Artifacts during boot-up

Hello!

First of all, I'm not sure if this should be in the hardware or software section of the forum. A mod can move it if necessary.

Now to the problem: When I boot up my PC artifacts appear during the Windows 7 loading screen, screen resolution becomes the smallest available and I can't log onto windows. Sounds like a problem in Windows, no? Am I wrong in thinking that a problem in Windows would happen every time I boot it? Because, in fact the artifacts don't always show up - only the first time I boot the computer for some time.

For example: I get home from school and the computer has been off the entire day. I turn it on and artifacts appear so I restart it and the artifacts are gone and everything works perfectly. Then, after being on the computer for entire night until I go to bed, then school and then back home and I turn it on the artifacts are back. Yet again, I restart it and it works.

My own guess is that some driver has become corrupt in Windows, but I have no idea which and I'd rather not reformat the HDD unless needed. Could the graphic card be the culprit as well? Please give me some advice on how to tackle this problem.

Specs are the following:
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965
RAM: 3072M
Graphic card: EVGA GTX460 FTW edition 1GB
Mobo: Asus M2N68-AM

The temps are rather high I believe, but not catastrophic. 48ish C for the CPU and 56ish C for the graphic card. (I've been told it's quite a hot card) Also, this is in idle.

Is there anything else you could possibly need?

 

Greetings, Magnosian.

You might open your case, make sure any fans mounted on the card are indeed working when you power up. Also make sure any heatsinks are clear and clean.

You didn't mention any power supply specs - make sure your PSU is beefy enough to handle a high-end system.

It's always been my understanding that video card 'artefacts' are usually produced by overclocking. Since the EVGA GTX 460 FTW is a factory-overclocked card, you might browse some of the EVGA and nVidia forums (or post a question here in the Overclocking Forum), maybe find some related issues.

As far as the drivers: I doubt that this is a Windows problem. If the issues are software-related, I would lean towards EVGA or nVidia drivers being the culprit. Should be easy enough to ascertain if there are any driver and/or BIOS updates available.

 

The fans are working, no weird noises or anything.

My PSU is OCZ ModXstream Pro 600W. I've had it for a while and there was nothing wrong, it just started happening recently, a couple of weeks ago.

I've already looked around some for an answer but I suppose I should look some more.

 

Another shot: does that ASUS board have onboard graphics? If so, you could try the onboard for troubleshooting, see if your symptoms change.

For that matter, make sure onboard video is disabled in BIOS when the EVGA card is being used - conflicts can occur when onboard video is enabled and a PCI, PCI-E or AGP card is installed.

 

Yes, it does infact have onboard graphics. But I am not, for some reason, able to choose whether to enable or disable it in BIOS. Trust me, I've looked everywhere. The only thing close to it was how the computer prioritize PCIE, PCI and some other thing which I unfortunately can't remember the name of. It was already set to PCIE > PCI > XXX.

I could however, put my old graphic card in and try. But since the artifacts only appear at (what seems like) random I'm not sure if I could rule the graphic card out by doing that.

 

Did the card come with the EVGA Precision software? If so, you might be able to adjust the clocks and fan speeds, see if you notice a difference.

You're right, though: intermittent problems can be the hardest to troubleshoot. Be careful that you don't get off on a wrong track.

 

Yeah, I have it installed but I haven't touched it. Still, comes back to the fact that I'm not sure when I'll be able to notice a difference. Should I just lower the speed and have it at that for a couple of days to see if there's a difference?

 

I would. Again: artefacts are often associated with overclocking. If you could throttle back for a while, you might be able to verify if this is your issue.

 

Alright then, I've lowered the clocks from 850, 1700, 2000 to 675, 1350, 1800. Is that enough or should I go even lower? These are the standard speeds for the 460.

 

Leave them there for a while - if those are the stock speeds, you should be able to function normally. Run the machine through a couple of reboots, see if the glitches go away or not.

 

Rebooted a few times, three or four. No artifacts. But this was the case when using the other speeds as well. :/

 

What are your temp readings looking like, now that you've reduced the clock speeds?

Everything else working well with the machine? If so, I'd lean towards running it for a while with the reduced settings, put the system through some paces, see if anything crops up.

 

One other thought: what type of monitor are you using? Outside possibility that this could be a cold-start monitor problem.

 

One last straw before I have to go to work IRL: you might consider booting to a live Linux environment (Mint and Ubuntu are a couple of good ones), see if there are any changes in symptoms.

Hang in there - I'm sure some of the gurus here will jump on board with anything we've missed.

 

First of all, thanks a lot for your help. I'll be sure to stick around.

The temps have barely changed, a ~3 C decrease in temperature. And yes, everything works fine. I play games such as Bad Company 2, Warcraft 3, CoD: Modern Warfare 2 etc. fine on it. No glitches whatsoever.

I'm currently using two monitors, one 17-inch monitor. L1710B is the name of it. The other one is an old CRT monitor from Philips - 107T5.

I'll see what I can do regarding booting another OS, I'll get back to you.

 

Shameful bump.

Also, I'll be installing Ubuntu when I get home from school in roughly 9 hours.

 

Aw, can't edit my last post, sorry for three posts in a row.

I'm running Ubuntu right now, no problems whatsoever. I'll be restarting the computer a few times switching between Ubuntu and Windows to see if there's any difference.

 

No problem.

The main reason for suggesting the Linux is to try to determine if this is a Windows problem or some hardware issue, so test everything. Let us know how things look.

 

Well, besides the fact that I'm having a hard time figuring Ubuntu out everything is working. Same with Windows, no glitches yet.

Now that I think of it, there are some weird graphical glitches when booting Ubuntu which disappear within a second. Like, red and green lines running across the screen then suddenly disappear as the graphical parts of Ubuntu load. Is that normal behaviour when booting Ubuntu?

 

Alright, a couple of days have passed and the problem persists. Now it even appears when selecting Windows 7 or Ubuntu. Is it too soon to blame the graphics card?

 

That would be my best guess. Did you ever try the onboard graphics? You might consider uninstalling the GTX460 (both software-wise and physically) and hooking up to the motherboard, see if your symptoms change.

I know you said you don't seem to have a BIOS option to enable/disable onboard graphics, but if you take the PCI card out, the mobo might switch automatically.

 

I'll do that tonight, right now I'm a bit busy.

 

Okay, I'm running on the integrated card now, will wait until monday until I switch. Then two days have passed and I'd really like to play some games.

Since before the underclock the artifacts appeared every day and aftewards it happened within two days I believe two days should do the work. Or should I keep it even longer?

 

Two days should be sufficient, as long as you run your regular reboot routine.

I'm not 100% convinced that this is an issue with your EVGA card, but testing with the onboard graphics should give us some more information.

 

Heh, this is going nowhere it seems. Had no problems without the card, put it back in now and everything is still working fine. But I'm sure that this peace won't last for long. :/

 

And there it happened again. :S

 

Curiouser and curiouser.

Maybe I am leaning towards the GTX being the bad guy.

Looking back - did you ever try the CRT? If so, did you notice if you got the same symptoms?

 

Well, no, as it only starts when the log-on screen appears.