Ehh, wtf did I do?

[zaneyard]

So I was playing H1Z1 and all the sudden my entire system powers off.
Tried to turn it back on, wouldn't go. Pulled my tower out and opened it up, unplugged some cables to the power supply, plugged it back in, system boots up.

When I get into windows I get all these blue vertical lines on the screen, flashing pixels, discolored shit.

Uninstalled, reinstalled drivers. No good.

Here's where it gets interesting, lower resolution makes it better. It's like a sliding scale of shit.

Low res

High res

Also, about every 30 seconds or so my monitor flips to completely black screen like I unplugged the cable and tells me that it's not the optimal resolution.

Did my graphics card take a shit? My first instinct was that the power supply died, but I suppose that the graphics card could shut the computer down if it shorted out or something?

If I had a graphics card laying around I'd swap it out to test, but I left my 4950 at home and there is no integrated video card on this motherboard.

What do you guys think?

[KarthXLR]

artifacting is usually a sign of a GPU problem, but I'm limited in this knowledge. I recommend signaling the Hek alarm.

[zaneyard]

artifacting is usually a sign of a GPU problem, but I'm limited in this knowledge. I recommend signaling the Hek alarm.

Yeah that's mostly what I'm thinking now. My options right now are order a decent graphics card for 40-80 dollars, or have my dad ship my old 4890 to me.

[CaffeinePowered]

Image isnt linking for some reason, but yea - artifacting is almost certainly a GPU problem. Do you have a temperature monitor for it? If you dont go get one and have it log the temps as you start playing again. You might be able to fix the issue with a new GPU fan or re-applying thermal paste.

[zaneyard]

my bad, I got the pictures off my phone and forgot that it was linked to their online host. Fixed some better examples anyway.

As far as temps go, I just booted it up and it's doing it. By the time I got Speedfan installed it was around 32C. Rocket League free mode brings it up to around 45C. H1Z1 brings it up to about 45 as well.

The rising temp didn't seem to make the game any worse.

There's a lot of flickering red dots and lines. Mostly on darker colors. There was a lot of vertical blue lines on white colors yesterday, but they've been replaced by the horizontal red ones now. Also noticing that my monitor isn't going blank the way it was yesterday.

[Mission Difficult]

my bad, I got the pictures off my phone and forgot that it was linked to their online host. Fixed some better examples anyway.

As far as temps go, I just booted it up and it's doing it. By the time I got Speedfan installed it was around 32C. Rocket League free mode brings it up to around 45C. H1Z1 brings it up to about 45 as well.

The rising temp didn't seem to make the game any worse.

There's a lot of flickering red dots and lines. Mostly on darker colors. There was a lot of vertical blue lines on white colors yesterday, but they've been replaced by the horizontal red ones now.

Seems like a bad GFX card to me. Maybe buy a card from a store that has a good return policy like Microcenter or Amazon just to check. If it doesn't fix it ship it back?

[zaneyard]

If I'm going to have to wait for shipping I think I'm just going to have my dad ship my old card over. Then I don't have to buy anything new for now. I anticipate a replacement will fix the problem, but I was seeing if anyone had this happen before and could think of a quick fix for me to try.

[Nitrous Oxide]

So I was playing H1Z1

Found your problem. 8)

[zaneyard]

we've actually been having a lot of fun playing battle royales.

[Nitrous Oxide]

we've actually been having a lot of fun playing battle royales.

It's a joke... I don't really give a damn, but SoE/Daybreak can go fuck themselves for ditching PS2 for yet another fucking zombie game. If you like it, do your thing. I don't care, I'm just salty at the devs. I'll leave now.

[WaR1761]

Just to rule it out, pull the card out dust it with canned air or if you have access to an air compressor. Reinstall it while making sure its seated in the PCI slot along with the correct power cables (Can always try other leads if you have them).

[zaneyard]

Yeah I did all that. It sure did smell like fresh electronics when I opened up my case.

[zaneyard]

4850 arrived: Was even worse. Tried HDMI on 6950 on roommates TV: crystal clear.

Monitor is dead? Gonna try to find a VGA cable to try on my laptop to confirm.

Bigger question is why did my computer lose power at the same time monitor possibly died? Didn't notice any power surge in the lighting or anything and I have everything on a grounded surge.

[Mission Difficult]

4850 arrived: Was even worse. Tried HDMI on 6950 on roommates TV: crystal clear.

Monitor is dead? Gonna try to find a VGA cable to try on my laptop to confirm.

Bigger question is why did my computer lose power at the same time monitor possibly died? Didn't notice any power surge in the lighting or anything and I have everything on a grounded surge.

Is there anything else plugged into the surge protector? I've heard of fans and stuff like that plugged into the same power strip as a computer causing power supply issues.

[zaneyard]

just monitor, computer and speakers

[FlyingMongoose]

Remember; surge protectors are not fool proof and isolated surges do happen on circuits for so many stupid reasons.

Your surge protector has a specific surge rating and it's possible you surpassed that, and just because your lights didn't flicker may just mean that your lights handle surges really well or they're not on the same circuit as what your stuff is plugged into.

[zaneyard]

Now that I think about it more I don't think my monitor is the problem. If I were to take a screenshot or stream on twitch or something and the screenshot shows the artifacting doesn't that rule out display issues? And if so, why did swapping graphics cards not change anything? Could the power supply be doing this?

disregard that, took a screenshot that looks really bad on my monitor, uploaded it and it looks fine on my phone.

[FlyingMongoose]

You try replacing the cable on the input/output giving you problems?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[zaneyard]

I'm considering the possibility that it was just the cable all along.

Got new monitor, came with HDMI and cables. Plugged HDMI into computer and it is good.
Plugged VGA into old monitor and laptop and it was good.
Plugged DVI into new monitor and computer and it seemed a little grainy, but no distortion.

Only thing else to consider is the actual port on the old monitor but I will have to get a new DVI cable to check.

Either way, I got a new monitor and if new cable fixes old monitor then I have dual monitors.

Still is weird to me the way that a possible bad display cable completely turned my computer off. I guess it possibly shorted for a second and the power supply turned off to avoid damaging the graphics card.

[FlyingMongoose]

They still run power... and power can surge.