render the webpages quicker.

I can use both chrome and PS in safe mode without issue, though the above features are disabled of course.

Specs:
Windows 7 SP1 64bit
Intel i7-2600 CPU at 3.40ghz / 3.39ghz
16gb memory

3 years old, never had any real issues, other than this.

Any thoughts very appreciated.

David

#2

and now i restarted windows, then opened a folder window to ‘my computer’ and it froze. what could cause it to freeze by opening a window?

#3

So upon further research im guessing my GPU has died, or dying. How can i 100% confirm this?

Thanks
David

#4

Your first post hinted that your GPU might be overheating. I usually open up the case and check if the GPU fan is spinning at all. Sometimes there is a buildup layer of dust clogging the fans, so I have to use some canned air to blow off that layer. There are also utilities such as CoreTemp and HWmonitor that you can use to look at your hardware’s operating temperatures. A GPU should normally be running below 80 degrees F.

#5

Thanks for the info. I’ve checked and cleaned the fan and still no luck. The temperature is below 80F.

I’ve had different people tell me its either the PSU, GPU or HD … How can i be sure which component it is? I don’t want to go out and buy a new GPU if it turns out to be the PSU or HD

another note; when i boot up it shows a screen with the BIOS boot option, then goes to a screen that shows 4 lines of dollars signs that lasts for several seconds.

Now it’s become near impossible to get back into windows, even through safe mode.

Thanks
David

#6

I don’t think theres really any question that its a gfx card issue, the psu and HDD dont cause symptoms like that. With the dollar signs on boot sequence, this is plain old memory corruption. Under 80c, can’t really be heat, so realistically your card is just at the end of its life.

Replace it under warranty if you can, if not your only options are to either reflow the card which takes about an hour or so of your time and will buy you a few more months of use before dying again. Or, Sell it on ebay, people pay surprisingly reasonable amounts for dead/dying gfx cards.

#7

Thanks Matthew,

So when you say the dollar signs suggest memory curruption, do i need to replace the memory as well as the GPU?

And curious, what is reflow? Ive not heard the term before.

Thanks
David

PS: So you think I should sell my dead card? lol :slight_smile: its a Nvidia Geforce GTX 570, how much would i ask for it?

#8

So i just took the tower into a laptop repair shop and the guy replaced the graphics card and the issues were the same; no change. Does this suggest its not the GPU? maybe another component?

And to answer the obvious; he had no other spare components to test with; PSU etc …

Thanks
David

#9

“Reflow” is repairing poorly-done/broken solder connections on electronic boards. I’ve seen a lot of tips that say this can be done by a quick bake in the oven – warm enough to re-melt the solder and re-establish connections but not hot enough to fry the chips, but baking a $400 graphics card in an oven is something I’d do as a very last resort.

The results of testing with replacement graphics card suggests that it’s not the GPU, but we can’t rule it out completely. And here’s where it gets harder because there are so many different things to consider. Your need to frequently hard reset suggests that you should check the RAM next. Windows 7 has a built-in utility for checking RAM, but since you can’t even boot into Windows, the next thing to do is take out all the RAM sticks and plug them back in one by one until the machine boots into Windows.

It’s unlikely that all your RAM is bad, so if this testing step fails, then something else might be the problem, such as the CPU overheating or the motherboard has gone bad. I’m surprised that the laptop repair guy didn’t have further advice to offer. :-/

#10

I’m surprised that the laptop repair guy didn’t have further advice to offer. :-/

lol, you and me both, i was stood there a little stunned when he said he could only test the GPU. Though the test was free, so no big deal.

the next thing to do is take out all the RAM sticks and plug them back in one by one until the machine boots into Windows.

I’ll give this a try now, thanks.

“Reflow” is repairing poorly-done/broken solder connections on electronic boards. I’ve seen a lot of tips that say this can be done by a quick bake in the oven – warm enough to re-melt the solder and re-establish connections but not hot enough to fry the chips, but baking a $400 graphics card in an oven is something I’d do as a very last resort.

Wow, i thought that was a joke until i googled it! lol … yup, i’ll leave that until all else has failed! :slight_smile:

#11

No luck with the memory. Still the same.

But i managed to get back into windows via safe mode! which is strange given all previous attempts.

#12

Im quite surprised that changing the card didnt fix it, but it does indeed pretty much rule out a problem with the card so skip the reflow stuff it isnt needed. The dollar signs and random blocks on screen are almost certanly corrupt memory, its an absolutely classic example, your system is literally storing the wrong values, hence it shows the wrong characters when booting and the wrong image parts when in windows. it just seems it isnt the gfx card memory thats suffering here.

My next step would have been the system memory but youve already done that, so I’ll be honest, youve done the easy tests, now youre just left with the annoying ones. It is possible the motherboard is acting up, but you cant really test this without a spare to try, same for the cpu and psu. They all can cause this problem but are far less likely.

Next I suggest you remove absolutely everything you can for a bare system. Remove all drives except the boot drive, disconnect dvd drives, pull out sound cards, unplug all usb items except for keyboard and mouse.

My next suggestion after this would be resetting/reflashing the motherboard bios.

#13

In the past failing hard drives have caused me major headaches where they could boot and work sometimes but then randomly applications would crash or hang (presumably waiting on IO). If you do get back into Windows check the Event Viewer for errors which would hopefully have logged any issues with IO or other hardware for that matter. If you have a spare drive laying around maybe install it with a fresh install of the operating system and see how it does.

#14

Thanks guys for the continued feedback.

I’m able to get into Safemode / network. And to be honest, everything’s fine while in safe mode, im having no issues at all. Other than … it’s in safe mode lol But otherwise i’m able to open photoshop, internet, zbrush, 3ds Max etc without issues. Though granted their functionality feels limited in safe mode.

Anyhow, given everything seems to be operating reasonably well in safe mode, could this all be a simple windows issue? As yet I haven’t attempted to reinstall windows because i assumed it was hardware.

Sadly, aside from external hard drives, i don’t have any other components here to swap out and test with.

Is it possible to somehow use an external HD in place of my internal HD, to test if its the HD failing?

Thanks.

#15

So interesting;

I reinstalled windows and everything seemed to be going fine. I then went to install the nvidia GPU drivers and upon restarting; i’m encountering the same issues as before.

And it’s still working in safe mode.

so basically it seems whenever the system is using the graphics drivers, im encountering this issue.

#16

Try the gfx card in another slot. Keep an eye out for an “X16” marking, often only 1-2 slots on the motherboard are the full x16 speed.

Could be a psu issue where the gfx card works in a basic generic mode until you install the drivers. Try connecting a different 6/8 pin connector to the card, or better yet, use one of those 4 molex to 8 pin converters.

This is starting to feel like an episode of House MD. More mouse bites!

#17

Hmm … if it was the PSU, wouldn’t i have experienced these issues before? I’ve had the tower for 2-3 years now.

I’ll try it in the other slot and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks again.

#18

But you could say that about any component :wink: Hardware does fail; in my experience graphics cards and PSUs are usually the first to go.

#19

Hey guys, so to resolve this thread;

I took my PC to NCIX vancouver.

They determined there were unsolvable issues with the GPU, bad sectors on the HD, and an issue with the motherboard.

The first testing returned the diagnosis of; Issues with GPU and bad sectors on HD.

So the technician replaced the GPU and HD. This seemed to resolve most of the issues, however there was still issues booting into windows; taking way too long.

The tech guy replaced and added completely new components to the motherboard and there was still repeated issues booting into a test HD with windows. So he removed all the components and then added these components to another machine/board and everything worked fine on that machine. So they determined that my board was a contributing factor to this issues.

In the end I put down $2,000 and had them build a completely new workstation;

Geforce GTX 970
Intel i7-4790k CPU @ 4.00GHz
32GB RAM
Windows 7 Pro

  • David