[Solved] Colored Pixels mid game and on start up

[cozmonat]

So the problem started a couple weeks ago. I was playing a game and everything was going fine graphically. Suddenly my entire screen becomes colored pixels of varying sizes and color and the sound messes up too. Like sometimes the audio will just become this annoying hum, other times it will repeat the last thing I heard before the freeze or crash whatever it is. So the problem started happening more frequent.

Then it started happening on system start up. The motherboard start screens and all the black screens are fine and the windows logo and the windows login page are fine, but as soon as it starts to load my desktop it does the pixel screen thing and I have to restart.

The thing is I experience no other signs of anything being wrong until it suddenly locks up and does the colored pixels and messed up audio.

If anyone has an idea of what might be wrong, your help would be much appreciated.

I'm on Windows 7 64bit
Nvidia 780i motherboard
8 GB Ram
Nvidia 280 GTX 1GB
1TB HDD

 

[omnisome]

Try it with another monitor if possible, if nothing seems wrong then it's a dead screen. If not; you may have a dead card. Have you got the latest drivers, what are the temperatures like and have you cleaned your hardware recently? I have one, what we call "stuck pixel(s)" on my own screen.

 

[cozmonat]

The screen works fine. Also the audio gets messed up also at the same time. If it was the screen I don't think it would have any effect on the audio.

Which makes me think it's a dead or dying card. But I'm not convinced it's the video card, because it works just fine until it randomly decides not to. Also, if it was the video, would it still effect the audio? I would think that the picture would get messed up but the audio would be fine.

 

[wolfram23]

Have you even opened up your case and cleaned it all out? And especially, take the cover off your GPU and blow compressed air through the heat sink fins? Because it could definitely be a heat issue.

 

[cozmonat]

Yeah. I've opened it up and cleaned out all the dust and everything.

 

[daship]

You card is dead. Try the oven trick if you want to try to save it. I had a 8800GT that did the same thing, the oven trick got me about one more month, and now its dead. Just got a 5770 today and all is well.

 

[cozmonat]

You card is dead. Try the oven trick if you want to try to save it. I had a 8800GT that did the same thing, the oven trick got me about one more month, and now its dead. Just got a 5770 today and all is well.

A dead video card would effect the sound as well? Also sometimes I can play games without any graphical issues and without the pixel screen of death crash thing.

 

[daship]

Yes, you either have a dying gpu, or a dying PSU, but the symptoms are the exact ones I had.

Try to run furmark burn in for 10 mins if it crashs its probably GPU.

 

[cozmonat]

How hot should a GPU be running during furmark? I had it going for less than 2 minutes and it got up to the high 70s C if not low 80s C.

 

[wolfram23]

Low 80s isn't bad. Over 90C and I'd start to get concerned.

 

[cozmonat]

I just switched my GTX 280 out for my GTX 8800. I'll let you all know if the problem goes away.

EDIT: The problem is fixed! Thanks for all the help. It was the graphics card.

 

[cozmonat]

Best answer selected by cozmonat.