Random display artifacts

[nismo91]

I got a minor problem with my system. I highly doubt it is from the 9600GT card my friend give me. The symptom is: at random startup the screen will display artifacts, to be exact it actually looks like there are tiny glitters all over the screen randomly. and the display will shutoff intermittently.

always solved by a reboot. always. sometimes what i notice is, the fan is not as noisy as usual when startup, and the problem appear.

not a big deal, but getting quite irritating having to reboot to solve the problem. i've tried cleaning the card contact also of course clean the HSF and redo thermal gel.

anyone have any idea? and of course, drivers are 258.xx from nvidia web.

Core E6300 1.86, 3GB DDR2, 1000GB HDD, MSI 9600GT OC 512, LG L196WTQ 1440x900, AcBel 400W PSU.

P.S. never had any similar experience with my old 9500GT card.

 

[mailpup]

Are these artifacts displayed before and after Windows starts?

 

[Ritwik7]

Artifacts are usually caused due to overheating of the GPU. Ensure that the temps are in check. Also, is that PSU sufficient for the 9600GT?

 

[nismo91]

Are these artifacts displayed before and after Windows starts?

only after the 'starting windows' screen. never happened before that.

Artifacts are usually caused due to overheating of the GPU. Ensure that the temps are in check. Also, is that PSU sufficient for the 9600GT?

Temps are normal, never reach above 50*C when idle. in fact, it commonly happened after cold start. I think the PSU should be enough to handle 9600GT based on the amperage requirement on nvidia website.

okay im gonna attach a picture of it. it's rather hard to take a good picture because the size is tiny and the glitter is always moving.

 

[Ritwik7]

Are you having any issues when playing games or at other times? If the graphics card memory had gone bad I guess you would've seen random lines across the screen.

 

[nismo91]

hmm.. nope, never, no problem with this card except for this.. do you think it's driver problem? since it only appears on welcome screen and after. never occured in bios or even when windows is loading.

tried msi kombustor (furmark) for several minutes, no display anomalies, the temp only rise to about 69*C max, which should be fine considering room a/c is turned off.

 

[Ritwik7]

Then your card should be fine. Are you using the latest official nVidia drivers?

 

[nismo91]

thanks. yes i am, downloaded from nvidia website though, not the msi's drivers which contain slight modification probably designed for this card.

i hope this card doesn't die really soon, otherwise a system upgrade may be required sooner than planned

 

[nismo91]

after I uninstalled the drivers, reboot and reinstalled, it seems the problem disappears these 2 days. i'm not sure if this is the permanent fix, but i hope it is. that explains the 'in-windows-only' symptoms.