Weird squares show up

[pandapoodle]

I am not 100% that this is a graphics card issue but it's my only guess so far.

Basically I left my computer on for 8 hours and came back to strange squares floating around on websites and other applications. If I hovered over some hyperlinks the squares would move around and such.
Caught an example at the top of this page:

When I swapped tabs back and fourth they disappeared.


Specs:
Windows 7 64-bit
i5-2500 CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz 4 Cores
16 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

 

[animemangamer]

I recall some cases in which these artifacts are caused by keeping your PC @ a very high overclock state for long periods of time and the main culprit seems to be the VRM being overclocked too high. If you're currently overclocked you can try resetting/dialing down back to normal speeds and it should fix the problem otherwise it may be a different issue.

 

[7664stefan]

They way I remember these artefacts to happen is either a too high overclock of your GPU, or a general VRAM issue also pointing on your GTX 970. Thus if you GPU is running at default settings, most likely VRAM might be damaged requiring a soon replacement.

 

[pandapoodle]

Thanks for the replies!

- There should be no overclocking to my knowledge. But to be sure, is this something I can check myself or at least somehow reset to factory settings?

- Is there some way of diagnosing the VRAM on graphics cards?