So I have an NVidia GTX560Ti (specifically [url=http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1123/pg1/gigabyte-gtx-560-ti-super-overclock-graphics-card-review-introduction.html]this 'Super OC'd' one[/url]) and ever since I got it every few weeks I get errant pixels on the screen which vary in colour and flicker between intended colour and the miscolouring. This issue resolves itself when I uninstall the card's drivers and install them again. Ok so that's not great but I can just about live with it although I do get other sporadic artifacting in the odd game every now and then.
So this is where it gets fun, yesterday I installed NVidia's 280.26 (upgraded from 275.33) and today I had three driver crashes when starting YouTube videos and such. So, I rolled back to 275.33, I figured this would solve it but I had one more crash, following this my random pixel bug showed itself again (I reinstalled 275.33 a couple of days ago so I wasn't expecting it) and my windows started flickering all over the place and the screen not refreshing properly when dragging windows around. Right after [i]that[/i] the entire machine locked up and I had to hard reboot. Since rebooting, I've had no problems so maybe it's fixed.
Basically I'm asking for any advice over the myriad of issues I've had and whether it's related to the factory overclock on my card.
Thanks in advance!
Most of your symptoms don't immediately point at the graphics card, although if it is your video card, it's probably physically broken and you'll need it replaced.
I'd first check to make sure your video cable isn't damaged (I had a similar artifacting problem when a pin was bent in the connector). Then check your RAM with memtest86, this would explain the freezing and instability of the computer.
For the driver crashes, it is actually a really common problem among windows users; nobody has a firm answer on how to solve it. I've learned that dusting out my pc greatly increases the time between driver crashes, and moving to linux removes the problem entirely. Too bad nobody makes games for linux.
It sounds like it's an unstable overclock, I'm sure Gigabyte will replace it immediately if you contact them. If you don't feel like going through the trouble, you could up your voltage a little, or lower your clockspeeds and see if that resolves the issue.
I agree with both of the answers, and the graphics card shouldn't be affecting overall system stability.
And this is true, driver crashes are way too common for windows, though being a laptop user this usually occurs at higher temperatures, e.g. when running an Nvidia PhysX water simulation.
I've had a similar problem with the 570 SOC.
It's to do with Window's TDR behavior - basically it force-terminates and restarts the GPU drivers if the stop for a second.
Mine was caused by the NVIDIA drivers conflicting with the Realtek drivers on my motherboard.
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