I think my GPU is broken? Freezing, crashing, etc

F

fobsternd

Posts: 15   +0
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770.
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 3.0ghz
Ram: 4gb DDR3

It all began when I was playing WoW today. At first the game would freeze for roughly 10-15secs, then the screen would black out twice. I mention twice because it seems that there is two shades of black. The initial blackout is not completely black, but has a slight contrast tint to it.

This issue occurred in intervals of about 30 secs apart. At one point, the graphics err...went 8-bit? It reminded me of what would happen when a game cartridge for the older consoles like snes went nuts. I took a screenshot of it:

http://img9.imageshack.us/i/gpuproblem.jpg/

After this, i decided to completely exit wow and began loading this screenshot up but my computer froze. It also froze completely at one point during the game and did not blackout. But that was only once.

I also got some brief message from my taskbar about "AMD recovery successful" or something along those lines. I began to suspect it was the processor, I'm leaning towards the GPU. I'll run some more diagnostic tests with MW2 at the moment and see if this problem would persist.

Could this issue be the same as the ones from Newegg's reviews for this gpU? I Remember reading the reviews as I was about to purchase this card and there were a few posts about their gpu not working properly with wow.

EDIT: After running 30mins of mw2, there were no problems. However, when I would stream a video, the similar issue arises. After the blackout, this is the message:

"Display Driver AMD driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered"
 
imo i would try this first try using a program like driversweeper and remove all AMD display drivers then just download the newest drivers for your card and install. Also note that lowering the clock speeds of the card in ati overdrive may help to as well as increasing the fan speed of the video card.
 
I have uninstalled all current drivers for my card and re-installed the latest driver from the amd/ati website last night. After rebooting, I was able to run WoW with no blackout issues.

This morning (actually right now), the freezing and blacking out issue came back as I tried to open firefox, and here i am again.

My gpu fan speed is on factory setting so I don't think it has anything to do with heating issues?
 
you turn on amd overdrive in Catalyst control center and raise the FAN speed to around 65 % or so and see if that helps by default they are set around 20% fan speed.
 
Sorry it took me 2 days to respond to you Klept. But I have just raised fan speed to 65%. I've been having 1 or 2 blackouts per day for the last few days so...I'll see if this works.
 
i hope it helps man i would hate if that were happening to me i just ordered a gtx 470 i hope its a good one :)
 
The blackscreens subsided completely. However, I have been noticing my wow gameplay choppier than usual...Like I would sorta skip around when I panel around with my mouse. I'm thinking my video card is broken somehow cuz my overall FPS is around 30-40 and that's low...
 
have you tried overclocking your cpu at all? the 5770 is not really a top end card i play with a 4850 and wow plays pretty good but can get choppy in org and the like wow is very cpu dependent relying on pure clock speed over multiple cores.
 
I dont think my cpu is overclocked.

The blackouts are occurring in MW2 now, bout every 5 minutes though. Doesn't completely crash the game either, but it does freeze up for 10-15 secs.
 
have you checked the temperatures? I've had countless problems regarding high temperatures when a processor/GPU is running at high temperatures it will slow itself down to prevent damage
 
I sent my video card out to gigabyte and this is what they told me:

"Our engineers tested the video card with no trouble found. The card was
stress tested under 3D Vantage, FurMark, and PassMark burn in tests with no
problems."

sooo...
 
i had same issue when i had gigabyte hd5770 running vista x64, when blackout unad driver has unexpeted stoped working shown in tray, after i once had to reinstall vista it completely was gone, dont knw why it was, in win7 never had that issue
 
fobsternd said:
I sent my video card out to gigabyte and this is what they told me:

"Our engineers tested the video card with no trouble found. The card was
stress tested under 3D Vantage, FurMark, and PassMark burn in tests with no
problems."

sooo...
Click to expand...

Funny that everybody seems to be referring to the GPU temperatures. My very first thoughts when I saw your screenshot is that your Northbridge is getting sloppy, not properly handling the RAM/VRAM (whatever) causing "renditions to clash"*.

*Pardon the poor translation.

If the GPU somehow goes belly-up, it usually reports this to the PC, more specifically the BIOS. As you didn't mention any POST's, I assumed that the card was working, but your motherboard is not properly handling the signals. As Gigabyte mentioned, your GPU seems to be working like a charm.

so....

- What motherboard are you using?
- How old is it approximately?

I suspect that your NB has either broken or been corrupted.

Edit:
Forgot to mention, this might also be an OS issue. Hopefully not though.
 
Lokalaskurar said:
Funny that everybody seems to be referring to the GPU temperatures. My very first thoughts when I saw your screenshot is that your Northbridge is getting sloppy, not properly handling the RAM/VRAM (whatever) causing "renditions to clash"*.

*Pardon the poor translation.

If the GPU somehow goes belly-up, it usually reports this to the PC, more specifically the BIOS. As you didn't mention any POST's, I assumed that the card was working, but your motherboard is not properly handling the signals. As Gigabyte mentioned, your GPU seems to be working like a charm.

so....

- What motherboard are you using?
- How old is it approximately?

I suspect that your NB has either broken or been corrupted.

Edit:
Forgot to mention, this might also be an OS issue. Hopefully not though.
Click to expand...

I'm using an asus m4a87td mobo
got it the same time i got my gpu
 
Maybe I should have clarified; is it more than a year old or so?

Further:
Just wanted to mention: the CPU is among the very toughest components inside a PC = would probably not go ka-putte any time soon. (besides, that would cause complete system failure in 99% of the time)

Well, we can rule out the graphics card. As this is a rather expensive mobo, I'm suggesting that you should check your memory first.

I hate to suggest this, but are you familiar with MemTest?

I think that you should check your memory stick(s) for errors. Look up the user 'Mark56' -- he often suggests a very good guide on how to check your memory.

Note: checking your RAM is very time consuming, we're talking 20+ hours. But it might rule out the RAM at least, and the only culprit left would be the mobo, then.
 
woot

actually im looking for a nice external HDD then suddenly this post caught my attention..

well first thing.. don't cling to the card, how will you know if the card causing the issue when your not using your internal vga(video adapter)

if it works with the internal stuff then its about time for the infamous "RMA"

have it exchange if you want! haha..

bestbuy has it.! ^^
 
Lokalaskurar said:
Maybe I should have clarified; is it more than a year old or so?

Further:
Just wanted to mention: the CPU is among the very toughest components inside a PC = would probably not go ka-putte any time soon. (besides, that would cause complete system failure in 99% of the time)

Well, we can rule out the graphics card. As this is a rather expensive mobo, I'm suggesting that you should check your memory first.

I hate to suggest this, but are you familiar with MemTest?

I think that you should check your memory stick(s) for errors. Look up the user 'Mark56' -- he often suggests a very good guide on how to check your memory.

Note: checking your RAM is very time consuming, we're talking 20+ hours. But it might rule out the RAM at least, and the only culprit left would be the mobo, then.
Click to expand...

It is not a year old, I've had it since October...so about 10 months. I'll give the MemTest a shot.

My friend theorized that it could be a problem with the GPU's memory.
 
fobsternd said:
My friend theorized that it could be a problem with the GPU's memory.
Click to expand...

Ah, then your friend gave an interesting theory. It could very well be the GPU memory as well.

To test this, swap the current graphics card for another one (if possible) and try to replicate the error. If non-existent, then your friend gave a very interesting idea.
 
Lokalaskurar said:
Ah, then your friend gave an interesting theory. It could very well be the GPU memory as well.

To test this, swap the current graphics card for another one (if possible) and try to replicate the error. If non-existent, then your friend gave a very interesting idea.
Click to expand...

Yea I'll try swapping my GPU with his. He has the GTX 460

I went to the Catalyst Control Center for ATI video cards which lets me do stuff with the gpu and tried a bunch of things..

1) I disabled AMD OverDrive, but the freezing and blackouts still persist.

2) I also checked the fan speed and it was at 65% by default.

3) I also tried Auto-tuning which supposedly determines the recommended over-clocked graphics processor and memory speeds, but this didn't solve the problem either.

My current settings are as follows:

Clock Setting: 950 MHz
Memory Clock Settings: 1245 MHz

This is getting annoying now because I can't even watch a youtube video sometimes. Video window just turns green after the freezing and "successful recovery"
 
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