GTX 1060 game crashes

[surya13]

Hello everyone

I'm having some issues with my GTX 1060 for a past few days. It was apparently normal in the past and suddenly one day, the trouble began.

I was playing Assassin's Creed Origins and the game started to stutter badly and within a few seconds I got some random colored artefacts on the screen and the game crashed. I opened the game again and within 2 minutes the game crashed in the same way.

I started the game once again and this time the game crashed and also I got vertical lines on the desktop. The lines covered the upper 3/4th of the screen. They were mainly pink, green and white.

Then I restarted my PC into safe mode and uninstalled the GPU drivers (391.07 if correct) manually. On restart, I got vertical yellow lines on the bootscreen. They were fewer and spaced widely when compared to the vertical lines that appeared earlier.

I restarted again and it seemed normal. I installed the drivers again (391.07 if I'm right) and I got the vertical lines again – 3/4th of the screen; white, pink, green.

Then I uninstalled the GPU drivers using DDU and booted. Without even the drivers, I got sparse green vertical lines.

I rebooted and experimented with the driver versions 388.xx (not sure) and 391.07 only to get similar findings.

The next day, I started my PC and to my surprise, it was alright. It had no signs of the tantrums that it threw at me earlier. It ran fine for the next 3 days with the driver version 388.xx.

Assassin's Creed Origins crashed once again and I uninstalled 388.xx using DDU and installed 397.55 but still the issues persisted.

Usually the game would crash within 5 minutes. Increasing the power limit and downclocking will allow about 10 minutes into the game. Lighter games (~50% GPU usage) will run for some time but no longer than 15 minutes. Furmark displays artefacts and crashes within 2 minutes.

Please suggest a fix as soon as possible.

Thanks

 

[Evvvvv]

Hello everyone

I'm having some issues with my GTX 1060 for a past few days. It was apparently normal in the past and suddenly one day, the trouble began.

I was playing Assassin's Creed Origins and the game started to stutter badly and within a few seconds I got some random colored artefacts on the screen and the game crashed. I opened the game again and within 2 minutes the game crashed in the same way.

I started the game once again and this time the game crashed and also I got vertical lines on the desktop. The lines covered the upper 3/4th of the screen. They were mainly pink, green and white.

Then I restarted my PC into safe mode and uninstalled the GPU drivers (391.07 if correct) manually. On restart, I got vertical yellow lines on the bootscreen. They were fewer and spaced widely when compared to the vertical lines that appeared earlier.

I restarted again and it seemed normal. I installed the drivers again (391.07 if I'm right) and I got the vertical lines again – 3/4th of the screen; white, pink, green.

Then I uninstalled the GPU drivers using DDU and booted. Without even the drivers, I got sparse green vertical lines.

I rebooted and experimented with the driver versions 388.xx (not sure) and 391.07 only to get similar findings.

The next day, I started my PC and to my surprise, it was alright. It had no signs of the tantrums that it threw at me earlier. It ran fine for the next 3 days with the driver version 388.xx.

Assassin's Creed Origins crashed once again and I uninstalled 388.xx using DDU and installed 397.55 but still the issues persisted.

Usually the game would crash within 5 minutes. Increasing the power limit and downclocking will allow about 10 minutes into the game. Lighter games (~50% GPU usage) will run for some time but no longer than 15 minutes. Furmark displays artefacts and crashes within 2 minutes.

Please suggest a fix as soon as possible.

Thanks

Do all the games crash?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

sounds like your GPU is dying. You could try a Bios update, that might help.

Best to try use an alternative GPU to test or if your have an IGPU, try that just to see.

You could also try swapping out cables, but TBH i suspect the GPU is on it's way, as you experienced the same thing with/without drivers, and updates.

 

[surya13]

Evvvvv
Do all the games crash?

Yes, all games crash but lighter games take longer to crash.

keith12
sounds like your GPU is dying

Maybe... But he's (1060) just 1½ years old
Can it be the PSU?

keith12
Best to try use an alternative GPU to test or if your have an IGPU, try that just to see.

iGPU seems fine

keith12
i suspect the GPU is on it's way, as you experienced the same thing with/without drivers, and updates.

The artefacts happend without the drivers earlier but now I get only crashes after GPU intensive applications. I don't have artefacts in the desktop.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

doubt it's the PSU, as that wouldn't cause on screen artefacts. You could always try out another PSU to be sure. But I din't think it will help.

Given it's only 1.5 years old, you would think it would still be fine. But its still possible a GPU will fail.

Try monitoring the GPU with HWMon, see what the temps are. It could be the thermal paste or fan isn't working on the GPU, and as it heats up (but can't cool down) may be the cause of the artefacts.

You will need to do some testing/observation to be sure. But, I would lean towards the GPU, specially as the IGPU works, and you've also ruled out the cabling too.

 

[surya13]

I forgot to mention the events before the first crash. I was playing ACO and the power (mains) went off. I had backup power supply (UPS) and I Alt-Tabbed out of the game and hibernated the PC using shutdown -h -t 00 command in cmd. After the power got restored (after 5-10 mins) I turned on the PC from hibernate, maximized ACO from the taskbar and BOOM — stutter, artefacts, crash. So I was thinking of the PSU.

About testing with another PSU, it is not easy in my place to get a quality PSU for testing purposes. I may ask one of my friends but he has exams and it will take some time (2-3 weeks).

I have monitored the GPU temps, power and they seem to be fine.

Is it recommended to take my GPU out and keep it out to prevent further damage?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

okay, that's all kinda a little weird. Okay, so if you had a power out and no UPS, then I would say it could have been a potential short or surge somewhere, But given you had a UPS running, that just doesn't really add up.

I genuinely don't believe it's the PSU. But I can't rule that out for you unless you can swap it out to test. With that said, everything still points at the GPU. If you can get any low end PCIe GPU to try, that would rule out the mobo/GPU socket too.

If the card is only 1.5 years old then it should be covered under warranty. Maybe try RMA it and see how that goes.

Of course, I appreciate that it's not easy to just 'pick up' a PSU to test. Its the same for all of us unless one happens to be loaded, and just drop 100 bucks to be sure!

Sorry, I only just picked up on the fact that the artefacts have gone, and you're getting game crashes. But just to be clear, you don't get artefacts on the desktop, but do in gaming? or no, and all artefacts are gone?

 

[surya13]

Maybe I'll try my old GT610 and see how it does. Its midnight here and I'll update my findings with the 610 once done.

About the artefacts, the desktop artefacts are gone. In game artefacts are also almost gone I guess. But with Furmark, I do get noticable artefacts.

 

[surya13]

A few pictures of the artefacts

https://imgur.com/a/kAyYgQp

Sometimes the artefacts are much worse, covering the entire hole of the donut and squares of about 1×1 cm size all over the screen.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Yeah, i've seen it before on one or two of my own falling. not identical, obviously, but very similar.

I'm sorry to say, and wish it wasn't so, but after everything you've told me - the nature of the artefacts - the circumstances as you described them happening - the solutions you've tried - it really points to the GPU dying.

Try the Bios update if you haven't, and as a last resort you could try a Windows re-install, to be absolutely sure.

Best thing is to try RMA it and/or get a new GPU, or swap it out with something else to make sure it's not the mobo/socket.

 

[surya13]

I removed the GPU and found the PCIE contacts were dirty. Has it got anything to do with my problem?

https://imgur.com/a/3jfcTCw

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

That looks like a little bit of corrosion to me, particularly to the right hand side of the pic! Are you sure it's dirt? Try taking it off with a dry cloth. I'm not sure if you'd want to use rubbing alcohol to clean it though, but it may help. Just make sure to let it dry sufficiently. If it's corrosion, then yes, I could imagine that might be problematic. Someone with more of an engineering background could be more specific about that though.

If the GPU contacts are like that, it's possible the socket is full of gunk. Give it a good lash of a can of compressed air and clean that baby out.

 

[surya13]

I've cleaned it with alcohol but it did not solve the issue. I haven't cleaned the socket though.

I ran ACO from another hard disk (different version of Windows) and it ran for some time (<10 min) without crashing but i got bored and closed the game. Not sure if it would've crashed after some time if I hadn't close it. I'll check today and post.

 

[surya13]

Been quite busy for a while.

Seems my 1060 is dead

I've given it for repair/replacement under warranty.

Will update after getting it fixed or replaced.

 

[pooggy]

I had similar problem including those artifacts that are many colorful tiny squares on screen.
Doing MEMtest also showed many errors and the reported RAM memory was decreaing from 8GB to 2GB.
I was prepard to send the computer to a fix including a chance the PSU is the problem and including a chance i need to replace the graphics card but.... just before all that i installed Windows 10 (i was on win7 before that) and surprisingly all problems were gone not to say that win10 use less RAM(better optimised?) on same game (PUBG).

Just in case i have upgraded RAM from 8GB to 16GB and everyhing works just fine.
I read that RAM errors can cause all sorts of strange problems that can escalate with time.

Regarding those artifacts, i had several few cases with few of them but game didnt crash so i'm already preparing myself for buying new graphics card including new QHD monitor.

One more thing to mention is before that problem started, while cleaning computer filters, it fell and hit the floor.
So maybe your computer experienced some trauma while power shut down.

 

[surya13]

No pooggy, it was a hardware issue – a dead GPU. No software troubleshooting will work.

 

[surya13]

keith12 thanks for the help man. Got my replacement card today. Works fine with drivers 397.55.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Result Happy gaming