[SOLVED] Large circular spots on screen

[Grendymen]

Hello,
I was gaming today when suddenly massive circular spots start flickering all over my screen. I closed out of the game and my desktop looked normal, so I went to relaunch the game. However, the loading screen animation also was having issues. Rather than the large circles, smaller squares of mostly red as well as other colors were flickering all over. I closed out of the game again and realized the issue was affecting everything, although to a lesser degree outside of games. There are random colored and sometimes black pixels all over the screen. Sometimes scrolling or moving my mouse over them will cause them to appear or disappear. I already tried to do a clean install of my GPU drivers and I know it's not caused by my monitor/cord since my secondary monitor is having the same issues. I haven't OC'ed the card and I doubt it's overheating since it usually is around 60 degrees when gaming and never goes past 70. The temps were mostly in the 50s today when this. happened. I'm worried it's caused by faulty VRAM and I'll have to RMA but I'm not sure. Either way, I'm glad it's still under warranty at least.
Thanks

https://imgur.com/WopjGat

https://imgur.com/f2068QX

Specs:
MSI B250 Gaming M3
i7 7700k
EVGA ftw3 ultra 3070ti
16 gigs DDR4
EVGA G3 550W

 

[InvalidError]

I'm going to guess corrupted textures.

A 550W PSU can be a bit on the tight side for a 3070Ti depending on the quality and the earlier G-series aren't super good, so the glitches may be caused by not-quite-sufficiently-stable PSU output. Try removing all non-essential hardware and possibly under-clocking the CPU and GPU to see if lightening the load on the PSU makes the glitches go away.

 

[Grendymen]

I'm going to guess corrupted textures.

A 550W PSU can be a bit on the tight side for a 3070Ti depending on the quality and the earlier G-series aren't super good, so the glitches may be caused by not-quite-sufficiently-stable PSU output. Try removing all non-essential hardware and possibly under-clocking the CPU and GPU to see if lightening the load on the PSU makes the glitches go away.

I know 550W is less than what is recommended (I'm in the process of buying parts to upgrade) but it has been working fine for the past 3 months. I keep the graphics settings lower than what a 3070ti can handle to help draw less power and I am even experiencing issues when the card is not under a heavy load. Just surfing the web and watching youtube videos causes a few colored pixels to show up and flicker. I now know the issue comes from my GPU since unplugging it and using integrated graphics works normally.

 

[InvalidError]

I know 550W is less than what is recommended (I'm in the process of buying parts to upgrade) but it has been working fine for the past 3 months.

Having a PSU that is frequently operating from the edge of its seat wears its capacitors out faster. Likewise, dirtier power from a PSU that is barely adequate means the GPU's VRM has to work harder to keep its outputs stable and wears its capacitors out faster.

The reason why it "worked fine for three months" may very well be that it took three months of your PSU and GPU wearing each other out for obvious problems to appear.

 

[Grendymen]

Having a PSU that is frequently operating from the edge of its seat wears its capacitors out faster. Likewise, dirtier power from a PSU that is barely adequate means the GPU's VRM has to work harder to keep its outputs stable and wears its capacitors out faster.

The reason why it "worked fine for three months" may very well be that it took three months of your PSU and GPU wearing each other out for obvious problems to appear.

Ah I see, I guess that makes sense. What do you recommend I do now? Will a new PSU solve the issue or are the capacitors on the GPU permanently damaged?

 

[InvalidError]

Ah I see, I guess that makes sense. What do you recommend I do now? Will a new PSU solve the issue or are the capacitors on the GPU permanently damaged?

Finding out whether a more adequate high quality PSU might solve the issue or not was the purpose of trying to under-clock things further than you already have to make-do with 550W.

If no amount of under-clocking makes the glitches go away, then there is a good chance the GPU is defective and a PSU upgrade won't help much.