Right so earlier this year I managed to build my first system. It has been running fine and its worked despite the lack of graphical performance. A few days ago I was bored and decided to clean the system since I don't clean it often but I had no cans of air. I took off the side panel, went at the fan blades with a cleaning wipe, and used a hair dryer to blow dust out. I figured it'd be fine but like a day later I'm playing Forza Horizon 4 and artifacts appear. I dismiss it as a minor bug and continue playing. It gets worse. There is coloured dots that look like glitter with a bloom effect and white pixels devouring my display. I close the game and the system runs fine with no artifacting. Maybe its just forza I thought. A while later it had gotten even worse. Now the screen flickers in game alongside the artifacts, the menu in forza has horrendous groups of black pixels. I thought I probably had Afterburner running one of my OC profiles so I opened it and to my surprise it was running at base clock. I tried underclocking it and overclocking it and nothing helped. I ran Kombuster and there were many artifacts. I troubleshooted drivers and all of the software problems it could be and nothing solved the issue. I swapped pci slots from a gen 3 slot to the gen 2 slot and there was still artifacting. I swapped displays, same thing, so it must be the GPU. I got it brand new a few months ago so it shouldn't have randomly broken and then my friend informed me that hair dryers create static build up. Is it possible I have damaged my GPU with static discharge while I was cleaning it, and is there anything else I could try before I lay my graphics card to rest. With the current situation with graphic cards It'll be a struggle to find a new graphics card that isn't out of stock or massively overpriced. I already payed twice MSRP for this card! I'll do anything to save it! The issue is mainly present in forza but also with general use of the system eg discord emote menu and server lists, in ETS2, OMSI 2, and slightly in some youtube videos too, although it is very minimal.
Update: After running an OCCT VRAM test I have came to the conclusion that the memory chip on my video card is experiencing hardware failure and the most I can do to solve the issue is to buy a new card. It would be possible to replace the chip but would take a lot of work and experience, or money.
View: https://imgur.com/O2yrAO2
View: https://imgur.com/2rupsmI
View: https://imgur.com/Ac2OJHg
Ryzen 5 3600 (4.2ghz oc)
ASUS GT1030 2g
2x8gb Corsair Vengeance RGB 4200mhz XMP RAM
MSI B450 Carbon Pro Max
Update: After running an OCCT VRAM test I have came to the conclusion that the memory chip on my video card is experiencing hardware failure and the most I can do to solve the issue is to buy a new card. It would be possible to replace the chip but would take a lot of work and experience, or money.
View: https://imgur.com/O2yrAO2
View: https://imgur.com/2rupsmI
View: https://imgur.com/Ac2OJHg
Ryzen 5 3600 (4.2ghz oc)
ASUS GT1030 2g
2x8gb Corsair Vengeance RGB 4200mhz XMP RAM
MSI B450 Carbon Pro Max
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