White square GPU artefacts in games - screenshot examples included

[chriscore361]

Hi there, long time lurker first time poster

Since about a week or two back, I have consistently been seeing graphics artefacts in most games (examples below). The GPU is a pretty much brand new Zotac GTX 1070 (between one and two months old, bought new from Amazon).

The square 'noise' artefacts you can see in the screenshots below flicker around quickly, and seem more noticable when something is moving.

I've tried lowering the graphics settings, and updating GPU drivers and factory reset on the NVidia configuration for the GPU.
The funny thing is, it doesn't seem to affect all games equally. For example, Rocket League is playable with only minor graphical disruption, while Overwatch is much more heavily artefacted and will usually crash after only a few minutes with the error 'Your rendering device has been lost'. I've also noticed this same artefacting in other areas, like inside the chat bubbles in Facebook messenger. I haven't found a game that is not affected in any way at all yet.

I expect that most likely the GPU is in some way defective, but wanted to get some other opinions before going through the hassle of trying to send it back. One last thing, Dxdiag shows no errors.

Thanks!

 

[sonnieharker]

Have you overclocked your gpu in any way?

 

[DavidVioMC]

Have you tried re-sitting the GPU in PCIe slot? Have you also tried different connectors? Such as VGA? You could also try un-doing the screw that holds the GPU to the case, I had the issue myself where over tighting that screw caused my GPU to push in the slot too far and all colours where different shades of purple, so if I open a picture of a rainbow, all the colours would be different shades of purple. Do you also have the card overclocked? Sometimes too high of a overclock can cause white stripes.

 

[chriscore361]

Have you overclocked your gpu in any way?

Nope, I haven't overclocked the GPU at all.

Have you tried re-sitting the GPU in PCIe slot? Have you also tried different connectors? Such as VGA? You could also try un-doing the screw that holds the GPU to the case, I had the issue myself where over tighting that screw caused my GPU to push in the slot too far and all colours where different shades of purple, so if I open a picture of a rainbow, all the colours would be different shades of purple. Do you also have the card overclocked? Sometimes too high of a overclock can cause white stripes.

Hi David, cheers for the reply.

I'll try re-seating - to be fair I hadn't done that yet!
Due to how predictable the artefacting is, I think it is unlikely to be the display cable, but it's worth changing as you say if not only to eliminate another possibility, so I'll give that a go too.

Forgot to mention in my original post, no overclocking, the card is just as it came from the manufacturer.

Thanks

 

[chriscore361]

Just re-seated the card (in the other bay, as my board supports SLI), no change unfortunately 🙁
I'll try out another display cable on Monday once I can get hold of a displayport cable (my old display only supports VGA, displayport and DVI).

Cheers

 

[13thmonkey]

underclock gpu memory, if that works screen shot issues and return it.

 

[DavidVioMC]

Since it effects different games differently, it may actually be a faulty GPU since it seems to be involved with the load on GPU, just like 13thmonkey said, try under-clocking it, if that works, return it, if it doesn't, might be a faulty cable or connector which would be strange but possible. If you want to be double sure, bring the GPU to local IT shop and ask them to test the GPU for you, if it's a good shop, they shouldn't charge you a penny, this would eliminate your hardware as the issue.

 

[sonnieharker]

You bought the gpu from amazon, this means that you can very easily ask for a new to be delivered, and you send back the old one