Krish931

Did this, and the lines disappeared, and then reappeared later. I haven't tried another display yet; will try and do so later tonight.

Display's built-in self test (BIST) perhaps? Usually finishes in under a minute and you can use your laptop as usual after that, right?

Starting this morning, I've been seeing these weird gray horizontal lines running across the bottom half of the display, close to the lower bezel. Immediate first thought on seeing it was burn-in, but then it vanished for a while, only to return a bit later. I looked up the Dell support page to see if there's anything that I could do short of repair/replacement (laptop's been out of warranty for a little under a year now), and they suggested a display built-in self test the moment I start up the machine. Did the whole cycle, booted up, logged in, no gray lines for about 20 minutes, and then it returned. I'm not inclined to think that this is burn in (no ghost icons or anything recognizable). I will say that, as a result of the pandemic and my work at uni, I've had the laptop stay on from morning to night (the display turns off of course), and I do game a fair deal. I've enclosed a video of the problem I'm facing (I'm sorry for it being vertical). If anyone has any ideas or has faced this issue before, please do tell me what I can or should do to sort it out. Laptop: Dell G7 17 7790, i7 9750H, RTX 2060, 1080p display. Thanks! Update (1800 German Time): the lines slowly faded out the longer I left the screen on. I'm thoroughly confused now @_@ Update 2 (1850 German Time): yeah they're back again. VID_20210203_160715.mp4

So this is actually one big problem split into several smaller ones. I have no clue what or why this happened, but I can recount the sequence of events leading up to this misery. Chronologically here's what happened: 1. Ordered new Samsung 850Pro 128GB SSD - delivered yesterday - installed and configured without a hitch - working fine; 2. I'm an architecture student and use several CAD programs like Revit and ArchiCAD for my design work, besides PS and InDesign for the presentation and layout making. Yesterday, after installing the SSD, I uninstall and reinstall ArchiCAD on the SSD to leverage performance benefits (if any) - work continues; 3. Have to render a plan at 1920x1080, using the integrated Cinema4D renderer that comes inbuilt in ArchiCAD 18 - render begins - medium settings for everything - around 15 minutes in, ArchiCAD freezes (nothing new, keeps happening, fix is to kill process in taskmgr and restart ArchiCAD) - did so, tried rendering again - Bam! BSOD (system_service_exception); 4. Reboot and run sfc /scannow on elevated command prompt - greeted with windows resource protection finding corrupt files and being unable to fix - restarted in safe mode with command prompt and tried again - same result - ran DISM - same result; 5. *slightly uneasy now* - try rebooting normally to save data - here's where all hell broke loose: got past screen that prompts hitting Del or F8 to enter BIOS (don't remember what that's called) and stops at motherboard logo with rotating dots. 6. Half an hour gone by, still no boot. 7. *panic sets in* - desperation caused me to try and retrieve my data using a live Ubuntu DVD lying around and changing boot orders to CD/DVD drive first. Didn't work (obviously); 8. *major panic now* - found original Windows 8.1 disc - reinstalled Windows 8 on SSD after formatting it - using that presently - managed to retrieve data on the mechanical drives and backed it up online and on an external drive; 9. *tears of joy replaced by fury* - found partition on which Windows 10 was installed - Accessible? yes. Retrieved data? yes. Formatted drive in a fit of rage? Absolutely....maybe not the best of idea; 10. Windows 8.1 on now. So far no BSOD, or crash or anything. Did BSOD (or even self restart for god alone knows what reason) while ArchiCAD was on (got my eyes on you you piece of shit software); So now here are my queries: a. What the hell happened!? b. What can I do to prevent this from happening again? c. ArchiCAD seems to be behind this. Could it be a corrupted installation that wrecked the system files somehow? (forgive the dumb question but I really don't know how to ask this) d. The windows 8.1 disc I used, plus the key, were used to install an original copy of windows on this desktop when I assembled it - this was then upgraded to Windows 10 on the same key, which is now gone. Can this key be retrieved somehow and used to activate the windows 8.1 I'm using now, considering it's still me using it, same microsoft account and same desktop, just a different hard drive (SSD actually)? Any help will be appreciated to the point of eternal thank yous (and a drink if I'm fortunate enough to ever meet you in person).

UPDATE : So I opened up the case and was cleaning out the dust from the components, when I decided, for whatever reason to try and swap the positions of both the cards after a bit of cleaning. I did so, cleaned up whatever I could and fired up the system. Lo and behold, both cards are now running at x16 in SLI I suppose sometimes the best fix is to just clean up the parts in your build Here are some screenshots. Hope this helps anyone with the same problem.

Okay. I can breathe easy now. Thanks for your time. Much appreciated

I am able to enable SLI yes. And if it's a software hiccup as you said, then I suppose it should be alright. But then again, do you know why two separate software could be reading it the same way? Cause then it would lead me to believe what you stated before that it's probably changing the config to save power. Does that mean that it's only when the GPUs are under load that it kind of 'switches' to an x16-x16 config? Forgive me for sounding so jittery but this has been bugging me for the past two days now. Thanks again for your replies

The motherboard has 4 PCIe 2.0 x16 slots, based on what I read in the manual, of which it says two run at 'dual x16/x16 mode', while the others run 'at x4 mode, compatible with PCIe x1 and x4 devices'. It goes on to say that in SLI, use slots number _1 and _3, which I have done. Edit : I've attached a photo of the motherboard manual, if it helps.

Okay so I'm currently running an AMD system. Specs are an ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 mobo (AMD 990FX/SB950 Chipset), FX-8350 CPU, Dual Zotac GTX970s in SLI, 16 gigs of memory, a Corsiar CX750W power supply. I built this system a couple of months back (my first build), and I've been getting pretty solid performance, so I didn't really think much about any potential, for lack to a better word, discrepencies, in this build. The question I have stems from an article I read about the FX-8350 and the 990FX chipset two days ago (link given below). Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, AMD's 990FX chipset has 40 PCIe lanes, of which 38 are usable, which means that ideally, if I'm using two GPUs in SLI, both should run at x16. Now, the problem I am facing is, one of my 970s is running at full x16, whereas the other, which should run at x16 if I'm correct, is running only at x4. I am absolutely unaware of why this could happen. And while I'm not complaining about the performance I'm getting from my rig, I still feel a bit perturbed knowing that if both GPUs run at x16, I may stand to benefit from it, rather than the current x16-x4 configuration they're running at at the moment. Any help on resolving this will be greatly appreciated. Oh and this is the link to the article I read http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-fx-8350-processor-review,4.html And here are some screenshots I took that may help elaborate my query. Thanks