[SOLVED] Graphics card artifacts when running at 4 kin less than 5 min

dalton2646

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Jul 30, 2014
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MOBO asus z370-e
Ram 48gb corsair vengeance
Cpu 8086 i7
GPU 1 Asus gtx 1080 ti 11gb (problem card)
Gpu 2 asus gtx 1060 6gb turbo
PSU evga gold 850

So my graphics card has me at wits end. After a few minutes of trying to play a game in 4k itll either artifact and crash or crash to black followed by a blue screen error for video scheduler error or something like that. However if i play the same game or one thats more graphically intense as long as its on 2k it will run fine without any hint of temps rising. the card itself was taken out and stress tested at a local computer repair place very recently with no issue found in the card itself, pc was dropped off for a unrelated reason but had them test the card while they had it. The card has been like this for some time but i thought it mightve been an issue with the driver or windows but both of those have had a fresh install within the last 2 days, along with this the card has also been taken out and reseated and had the power cables unplugged and plugged back in checking for a loose connection. am i missing something? what could be causing this error? thanks in advance for any help
 
Solution
My first thought is overheating VRM, this can cause weird artifacting and crashes. If the 1060 is hindering airflow it could be enough to stop a struggling cooler. With the age of a 1080Ti if it has not had the thermal paste changed the cooler could be less effective than it should be.

Chacko586

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I have heard that a bad power supply can cause GPU instability if the voltages fluctuate too much on the GPU DRAM which is the cause of the artifacting. I'm not an expert by any means, but have you tried swapping out the PSU with something else? Also, source another 1080ti from someone else if possible and see if the artifacts are replicated. But before you do that, try removing the second GPU and see what happens when you play 4K with only the problem card in the computer.
 

dalton2646

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unfortunately i dont have a spare psu or 1080 it test it in that manner, but i have switched the ports on the cable that powers the 1080. and ive also tested the 1080 in other slots to the same effect. whenever it does crash only the monitors drawing off of the 1080 are visually effected by the artifacts and crash until the pc shuts down. the 1060 is unaffected. ill have to test it without the 1060 installed and see what happens
 

dalton2646

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after running without the 1060 the 1080 is performing fine. i guess theres some kind of issue with either the 1060 or trying to run them both. any clue what could cause this
 
My first thought is overheating VRM, this can cause weird artifacting and crashes. If the 1060 is hindering airflow it could be enough to stop a struggling cooler. With the age of a 1080Ti if it has not had the thermal paste changed the cooler could be less effective than it should be.
 
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Solution

dalton2646

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even when crashing under load the 1080 never got above 75 even that was a spike holding around 65. the 1060 on the other hand when stress tested out of the system was hitting 80+ according to the repair guy. the 1060 was in a place where it could restrict airflow to the 1080 and it was likely not getting ideal air flow itself. could the 1060 overheating have caused these problems since it was largely running as a phyx dedicated card or just running a second monitor?
 
even when crashing under load the 1080 never got above 75 even that was a spike holding around 65. the 1060 on the other hand when stress tested out of the system was hitting 80+ according to the repair guy. the 1060 was in a place where it could restrict airflow to the 1080 and it was likely not getting ideal air flow itself. could the 1060 overheating have caused these problems since it was largely running as a phyx dedicated card or just running a second monitor?
The 1080Ti doesn’t have a temperature sensor in the VRAM as far as I know, only the gpu itself. It’s entirely possible for the VRAM to run much hotter than the gpu itself. Now this is just a guess but the point is the gpu temperature doesn’t tell you everything.
 

dalton2646

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just had the 1080 repeat the problem it was having before, taking the 1060 out didnt fix the problem maybe just delayed it if it helped at all so i was wrong on that note. is there any software to test the vram? since stress testing seems really inconsistent so far
 

dalton2646

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Why don't you just run the 1080? A dedicated phyx card has long been known to be a waste of power and resources, the 1080 would have no issues with either phyx or running dual monitors.

It's not uncommon for me to run more monitors than the 1080 supports in hdmi and displayport, and i had the 1060 laying around. whole thing ended up being faulty vram on the 1080 so i had to rma it