Gigabyte GTX 570 flickering

[Tank]

So I built this new system 2 weeks ago, and in the last week I have been experiencing small flickering and driver crashes.

I used driver cleaner to get rid of all things to do with this card, and installed the latest drivers ( Forceware 275.33)

Since doing this this morning I have noticed the flickering is almost gone. It has happened once in the last 4 hours now, this was during a game session. So far, it has not happened on the desktop yet. This morning it was every 30 seconds on the desktop AND in game.

GPU is running very cool, both side panels have been off since I built it 2 weeks ago, MSI Afterburner registers 31 Celcius for the GPU right now.

What is a good way to stress test this card to make sure it is not the card itself? I think it is a driver issue...I HOPE it is a driver issue.

Thank you.

 

[dividebyzero]

Probably the easiest stability check is to use Furmark, and use GPU-Z and/or Afterburner to monitor voltages/temps

See attached screenshot of what the whole thing looks like.

You're looking for artifacts on/around the the Furry doughnut and large fluctuations in voltages, as well as high temps (GPU and VRM)

 

[Tank]

Ran the test for the last 30 minutes, noticed no defects of any kind around the fuzzy doughnut.

Fan Speed at 45%
GPU Temp maxed at 55 Celsius, never went higher.
VDDC = 0.949V

This card stays very cool. Idling it is around 31 degrees, under 60% load it reached 55 degrees in a hot room, so that's pretty darn good.

Maybe it's a driver issue? I installed the latest from Nvidia this morning, and so far I have noticed better performance in my desktop. Before this morning my windows taskbar would have corruption in it, like seeing remnants of another window and stuff like that, so far, it hasn't happened now, fingers crossed.

 

[Tank]

Is there any way to test the memory of the videocard other than the tests I already did?

 

[Rabbit01]

Found this: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=79311

 

[dividebyzero]

You could try the F@H memory tester (based on Memtest), or a frame buffer intensive game (i.e. Crysis -1 not 2).

 

[Tank]

Ok, so I have run every test everyone has suggested here, and the card has passed all of them with 0 errors.

Can I take this to the bank that the videocard is ok, and maybe it is another problem? It is only one game that crashes and shows flickering, Farming Simulator 2011. This game has known issues with crashing, so that makes me feel a little bit better.

The only other problem I see is my windows taskbar. I will be browsing and than randomly my start icon on the lower left side disappears and turns white, showing a part of a window that was previously open. This could be corruption in my username or maybe my OS installation, not?

I built this system 2 weeks ago and I have already had a faulty power supply, returned for a new one, and a faulty hard drive, returned for a new one, both of these were brand new with 0 hours on them, and high grade parts too. PSU is a Corsair AX850 Gold, and hard drive was a WD Caviar black 500GB.

 

[Tank]

Also, the weird thing that's happening, usually there is a colored icon beside the forum topics on this forum, the icon is no longer colored for me, one of them is, but the others are grey and white.