- Mar 16, 2014
- 4
- 0
- 4,510
This is my first time posting to this board, after searching many numerous similar threads on this subject. I did my first scratch build nearly a year ago, and have had a very reliable and stable machine for nearly that entire year. Recently my machine has been encountering quite a few blue screens (many when no application is running and I am away from the computer), and green pixlelation and artifacts that dance around the very black and dark colors of the screen have been appearing randomly. Before I delve too much into the issue, here was my original build:
NZXT Phantom case, just the fans that came with it
AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6Ghz 8 core
MSI 990XA-GD55 MOBO
4 Sticks of 4GB SDRAM DDR3 1600 Corsair Vengeance (16GB total)
1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDD
MSI r7850 Twin Frozr 2GB Video Card
BFG 650W Power Supply (From an earlier build)
CD-ROM from earlier HP tower
Full Retail Windows 7 64bit
Using my old HP 22" monitor with 1680 native resolution, HDMI in
As stated, all components played nicely with each other through the first year. I checked for updated drivers every once in a while, kept the machine clean and open to plenty of air. I hardly game that much anymore, but the hardest game I would ever put the PC through was Diablo 3, which for the most part has always been a walk in the park for this tower. I am an engineer by trade, so I do run Solidworks on this machine alot, which is by far the most straining program I use. Even though Solidworks is usually what I am on the computer for, I maybe only on it for a few combined hours a week. (this is my home PC, and I try not to take my work home with me)
somewhere in the middle of the machine working great, I noticed the stock AMG CPU fan was louder than I wanted, so I installed a simple PCCooler Silenx 120mm Performa CPU cooler (heat sink with heat pipes and fan), which worked wonders to run quietly and keep the CPU nice and cool.
The first thing I started noticing was the green artifacts and pixels on the screen, which was a mere annoyance but didnt hinder my use of anything. Eventually teh pixleation would start to grow and sometimes freeze the deisplay and slowly brighten to a total whiteout of the screen. Sometimes CTR ALT DEL would bring teh display back to normal when the CTR ALT DEL screen would pop up, and I could switch back to my desktop and it would be normal. Other times I would be forced to restart the PC. Although I was never intuitive enough to try and take a screen capture or switch the monitor on and off at this time, I did check GPU temps when issues arrised, and saw only highs around 47*C. Surely enough, stability with the machine becasme unstable with random blue screens, ranging from "memory managemnt" to "system service exceptions." I do not know enough about how to diagnose blue screen info, so that is about all I can reflect on it.
My steps to try and self repair the issue went in this order:
1. I immediately though my graphics card was on its way out, so I bought a simple XFX Radeon R7 240 card to test out and see if the issue was rectified. WIth a proper driver uninstall and the correct updated driver for the new card installed, the issue still continued.
2. I removed all my old drivers, and installed the newest versions direct from the manufacture's websites. No change in stability or pixelation.
3. I did a complete re-install of windows 7, clearing all partitions on my disk and at the same time re-seating all components in the case to make sure everything was connected and secure. (I had been having some common issues with some of the windows update's not installing or hanging upon install, which I thought might be conflicting with other items) Stability seemed to be worse as I kept blue screening when trying to install the first 100+ batch of windows updates, but when I manually installed the needed updates I still had pixelation and artifacts.
4. Despite my desire to, I headed to Tiger Direct (there is a store local to be) to purchase a power supply, as I thought it may be culprit to weakening since it was the oldest component in the build. After talking to a rep there who seemed pretty knowledgeable, he told me to switch PCI E slots with my graphics card to see if it resolves anything. He had issues with one PCI E slot on an MSI board before, and switching slots resolved the issue for him. He also persuaded me to believe the MOBO might be culprit, so I walked out with only a new Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 board and thermal paste, in case the PCI-E slot swap didn't work. I swapped the graphics card to my only other available slot, and re installed drivers once again. Although it did seem a bit more stable, the issue still continued.
5. I went ahead and installed the new Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 board, completely cleaning and visually checking all components on the rebuild. All dust was removed, all fans were free to rotate and balanced, and everything looked fine. I rebuilt the tower with the new board, and replaced the cheap R7 graphics card with my original r7850 since I ruled it out as not being the issue. I am now on about an entire day with the new MOBO, and no blue screens whatsoever. I did my driver dance as usual, no catalyst control center (just the graphics drivers), and of course did another clean install of windows 7 while being selective about the windows updates I installed. The machine seems to be 900x more stable, but I have noticed very slight green pixel dancing once so far, but only for a short time, and only that one time. I am trying to keep an eye on temps, and at the time of typing I am at:
AVG 6*C on all 8 cores (core temp widget)
23*C on Radeon Card with fan about 30% (300Mhz/150Mhz @ 0.82V)
Although I am very happy that machine seems stable and is working well, I am still very bummed out about the green pixels. I have only seen it once, but im sure they will be back. Solidworks is very GPU straining, so Im sure I will be encouraging the pixelation once I re-install it and start using it again.
My plans are to:
1. Test the memory on the machine with one of the memory stress tests free ware you can downlaod
2. Try and use another monitor with DVI (my HP only has HDMI and VGA inputs)
3. Keep monitoring temps, and try to take a screen shot if I see pixles again. I still need to see if the pixleation is rendered by the graphics card, or possibly through the cable/monitor.
Are there any other suggestions? I hate to replace more components, but I am tempted to simply buy all new memory, a new power supply, and use my TV as monitor.
NZXT Phantom case, just the fans that came with it
AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6Ghz 8 core
MSI 990XA-GD55 MOBO
4 Sticks of 4GB SDRAM DDR3 1600 Corsair Vengeance (16GB total)
1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDD
MSI r7850 Twin Frozr 2GB Video Card
BFG 650W Power Supply (From an earlier build)
CD-ROM from earlier HP tower
Full Retail Windows 7 64bit
Using my old HP 22" monitor with 1680 native resolution, HDMI in
As stated, all components played nicely with each other through the first year. I checked for updated drivers every once in a while, kept the machine clean and open to plenty of air. I hardly game that much anymore, but the hardest game I would ever put the PC through was Diablo 3, which for the most part has always been a walk in the park for this tower. I am an engineer by trade, so I do run Solidworks on this machine alot, which is by far the most straining program I use. Even though Solidworks is usually what I am on the computer for, I maybe only on it for a few combined hours a week. (this is my home PC, and I try not to take my work home with me)
somewhere in the middle of the machine working great, I noticed the stock AMG CPU fan was louder than I wanted, so I installed a simple PCCooler Silenx 120mm Performa CPU cooler (heat sink with heat pipes and fan), which worked wonders to run quietly and keep the CPU nice and cool.
The first thing I started noticing was the green artifacts and pixels on the screen, which was a mere annoyance but didnt hinder my use of anything. Eventually teh pixleation would start to grow and sometimes freeze the deisplay and slowly brighten to a total whiteout of the screen. Sometimes CTR ALT DEL would bring teh display back to normal when the CTR ALT DEL screen would pop up, and I could switch back to my desktop and it would be normal. Other times I would be forced to restart the PC. Although I was never intuitive enough to try and take a screen capture or switch the monitor on and off at this time, I did check GPU temps when issues arrised, and saw only highs around 47*C. Surely enough, stability with the machine becasme unstable with random blue screens, ranging from "memory managemnt" to "system service exceptions." I do not know enough about how to diagnose blue screen info, so that is about all I can reflect on it.
My steps to try and self repair the issue went in this order:
1. I immediately though my graphics card was on its way out, so I bought a simple XFX Radeon R7 240 card to test out and see if the issue was rectified. WIth a proper driver uninstall and the correct updated driver for the new card installed, the issue still continued.
2. I removed all my old drivers, and installed the newest versions direct from the manufacture's websites. No change in stability or pixelation.
3. I did a complete re-install of windows 7, clearing all partitions on my disk and at the same time re-seating all components in the case to make sure everything was connected and secure. (I had been having some common issues with some of the windows update's not installing or hanging upon install, which I thought might be conflicting with other items) Stability seemed to be worse as I kept blue screening when trying to install the first 100+ batch of windows updates, but when I manually installed the needed updates I still had pixelation and artifacts.
4. Despite my desire to, I headed to Tiger Direct (there is a store local to be) to purchase a power supply, as I thought it may be culprit to weakening since it was the oldest component in the build. After talking to a rep there who seemed pretty knowledgeable, he told me to switch PCI E slots with my graphics card to see if it resolves anything. He had issues with one PCI E slot on an MSI board before, and switching slots resolved the issue for him. He also persuaded me to believe the MOBO might be culprit, so I walked out with only a new Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 board and thermal paste, in case the PCI-E slot swap didn't work. I swapped the graphics card to my only other available slot, and re installed drivers once again. Although it did seem a bit more stable, the issue still continued.
5. I went ahead and installed the new Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 board, completely cleaning and visually checking all components on the rebuild. All dust was removed, all fans were free to rotate and balanced, and everything looked fine. I rebuilt the tower with the new board, and replaced the cheap R7 graphics card with my original r7850 since I ruled it out as not being the issue. I am now on about an entire day with the new MOBO, and no blue screens whatsoever. I did my driver dance as usual, no catalyst control center (just the graphics drivers), and of course did another clean install of windows 7 while being selective about the windows updates I installed. The machine seems to be 900x more stable, but I have noticed very slight green pixel dancing once so far, but only for a short time, and only that one time. I am trying to keep an eye on temps, and at the time of typing I am at:
AVG 6*C on all 8 cores (core temp widget)
23*C on Radeon Card with fan about 30% (300Mhz/150Mhz @ 0.82V)
Although I am very happy that machine seems stable and is working well, I am still very bummed out about the green pixels. I have only seen it once, but im sure they will be back. Solidworks is very GPU straining, so Im sure I will be encouraging the pixelation once I re-install it and start using it again.
My plans are to:
1. Test the memory on the machine with one of the memory stress tests free ware you can downlaod
2. Try and use another monitor with DVI (my HP only has HDMI and VGA inputs)
3. Keep monitoring temps, and try to take a screen shot if I see pixles again. I still need to see if the pixleation is rendered by the graphics card, or possibly through the cable/monitor.
Are there any other suggestions? I hate to replace more components, but I am tempted to simply buy all new memory, a new power supply, and use my TV as monitor.
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