Question Graphical problems accross the entire OS

[MattCer]

Hello,
I've had this super strange issue with my computer for about 3 months now. It seems like it's gradually getting worse every day. It is quite complex but I'll try to make it as short as possible.

3 months ago, I noticed strange screen tearing in games that appeared only in fullscreen mode (with and without VSync on) and fullscreen windowed. This was a sudden change that happened overnight. At the time, the tearing was only present a couple of hours after startup, then got better and even disappeared after the system had been running for a while (the next day it reappeared though). There were days when it didn't appear at all but then it showed up again.
Here is an example of what it looked like in slowmotion:

View: https://youtu.be/qfiZDGTPgTk

I tried switching GPUs (I am using a GTX 1080ti and I swapped it with a GTX970 I had lying around) and the result was the same.

After some time, the tearing in games disappeared completely, however, I started noticing it in other programs and parts of the OS as well. Here is an example showing some tearing on certain parts of Premiere Pro:

View: https://youtu.be/Q67wnMEpeQw
- the selected area in the top right corner should have disappeared at once.
And here is an example of a chrome context menu:

View: https://youtu.be/RhwFp3rpQgU

It also showed up in windows file explorer etc.

2 weeks ago I started having real problems with Adobe programs I use for work.
1) The program monitor (the part where you can see the video you're working on) in Premiere would sometimes turn gray and stay that way until I restarted the whole program. (I could still scrub the timeline and hear the audio when I pressed play)

2) Photoshop canvas would sometimes get "stuck" in a similar way:

3) Some parts of Premiere would sometimes turn black:

Today, while rendering a video in Pr Pro, both of my monitors turned black for 30 seconds and I got an error message that the render failed:

Also there are frequent black boxes appearing in windows, icons missing etc. (weird stuff):

I also feel that the performance of the whole system has worsened. Some system animations are laggy, I get less FPS in games, photoshop crashes a lot etc.

I hope I haven't left out any important issues I've been having and now let's get to the stuff I've already tried to troubleshoot this issue:

• I've been chatting with NVidia support since the begining and they've come to the conclusion that they couldn't help me any further and our communication ended a couple of weeks ago
• I've tried:

- reinstalling the drivers (full reinstall with DDU uninstall)
- trying out different hdmi/displayport cables
- swapping the GPU for another one
- trying out a different PCIE slot
- the famous sfc/scannow crap
- GPU STRESS TEST - didn't notice any issues with it (neither glitches nor crashes)
- RAM memory test in windows
- updating BIOS to the latest version
- REINSTALLING WINDOWS completely


SPECS & important stuff:

• this issue started when I was on Windows 10 Pro 21H1 & I've updated the system multiple times since then - currently I am on Windows 11 Pro 21H2 (build 22000.194)
• none of my components have been overclocked and the GPU has never been used for crypto mining etc (just normal gaming + adobe programs)
• the temperature of the GPU didn't change much and the maximum temperature I've seen is 80°C.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900K CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz
RAM: 32,0 GB HyperX 2666MHz DDR4 CL13 Predator
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GAMING X 11G (latest studio drivers, tried out gaming drivers as well)
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte Aorus Z390 PRO (latest bios)
PSU: Seasonic Focus Plus 850W Gold

Monitors:
- BenQ PD2700U (4k, displayport, 60Hz, no G-SYNC)
- Philips 276E8VJSB (4k, hdmi, 60Hz, no G-SYNC)


What could be causing these issues? The warranty on most components is expiring very soon (in 1-2 months) and I'd like to find out what's wrong before it's too late.
Can the motherboard be faulty? If so, I am super unlucky with them as it would be a second motherboard that died on me.
Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[helper800]

I would try reseating the GPU in a different PCIe slot, swapping in a know good PSU, run a memtest, and reseat all PSU cables in PC to make sure they are firmly placed. Do you use any liquid cooling? When your programs get black or gray screens have you tried the Control + Shift + Windows Key + B command to reload the video driver? Download HWinfo and check for any weirdly high temperatures on any components.

 

[MattCer]

I would try reseating the GPU in a different PCIe slot, swapping in a know good PSU, run a memtest, and reseat all PSU cables in PC to make sure they are firmly placed. Do you use any liquid cooling? When your programs get black or gray screens have you tried the Control + Shift + Windows Key + B command to reload the video driver? Download HWinfo and check for any weirdly high temperatures on any components.

Hello, thank you for your response! I've tried using a different PCIe slot as well as running a memory test in windows and the result was the same. I'll be replacing the PSU with a different one tomorrow to see whether that fixes the issue. I've never used a liquid cooler with this system and I haven't noticed too high temperatures on any of the components. Thank you for suggesting the keyboard shortcut to reload the video driver, I'll try it out when the black screens reappear.

 

[froggy8]

Hello,
I've had this super strange issue with my computer for about 3 months now. It seems like it's gradually getting worse every day. It is quite complex but I'll try to make it as short as possible.

3 months ago, I noticed strange screen tearing in games that appeared only in fullscreen mode (with and without VSync on) and fullscreen windowed. This was a sudden change that happened overnight. At the time, the tearing was only present a couple of hours after startup, then got better and even disappeared after the system had been running for a while (the next day it reappeared though). There were days when it didn't appear at all but then it showed up again.
Here is an example of what it looked like in slowmotion:

View: https://youtu.be/qfiZDGTPgTk

I tried switching GPUs (I am using a GTX 1080ti and I swapped it with a GTX970 I had lying around) and the result was the same.

After some time, the tearing in games disappeared completely, however, I started noticing it in other programs and parts of the OS as well. Here is an example showing some tearing on certain parts of Premiere Pro:

View: https://youtu.be/Q67wnMEpeQw
- the selected area in the top right corner should have disappeared at once.
And here is an example of a chrome context menu:

View: https://youtu.be/RhwFp3rpQgU

It also showed up in windows file explorer etc.

2 weeks ago I started having real problems with Adobe programs I use for work.
1) The program monitor (the part where you can see the video you're working on) in Premiere would sometimes turn gray and stay that way until I restarted the whole program. (I could still scrub the timeline and hear the audio when I pressed play)

2) Photoshop canvas would sometimes get "stuck" in a similar way:

3) Some parts of Premiere would sometimes turn black:

Today, while rendering a video in Pr Pro, both of my monitors turned black for 30 seconds and I got an error message that the render failed:

Also there are frequent black boxes appearing in windows, icons missing etc. (weird stuff):

I also feel that the performance of the whole system has worsened. Some system animations are laggy, I get less FPS in games, photoshop crashes a lot etc.

I hope I haven't left out any important issues I've been having and now let's get to the stuff I've already tried to troubleshoot this issue:

• I've been chatting with NVidia support since the begining and they've come to the conclusion that they couldn't help me any further and our communication ended a couple of weeks ago
• I've tried:

- reinstalling the drivers (full reinstall with DDU uninstall)
- trying out different hdmi/displayport cables
- swapping the GPU for another one
- trying out a different PCIE slot
- the famous sfc/scannow crap
- GPU STRESS TEST - didn't notice any issues with it (neither glitches nor crashes)
- RAM memory test in windows
- updating BIOS to the latest version
- REINSTALLING WINDOWS completely


SPECS & important stuff:

• this issue started when I was on Windows 10 Pro 21H1 & I've updated the system multiple times since then - currently I am on Windows 11 Pro 21H2 (build 22000.194)
• none of my components have been overclocked and the GPU has never been used for crypto mining etc (just normal gaming + adobe programs)
• the temperature of the GPU didn't change much and the maximum temperature I've seen is 80°C.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900K CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz
RAM: 32,0 GB HyperX 2666MHz DDR4 CL13 Predator
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GAMING X 11G (latest studio drivers, tried out gaming drivers as well)
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte Aorus Z390 PRO (latest bios)
PSU: Seasonic Focus Plus 850W Gold

Monitors:
- BenQ PD2700U (4k, displayport, 60Hz, no G-SYNC)
- Philips 276E8VJSB (4k, hdmi, 60Hz, no G-SYNC)


What could be causing these issues? The warranty on most components is expiring very soon (in 1-2 months) and I'd like to find out what's wrong before it's too late.
Can the motherboard be faulty? If so, I am super unlucky with them as it would be a second motherboard that died on me.
Any help would be much appreciated!

to me that sounds like the motherboard could be warped slightly causing some graphical issues.

 

[MattCer]

to me that sounds like the motherboard could be warped slightly causing some graphical issues.

It's such a bummer that I cannot buy the same motherboard again.. There are like 2 motherboards (each under 100€) for sale in my country for 9900k. Anyway, if the issue presists with a new power supply, is there a possibility that the cpu is causing all this? Or would you say that it is the motherboard for sure? There's still warranty for a month for both the cpu and the mobo.. should I make an rma claim for both of them?

 

[Greeko85]

A bit out of left field but how is gpu usage under idle conditions? Everything seems normal?

 

[MattCer]

A bit out of left field but how is gpu usage under idle conditions? Everything seems normal?

Yeah, seems fine to me (jumps between 0-5%). However, I found more examples of weird graphical behaviour in Task Manager:

View: https://youtu.be/duxitjKArwY
(This isn't normal, is it?)

 

[froggy8]

It's such a bummer that I cannot buy the same motherboard again.. There are like 2 motherboards (each under 100€) for sale in my country for 9900k. Anyway, if the issue presists with a new power supply, is there a possibility that the cpu is causing all this? Or would you say that it is the motherboard for sure? There's still warranty for a month for both the cpu and the mobo.. should I make an rma claim for both of them?

personally i would rma both as they are still under warranty. if the problem persist then at least we know its not the motherboard or the cpu. we can go from there then.

 

[helper800]

If I had to guess it was one over the other I would guess it was the motherboard because they are more likely to have issues or break than a CPU, however, it is certainly possible it is the CPU. They do occasionally break just enough to still boot and cause issues.

 

[MattCer]

If I had to guess it was one over the other I would guess it was the motherboard because they are more likely to have issues or break than a CPU, however, it is certainly possible it is the CPU. They do occasionally break just enough to still boot and cause issues.

So I changed the PSU on Monday - didn't improve anything.
Today, I swapped the motherboard for a brand new one and did a clean install of Windows 11. Can't really tell whether the issue was fixed or not just yet, however, I feel like it wasn't. A few minutes after windows was installed, the screens went white for about 30 seconds (file explorer crashed, presumably) and then the desktop reappeared again. This happened when there was nothing else going on. Also, After Effects stops responding when I close it every single time.

Could the CPU be faulty? Could it be the SSD the system is running on? I've checked its health using crystal disk info and it showed something like 98% (about 100TBW, the lifespan should be 1200TBW)

 

[MattCer]

I also get these errors a lot:

 

[helper800]

I also get these errors a lot:

Do you have a way of testing the system with a known good graphics card? Same for the CPU, do you have a know good CPU for that socket to test?

 

[MattCer]

Do you have a way of testing the system with a known good graphics card? Same for the CPU, do you have a know good CPU for that socket to test?

I have tested it previously with a gpu that I know is good. I don't have any spare CPU so the only way I could test it is to buy it and then return it within 14 days.
Could it be a faulty SSD?

 

[helper800]

Could it be a faulty SSD?

Not very likely...