Blue Wavy Lines?

[RossMadness]

Hello all,

First off, computer specs are as follows:
 

• CPU
  i7-3770k
• Motherboard
  ASRock Z77 Extreme6
• RAM
  8 GB (2x4) Corsair Ballistix Sport low profile 1333 mhz
• GPU
  2x EVGA GTX 550ti in SLI
• Case
  HAF 912
• Storage
  Toshiba THNSJ128, Seagate 500 GB HDD
• PSU
  Corsair 750 W
• Display(s)
  BenQ GL2760H
• Cooling
  ThermalTake Extreme 3.0
• Keyboard
  Razer Black Widow Essential
• Mouse
  Razer Deathadder 2013
• Sound
  Onboard
• Operating System
  Windows 8.1 Pro

 

Today I purchased a shiny new BenQ GL2760H and it looks gorgeous. I'm loving it. Although I've run into a bit of a snag. EVERYTHING works great until I try to launch SPECIFIC games. The screen begins to scroll blue wavy lines across the screen. It only does this in SOME games. Here is the list:

 

Normal video display:

Soldier Front 2

Tower of Guns

Stanley Parable

 

Funky blue lines:
Alan Wake

CS:GO

Borderlands 2

Tomb Raider (2013)

3D Mark

 

Here's what I've done: 

Uninstalled/Reinstalled NVIDIA drivers.

Uninstalled/Reinstalled BenQ drivers.

Ran dxdiags. Everything's ok.

Detached second monitor (older 22" Insignia TV)

Restarted PC multiple times.

Reset all color settings on the monitor.

Verified that global settings in NVIDIA Control Panel (Let the application decide) doesn't conflict with application specific settings.

Verified GPUs and monitor are on same refresh rate and color bit.

Turning off V-Sync (blue lines move more quickly)

 

The only time I haven't seen the blue lines in the aforementioned games/applications is when I turned SLI off, but there was a lot of stuttering because my settings were for my SLI rig, not a single GPU. Again, this only happens in the aforementioned games and at no other time during regular usage.

Any thoughts?

[MLG Doge]

'looks at signature'

[Jade]

'looks at signature'

I'm CompTIA A+ certified too. Doesn't mean we know the answers to every last thing ever.

[MLG Doge]

I'm CompTIA A+ certified too. Doesn't mean we know the answers to every last thing ever.

no its just i didnt see any specs there.

 

sorry for confusion

[RossMadness]

I forgot I didn't add it to the sig. I just copypasta'd it into the message. Didn't know anyone had seen it yet.

NEW DEVELOPMENT:

I took Alan Wake out of "Full Screen" and it ran in "Windowed" just great. So I checked and both the monitor and GPUs are set to scaled using "Full Screen" instead of "Aspect Ratio". So...yeah...can't run all these games in windowed mode forever.

[vlkn´]

I think the "wavy lines" are unsynchronised pixels.

What can cause this problem is like you mentioned, SLI. There must be a delay between the graphicscard working together and sending to the cpu.

 

Set your ram speed to 1600Mhz *test if worked*

Set the Pcie 3.0 clock speed to 64mhz *test if worked, if not set to default*

Disable your soundcard and everything else that is using your bus bandwitdh *test if worked, if not set to default*

[RossMadness]

I think the "wavy lines" are unsynchronised pixels.

What can cause this problem is like you mentioned, SLI. There must be a delay between the graphicscard working together and sending to the cpu.

 

Set your ram speed to 1600Mhz *test if worked*

Set the Pcie 3.0 clock speed to 64mhz *test if worked, if not set to default*

Disable your soundcard and everything else that is using your bus bandwitdh *test if worked, if not set to default*

So, BenQ has a tool called "Pixel Clock" to address this issue, but it only applies to analog signals. I'm using HDMI so the option is inaccessible in the monitor settings. This hasn't been a problem with my SLI until I got the monitor. 

My RAM speed is 1333 mhz. You're suggesting I overclock it?

I have nothing else in the PCI slots other than my cards. Changing the clock speed shouldn't really make a difference since all bandwith is available.

 

I did turn on the SLI visualizer and can confirm that the blue flickering only happens when an SLI profile is being used.

[vlkn´]

ok, it´s the sli configuration. (in rare cases its the monitor unsynchronised)

I did some research. Don´t overclock your ram, leave it @stock speed

Some dude said, bought a new PSU, problem was solved. (I think that this is BS)

 

What you need to try is, play with the game settings, disable anti aliasing etc. You can also try to use DVI, (digital signal too)

Until you switch to ati or I think to another gpu generation, they won´t solve the problem (thats what I read)

 

good luck 

[TDP_Equinox]

How has no one suggested this?
Use your old monitor and see if it still happens. 

[RossMadness]

Issues have not occurred with the old monitor. I also used another HDMI cable and a DVI cable. Same issue with both cables. I tried different scaling types and issue still happens. I'm not sure why windowed mode (even at same resolution, so same screen real estate) doesn't have the flicker while normal full screen does. Currently downloading older drivers and I'll give that a shot.

[TDP_Equinox]

Issues have not occurred with the old monitor. I also used another HDMI cable and a DVI cable. Same issue with both cables. I tried different scaling types and issue still happens. I'm not sure why windowed mode (even at same resolution, so same screen real estate) doesn't have the flicker while normal full screen does. Currently downloading older drivers and I'll give that a shot.

windowed mode does not use Crossfire or SLI.

[RossMadness]

No luck with the driver roll back. I guess i'll be returning this monitor and getting a different one. Darn shame too. This thing was such a good deal. Oh well. I'm going to keep tinkering with it so I'll leave this thread open and I'll come back at the end of the week and say what I finally did. Feel free to post more ideas. Thanks for all the input so far.

[TDP_Equinox]

No luck with the driver roll back. I guess i'll be returning this monitor and getting a different one. Darn shame too. This thing was such a good deal. Oh well. I'm going to keep tinkering with it so I'll leave this thread open and I'll come back at the end of the week and say what I finally did. Feel free to post more ideas. Thanks for all the input so far.

Have you tried a different cable or resolution?

[RossMadness]

Have you tried a different cable or resolution?

Yes and yes.

 

I have tried, DVI, HDMI, DVI-HDMI, all graphics settings on multiple games on high, all settings on low, different resolutions, etc. 

Small update: Just spent a frigging hour doing some hardware work. Issue duplicates itself on older monitors as well. Both cards independently have no issues running the games, I swapped the top card and bottom card, rotated the SLI bridge (found a post somewhere where some guy said it worked for him) uninstalled/reinstalled drivers again (with both an old driver and most up to date driver) and now it no longer flashes blue! It now flashes red. Doh! The one thing I haven't tried is a different SLI bridge. I have a spare but it's in storage so...that will have to come out tomorrow after work.

[TDP_Equinox]

Yes and yes.

 

I have tried, DVI, HDMI, DVI-HDMI, all graphics settings on multiple games on high, all settings on low, different resolutions, etc. 

Small update: Just spent a frigging hour doing some hardware work. Issue duplicates itself on older monitors as well. Both cards independently have no issues running the games, I swapped the top card and bottom card, rotated the SLI bridge (found a post somewhere where some guy said it worked for him) uninstalled/reinstalled drivers again (with both an old driver and most up to date driver) and now it no longer flashes blue! It now flashes red. Doh! The one thing I haven't tried is a different SLI bridge. I have a spare but it's in storage so...that will have to come out tomorrow after work.

Try updating to the latest BIOS.

If someone has gone through this, and random swapping makes a difference, it could be the BIOS.

It's kind of comical that it went from Blue to Red though

[StareX]

Mmmmm... It could be a BIOS error meaning you should update it.

Or it could be your GPUs not working properly.

Hey! Sure, everything can LOOK good and running fine, but you can't see what it looks like in the inside.

Have you tried under locking your GPUs btw? Putting them on max voltages? Try that..

(Put the core clock all the way down, just for testing ok?)

[vlkn´]

I did some research.

This is not a hardware problem.

 

It is a driver/game related bug = https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/536310/?comment=3773000

I have also read, if you got different videocard bios versions, that this is causing also problems or can be the problem.

 

I recommend you to sell these 2 and get one powerful card, maybe a Sapphire  r9 270x ?

It´s about as powerful as these 2, if not more powerful and the best, you can use the power in every non sli supported game.

If you got luck, you can sell them together for 100$, add another 70$ and you won´t have problems with sli in future.

[RossMadness]

If it is a driver issue, then it should have been corrected when I rolled it back to a driver that it has previously worked on. I've been using these cards in SLI for two years with no issues. That's a pretty wide range of successful drivers to test and I've already tried the previous three that worked before. 

Both my board BIOS and GPU BIOS are up to date. At this time, upgrading to a single card is not an option, even if I can sell my 550Ti's at a decent price.

 

I haven't tried underclocking the GPUs because I have never overclocked them. I still want to swap the SLI bridge just for giggles and I'll try a few older drivers. If it doesn't work, I'll try underclocking the GPUs.

[StareX]

I never said you overclocked. Try it out.

Also, uninstall your drivers completely, restart and don't touch anything else, windows will install drivers automatically. (I think, 340.52) ... Then try to play a game... Lemme know if it works

[RossMadness]

Also, uninstall your drivers completely, restart and don't touch anything else, windows will install drivers automatically. (I think, 340.52) ... Then try to play a game... Lemme know if it works

Tried that, twice. Still need to try the underclocking. Currently at work though, just thinking about my computer. Ha ha.

[TDP_Equinox]

Tried that, twice. Still need to try the underclocking. Currently at work though, just thinking about my computer. Ha ha.

Using MSI Afterburner move the Core clock all the way down, and the voltage as high as you can and test it. you may get shit frames, but we will see if the lines go away. 

[RossMadness]

I FIGURED IT OUT!

 

So, just for the record, Alan Wake is my favorite game of all time. I play a lot of it and it has a lot of black. As it was loading and I saw the red lines I remembered seeing them on my old monitor too, but not as distinct. But this made me realize that this might have been a persistent issue since I built the PC two years ago, but never noticed because the crappy 22" tv I was using didn't show it as well as my new, fancy 27" monitor. So I realized the ONLY thing I haven't changed in that whole time was the SLI bridge! I was using a used Asus SLI bridge my friend gave me. Thankfully I had saved my MOBO box and found an SLI bridge in there from ASROCK (the mobo manufacturer). Slapped that on and all is well! I was using rolled back drivers and just updated them. Still no blue or red lines! I guess it was a faulty bridge. 

I gotta say, there is almost no tearing now and I see more color depth than before. Maybe it's just the monitor, but hooray for a better SLI bridge. Thanks everyone for your input and assistance but I think we can call this one solved (for now).

[TDP_Equinox]

I FIGURED IT OUT!

 

So, just for the record, Alan Wake is my favorite game of all time. I play a lot of it and it has a lot of black. As it was loading and I saw the red lines I remembered seeing them on my old monitor too, but not as distinct. But this made me realize that this might have been a persistent issue since I built the PC two years ago, but never noticed because the crappy 22" tv I was using didn't show it as well as my new, fancy 27" monitor. So I realized the ONLY thing I haven't changed in that whole time was the SLI bridge! I was using a used Asus SLI bridge my friend gave me. Thankfully I had saved my MOBO box and found an SLI bridge in there from ASROCK (the mobo manufacturer). Slapped that on and all is well! I was using rolled back drivers and just updated them. Still no blue or red lines! I guess it was a faulty bridge. 

I gotta say, there is almost no tearing now and I see more color depth than before. Maybe it's just the monitor, but hooray for a better SLI bridge. Thanks everyone for your input and assistance but I think we can call this one solved (for now).

Yay! 

What a thing to fail eh? 

[RossMadness]

Yeah, of all things. I did not expect that. This is a better looking SLI bridge anyway, so one more accent to view through my windowed side panel. This weekend came out ok after all.

[TDP_Equinox]

Yeah, of all things. I did not expect that. This is a better looking SLI bridge anyway, so one more accent to view through my windowed side panel. This weekend came out ok after all.

Meanwhile i'm having audio issues D: