I keep getting weird white lines on my screen every now and then

[DatRay]

For multiple months I've had an issue where I've randomly been getting white lines on the screen for a split second. They go away instantly and happen quite rarely so it hasn't really bothered me much, but I always wonder why they happen. It happened while browsing the web, playing games, checking discord. The lines are thin and short and usually appear in a completely random spot on the screen, and one time I remember having a line that was straight but it had a little part that went downwards from it (so it looked like the letter L). I only recently found a way to consistently reproduce the issue, so here is a video of it happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svqjlES7VrI

I'm not sure if that's the bug I have or just an issue with the game that looks similar, but either way those little white lines that flash on the screen for a split second look exactly like what I'm getting randomly.

I also have another issue where if I hover over an app on my main monitor, my second monitor will have weird white strips on it going accross the whole screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z1NiErVspk

I have DisplayPort for my main monitor and HDMI for my second one so there is no way it's signal interference. I also ran a ton of benchmarks and the only issue I had is grainy reflections and shadow flickering in unigine heaven, but no actual artifacts at all. I don't have an OC or anything and I recently reinstalled windows too, and the issue persisted even after that. I also thought I saw a weird flash today on the screen while playing Battlefront 2. The weird thing is that usually if a graphics card is dying, artifacts appear continuously, but in my case they appear only one at a time and once every couple of hours, and on some days not at all. I reinstalled drivers, DDU'd and nothing seems to have any effect. And I also can't find anyone else with this issue which is what makes it even more annoying, so I would really appreciate any help.

 

[DatRay]

I just want to know if this is a sign of GPU hardware failure or not.

[DatRay]

Someone help pls

[DatRay]

Omg guys come on other posts get a reply in like the first hour and I've been waiting for like 2 days+  -_-

Someone pls help...

[DatRay]

I'm gonna keep bumping the post until someone replies ._.

[Tannah]

Going to need a bit more to go with this.

What Graphics Card are you using, whats your motherboard, whats your CPU, what wattage is your PSU, What and how much Ram are you using? If your videocard has multiple PCIE power connectors are you Daisy chaining one power connector, Or are you using 2 independent power connectors to power your GPU?

Have you installed the latest windows 10 updates? See: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-pushes-emergency-fix-for-windows-10-kb5001330-gaming-issues/

https://www.windowslatest.com/2021/04/24/microsoft-issues-emergency-windows-10-april-fix-for-performance-issues/

 

Have you installed the latest Stable Motherboard Bios?

Are you Overclocking your Computer in anyway?

 

 

[DatRay]

22 minutes ago, Tannah said:

Going to need a bit more to go with this.

What Graphics Card are you using, whats your motherboard, whats your CPU, what wattage is your PSU, What and how much Ram are you using? If your videocard has multiple PCIE power connectors are you Daisy chaining one power connector, Or are you using 2 independent power connectors to power your GPU?

Have you installed the latest windows 10 updates? See: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-pushes-emergency-fix-for-windows-10-kb5001330-gaming-issues/

https://www.windowslatest.com/2021/04/24/microsoft-issues-emergency-windows-10-april-fix-for-performance-issues/

 

Have you installed the latest Stable Motherboard Bios?

Are you Overclocking your Computer in anyway?

 

rtx 2070 mini by zotac, asus TUF gaming B550m-plus motherboard, amd ryzen 7 3700x, 650W Seasonic S12iii PSU, 32gb of corsair CL16 ram. My GPU has one 4-pin connector and one 2-pin connector for power. So 6 pins in total but the PSU cable splits into one 2-pin and one 4-pin at the end. I have the latest windows 10 updates at all times, I installed the latest motherboard bios last year so I don't know if it's still the latest one and the only overclock I have is the XMP overclock for the ram that the motherboard does automatically by enabling it in the BIOS and also a "CPU boost enhancer" or something like that which I also enabled in the BIOS settings. My main worry is for the graphics card though, especially now due to the shortage I really wouldn't want it to fail. Is there any way I could have damaged it with benchmarks? I remember that the first ever line I got on the screen was about a week after I ran furmark because I was having shadow flickering and grainy reflections in unigine heaven so I wanted to test the gpu. The temperatures never got out of control though.

[Tannah]

I understand your concern, but diagnosing a odd problems like this you have to look at the entire computer. As its all connected and what might seem unrelated can have a serious impact.

Ok now that I know what you have I can make some recommendations. Try each in order, I've tried to order them from easiest to hardest.

 

1-Update your AMD Chipset Drivers from AMD's site: https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b550

2-Update and make sure your running the latest driver from nVidia's site, don't use the driver from Zotac's site. https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

 

3-Looking at: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/All-series/TUF-GAMING-B550M-PLUS/HelpDesk_BIOS/

There are indeed newer Bios's but I personally would not go beyond BIOS Version 1202, as with the newer AMD Agesa odd things have been happening. It's a bit of a mess right now, so I would stick to the last revision before they added the 5000 series CPU's compatibility as your running a 3000 series chip. They will sort it out just have to give them time. Also with Asus make sure you use the flashback function when upgrading the BIOS, just to avoid issues.

 

4-Another thing you can try, to rule out issues is move the Videocard to the second PCIE slot (if there is enough room), and see if your problem persists.

 

Try those things and see if you have any difference.

 

[DatRay]

1 hour ago, Tannah said:

I understand your concern, but diagnosing a odd problems like this you have to look at the entire computer. As its all connected and what might seem unrelated can have a serious impact.

Ok now that I know what you have I can make some recommendations. Try each in order, I've tried to order them from easiest to hardest.

 

1-Update your AMD Chipset Drivers from AMD's site: https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b550

2-Update and make sure your running the latest driver from nVidia's site, don't use the driver from Zotac's site. https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

 

3-Looking at: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/All-series/TUF-GAMING-B550M-PLUS/HelpDesk_BIOS/

There are indeed newer Bios's but I personally would not go beyond BIOS Version 1202, as with the newer AMD Agesa odd things have been happening. It's a bit of a mess right now, so I would stick to the last revision before they added the 5000 series CPU's compatibility as your running a 3000 series chip. They will sort it out just have to give them time. Also with Asus make sure you use the flashback function when upgrading the BIOS, just to avoid issues.

 

4-Another thing you can try, to rule out issues is move the Videocard to the second PCIE slot (if there is enough room), and see if your problem persists.

 

Try those things and see if you have any difference.

 

1 - done

2 - already done before

3 - done but before I read your reply so it's the latest version, not 1202

4 - I can't because there isn't enough room

After doing these things, I still have this problem

and I am yet to have experienced the other, rarely occuring small white lines (I'll have to wait like 2+ weeks to confirm if it does or doesn't happen anymore because it happens super rarely anyway). Also, I've just confirmed that the bug I showed in the first video is caused by the game since it happens on my laptop too, but it still looks exactly like the small white line issue I get super rarely so it's still a good example.

[Tannah]

I'm not sure about the Minecraft video, as I do not personally play Minecraft, it looks like a texture glitch in the game, If it wasn't pointed out I wouldn't think anything of it.

 

The only other things I can really suggest is:

-In setting type in Game Mode. Try turning off Game Mode.

-Turn off the Xbox Game Bar.

Both those have been noted to cause weird problems to blue screens, but It depends on the game your playing.

 

-Under Display settings click on Graphics settings, try toggling on Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling.

 

-Set: "Choose an app to set preference" to desktop app

 

-Try playing games in full screen, rather than windowed. that may help.

 

Otherwise try a few other games and see if you can see find graphical issues. Maybe try Valheim its quite popular right now, and not too expensive. It seems to have a good player base so it should be easy to compare to what other people are seeing to find glitches?

 

After this we start getting into the, try a fresh reinstall of the latest windows 10, get a UPS territory.

[Stockholmes]

I'd wager to say it's a hardware issue, if you have already reinstalled windows and the lines still persist. Nothing much more you can do than to RMA the card, if it still has warranty left.

[Tannah]

2 hours ago, Stockholmes said:

I'd wager to say it's a hardware issue, if you have already reinstalled windows and the lines still persist. Nothing much more you can do than to RMA the card, if it still has warranty left.

Quite possible. Its defiantly worth reaching out to Zotac, Even just to see what they say. Plus get it on record with them.

Zotac apparently have a Standard Warranty: 2 of years. So and with the RTX 2070 coming out in 2018. I'd say it would be a good idea to contact them just in case.

They would be the ones to know if this problem is indicative of a hardware failure. Plus If the problem is persisting past the additional steps will help convince them.

Its also possible Zotac may have a firmware patch to resolve the issue so DatRay might be able to get around being without a operation computer.

 

https://www.zotac.com/us/page/product-warranty-policy

[DatRay]

14 hours ago, Stockholmes said:

I'd wager to say it's a hardware issue, if you have already reinstalled windows and the lines still persist. Nothing much more you can do than to RMA the card, if it still has warranty left.

 

12 hours ago, Tannah said:

Quite possible. Its defiantly worth reaching out to Zotac, Even just to see what they say. Plus get it on record with them.

Zotac apparently have a Standard Warranty: 2 of years. So and with the RTX 2070 coming out in 2018. I'd say it would be a good idea to contact them just in case.

They would be the ones to know if this problem is indicative of a hardware failure. Plus If the problem is persisting past the additional steps will help convince them.

Its also possible Zotac may have a firmware patch to resolve the issue so DatRay might be able to get around being without a operation computer.

 

https://www.zotac.com/us/page/product-warranty-policy

Ok so today when I turned on my computer for the first time, something weird happened that happened in the past. So I have 4 sticks of ram, 8gb each. When I installed them in the PC for the first time 5 months ago, I kept getting crashes and failed boots so I ran memtest and saw my ram had issues. So I took out 1 stick of ram that I thought I may have broken because I pushed it into the motherboard too hard and the PC booted and worked (but I still had the white line errors even with just 3 sticks of ram). Later, I thought "maybe I should try that 4th stick of ram again, perhaps I just placed it into the slot incorrectly so that's why it gave me errors" and it actually worked just fine with 0 errors in memtest (the white line issue was still happening though). Now yesterday after I did the BIOS update, that 1 stick of ram stopped working again and it gave me errors in memtest,  even though I didn't physically touch the ram stick at all. And sure enough, after removing the ram stick, booting the computer, shutting it down and re-inserting it, it works just fine again. Now idk if the issue is with that 1 ram stick or with all of them because the reason I chose to remove that 1 specific ram stick is simply because it required more force to push into the slot so I thought it may be bent. But since it stopped working again after a BIOS update, I don't think it has anything to do with that.

EDIT: I just ran the MSI Kombustor benchmark and enabled the artifact scanner and it keeps saying it found artifacts even though I don't see anything wrong with the image on the screen.

EDIT2: Ok yea I think my gpu may be dying, I just got a blue screen after closing MSI Kombustor after it found the artifacts

EDIT3: It was the ram causing the artifacts in msi kombustor somehow, cuz I did a memtest right after and it found errors. And this time I removed a completely different stick of ram and the errors dissapeared, so the issue is not with 1 particular stick of ram. Wtf.

[Tannah]

Please read all before proceeding

 

Ok, well now is the time to get back into the nitty gritty of testing. This may take some time to work though.
I may go over a few things you know or have tried but its better I tell you them then assume.

 

Ok the Abstract here, this is one of the things which can happen with upgrading you Bios especially if you had something that seemed flaky.
As Asus noted in the bios upgrade notes they did change how the memory timing work.

 

I am hoping you did not update to the the BETA Bios, as Asus notes that this can cause permanent damage to your motherboard, and Asus takes no responsibility.
If you did mistakenly update to the BETA Bios your going to want to ASAP run Asus Flashback, and Flash to the latest NON-Beta Bios, or go to 1202 as I suggested.

 

If you did not update to the Beta-Bios you can hold off on reflashing the Bios for the moment and proceed with testing.

 

A few things you need to do:
1 Download and setup a memtest86 Free USB stick from this site: https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm to boot from ( we want to remove windows from testing for the moment as it can cause false positives)

2 Clear the Cmos using the "Clear CMOS Header" on your motherboard. Then get back into the Bios and load Optimized Defaults
Set the memory to DOCP, Do not set any other overlclocking at this point, Set the motherboard to UEFI or what its normally set to for booting. (ideally this should always be using UEFI)
If you need to find the Clear CMOS header Page 1-4 https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/TUF_GAMING_B550M-PLUS/E17265_TUF_GAMING_B550M-PLUS_UM_v2_WEB.pdf

3 If the memory errors persists, in Memtest86 Free pull out all the memory and put the suspected stick into DDR4 Dimm_A1 run the memtest86 free usb stick, If the stick clears with no errors, then remove it and run the Memtest86 Free test on each stick of ram individually.

 

The next steps are going to depend on your results. and what you have done so far

 

-If you did reflash the BIOS back to 1202 or the latest Non-Beta Bios And your NOT getting Memory errors anymore with DOCP enabled

And the ram seems to be behaving again, then you may leave it and monitor the situation.  Slowly add back in your overclocking settings.

 

-If you Are still receiving Memory Errors, But Did not use Asus Flash Back to flash to Bios 1202 I recommend flashing back to 1202 as this will restore memory timings from before. Run the above memory tests again. if no more memory error pop up your probably fine. It the memory error persists, try to identify which stick is causing the problem.

 

Now if you find the stick causing you problems you can try lowering the memory speed till the ram stick no longer causes issues. Then Look into RMA options with your Ram.

 

I hope this helps

 

 

 

[DatRay]

23 minutes ago, Tannah said:

Please read all before proceeding

 

Ok, well now is the time to get back into the nitty gritty of testing. This may take some time to work though.
I may go over a few things you know or have tried but its better I tell you them then assume.

 

Ok the Abstract here, this is one of the things which can happen with upgrading you Bios especially if you had something that seemed flaky.
As Asus noted in the bios upgrade notes they did change how the memory timing work.

 

I am hoping you did not update to the the BETA Bios, as Asus notes that this can cause permanent damage to your motherboard, and Asus takes no responsibility.
If you did mistakenly update to the BETA Bios your going to want to ASAP run Asus Flashback, and Flash to the latest NON-Beta Bios, or go to 1202 as I suggested.

 

If you did not update to the Beta-Bios you can hold off on reflashing the Bios for the moment and proceed with testing.

 

A few things you need to do:
1 Download and setup a memtest86 Free USB stick from this site: https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm to boot from ( we want to remove windows from testing for the moment as it can cause false positives)

2 Clear the Cmos using the "Clear CMOS Header" on your motherboard. Then get back into the Bios and load Optimized Defaults
Set the memory to DOCP, Do not set any other overlclocking at this point, Set the motherboard to UEFI or what its normally set to for booting. (ideally this should always be using UEFI)
If you need to find the Clear CMOS header Page 1-4 https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/TUF_GAMING_B550M-PLUS/E17265_TUF_GAMING_B550M-PLUS_UM_v2_WEB.pdf

3 If the memory errors persists, in Memtest86 Free pull out all the memory and put the suspected stick into DDR4 Dimm_A1 run the memtest86 free usb stick, If the stick clears with no errors, then remove it and run the Memtest86 Free test on each stick of ram individually.

 

The next steps are going to depend on your results. and what you have done so far

 

-If you did reflash the BIOS back to 1202 or the latest Non-Beta Bios And your NOT getting Memory errors anymore with DOCP enabled

And the ram seems to be behaving again, then you may leave it and monitor the situation.  Slowly add back in your overclocking settings.

 

-If you Are still receiving Memory Errors, But Did not use Asus Flash Back to flash to Bios 1202 I recommend flashing back to 1202 as this will restore memory timings from before. Run the above memory tests again. if no more memory error pop up your probably fine. It the memory error persists, try to identify which stick is causing the problem.

 

Now if you find the stick causing you problems you can try lowering the memory speed till the ram stick no longer causes issues. Then Look into RMA options with your Ram.

 

I hope this helps

 

 

 

This is what I did and it seems to work. I just simply disabled DOCP and the "EZ Tuner" in the bios and now it boots just fine and has no errors, but I have slower ram speed now (2133 instead of 3000). Also, it's not a stick of ram causing the issue, I kept removing different sticks of ram and the issue happened with all of them, so I have no idea what could be causing it. And it is possible to boot and get no errors with DOCP enabled, but I have to first go into the BIOS when booting, then (without making any changes) exit the BIOS and boot back to windows and then it works fine. Alternatively I can also remove a ram stick (doesn't matter which one), boot the pc, turn it off, put the stick back in, boot the pc and the problem is gone, but as soon as I shut down the PC the problem comes back so I would have to do this all over again. And I have to do one of these 2 things if I want to use DOCP which is kind of annoying, and I also don't understand why simply loading the bios fixes the issue. The thing is I had this problem before, but all I had to do was remove and re-insert a ram stick once and the problem was gone forever, but now shutting down the pc brings the problem back.

EDIT: Also, the BIOS I installed isn't a beta version, it's the latest non-beta version.

[Tannah]

Well Asus did note they tinkered with the memory timings.

If you happy enough with it then great!

 

If not try going back to 1202, as this sounds like a memory timing issue introduced by the newer Bios's.

I've seen people complain about it on overclock.net

As your not running a 5000 series CPU, the BIOS above 1202 aren't essential for you. It should not hurt anything to try.

Just make sure that each time you flash the bios you load Optimized Defaults, this is supposed to clear incompatible settings. If you don't the old setting and old memory training, can persist causing headaches.

[basicbuilder]

I've had the same problem changed gpus out multiple times changed monitors sent my new monitor back got another got new hdmi cables and DisplayPort cables still noting fixed it. Memory test are fine ive re installed windows multiple times and tried different refresh rates and resolutions. Only thing on mine it says there is a problem with motherboard integrated graphics. Maybe my problem is the motherboard or cpu. Ill see when im done building this other pc.