Gaming Dying GPU?

[Rydian]

So I've got a Radeon HD 5770, and just today while I was using PCSX2 (a PS2 emulator) I encountered artifacting that was even going outside the rendering window... since then I've been getting artifacting and entire system freezes randomly, multiple times today. Here's a dump of info.

• Ran Prime95 for a bit in case it was the CPU, no issues.
• Switching the windows theme to one that doesn't use AERO makes the artifacting go away, and switching it to an AERO one makes it come right back.
• Restarted like 5 times, no dice.
• Ran FurMark a few times, this doesn't actually seem to affect anything, strangely, nor does it keep the system from freezing. If there's artifacting it does nothing to stop or enhance it, if there's no artifacting it does not create it. Running FurMark is actually the only time I've heard my GPU's fan speed up (and boy, did FurMark kick it up a few notches as the test went on).
• The freezing and such does not seem to happen in safe mode, or in normal mode with the video driver uninstalled.
• I can restart the system with AERO on and do nothing, and the system will freeze by itself eventually, say 10-15 minutes, so I don't think it's GPU usage or temperature (the fans don't rev up by themselves, at least).
• When the system freezes, the mouse cursor vanishes (further directly pointing to the GPU).
• I've tried the 11.8 and 11.9 drivers, and the default one Windows likes to give me, no improvement.
• SFC /scannow found nothing wrong.
• chkdsk /f didn't appear to fix anything.

So is this pretty much a confirmed case of damaged hardware?

 

[Nimbus]

I'd say at this point Rydian, that theres a good chance it is.

Since chkdsk /f doesn't seem to fix anything, nor did SFC /scannow detect anything. Your cursor also vanishing, combined with the artifacts, and the fact that re-enabling Aero instantly causes the issue to replicate,

If it was the Hard Drive, then most likely you would just be getting normal freezes, BSOD's and whatnot. The main RAM would cause inconsistent problems, as well as potentially inconsistent BSOD's, and the CPU would likely cause the computer to not work at all, or at the very least only power up before failing the POST or some part of the Boot process.

All of your issues seem to stem from graphical issues, and again based on everything you've done and tested, I'd say with a 75% positivity to 25% negativity ratio, that your GPU is on it's way to it's death bed.

Now it also could be RAM used specifically for your graphics card in the GPU. If your graphics card happens to use user-replaceable RAM, I'd check that out first. I still bet it's the actual GPU though.

Also, Rydian, I read a bit further down this page about FurMark (About at the 1/3 mark), it looks like they've had cases of it actually damaging the GPU before, as in burning or overworking it to death. You may have caused additional damage to it, or again you may not have. Granted if it was gonna die anyway, it'll likely make little to no difference. Do keep in mind though that the GeForce GTX 275 card GPU pictured on that page is an overclocked one, so that may have played more of a role, but it sounds like the MOSFET, which are part of the VRM (Voltage Regulator Module) weren't supported by FurMark, so that probably is the culprit. If you've never had any trouble with FurMark damaging anything then I wouldn't worry.

http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/


Also, have you tried rolling back to the previous version of PCSX2? Not sure at this point if it'll even be feasible with the issues you're having though.

 

[Foxi4]

Plain curiousity - do you have an internal GPU embedded into your mainboard? If so, would you mind turning PCI-Express off in favour of the on-board graphics card and check whether the same artifacts appear as you use it?

Artifacts usually appear due to overheated/damadged Gfx card's on-board RAM rather then the GPU - a broken GPU would short immediatelly causing an instant reboot rather than a slow "death" like you described. It's not necessarily the case though.

 

[Rydian]

Yeah I was talking with somebody else about it and decided to try both a system RAM test and VRAM test... system RAM test passed a round of memtest86+ so I decided to try VRAM, but I've having issues finding one that works for my card, either they require CUDA (so they won't work on my ATI/Radeon), or the one I did use (VMT/CE) tells me there's an error two bytes large in every other address and tells me this for everything it tests in a row, leading me to believe it's simply not working properly ('cause if ALL the video RAM was bad I'm sure I'd have much worse issues, and the program tells me there might be compatiblity issues with the card anyways).

I was getting the worst issues before running FurMark, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to run it if the GPU really was dying.

I did try the SVN version of PCSX2 today, but I'm getting the issues with pretty much anything that does hardware acceleration (hell, I'm getting it in supported browsers like firefox), here's some pics of the artifacting.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/7137/p1010214n.jpg
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6723/p1010216m.jpg
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/1452/p1010217p.jpg
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8475/p1010219h.jpg

I noticed the artifacting's almost always in specific areas, further pointing to damaged video RAM... and checking the reviews on my card on newegg that were posted, there's people complaining that the card can get too hot before the fans kick in, damaging the video ram. :|

 

[Nimbus]

Damn Rydian, that's worse than what Gnome-Shell's been giving me on Ubuntu. Mine just shears and tears alot. Nothing close to what you're getting.

It sounds like you've narrowed it down, if many people are complaining about the card getting too hot before the fans kick in, I'd say it's defective by design. Yours is likely already toasted to an extent.

If you can I'd get a refund on it, but only once you've found another that works. If the VRAM is user serviceable, then it'll likely make it a bit easier.

 

[Rydian]

I wouldn't trust myself to try to replace the chips on this thing. It looks like I'm covered as far as ASUS cares, I'll call them Monday.

 

[PettingZoo]

Have you tried re installing your graphics card drivers? (uninstall, reboot in safemode and use something like drivesweeper, reboot again and install)

 

[Rydian]

It was suggested that I try a full cleaning of the GPU drivers, haven't gotten around to it yet.

EDIT: That did nothing and it looks like the issue's growing worse. Swapped over to IGP until I can call ASUS for a replacement.