Lines Across Screen

[Shakaza]

I recently returned my ASUS R9 270 for an RMA after it began to display extreme graphical anomalies the day after I put it back into my PC after it failed to sell, that included the screen shifting up and down or just becoming a series of blue vertical lines interleaved with black if I watched a YouTube video. It would stop after I paused the video. Though, if I put a 100% load onto the GPU, there would be a hint of that shifting that would only last for an instant. This happened with both AMD's Catalyst Omega driver (which I had used before with the card) and the latest beta driver. Naturally, I thought this was due to a hardware problem.

 

Now, I have a Powercolor Radeon HD 6670 GDDR3 installed, again with AMD's Catalyst Omega, and I have a problem that is somewhat similar. When I leave my PC idle, small black and white horizontal lines appear on the screen. They disappear when I am playing a game, watching a video or doing a stress test. Even more strangely, they stop appearing at all if I set my monitor's refresh rate to 50 Hz and then reset it back to 60, but will appear again if either the memory or core clock are changed, in which case I have to change the refresh rate again. 

 

The problems with my R9 270 first arose the day after I put the card in and started mining Ziftrcoins with it. When I turned on my monitor, the screen was a solid light blue color. After restarting my computer, I used the latest version of Display Driver Uninstaller, which is 14.3.0.0, to uninstall the drivers used for the HD 6670, and when doing so, I noticed that it said it was unable to remove a certain thing because it was in use by the device, which I had never seen before, though I am unsure if it's due to my own inattentiveness or some weird problem with the program. I see that message every time I uninstall the drivers now.

 

This isn't a big deal at the moment, since I have (at least temporarily) a solution, but at this point I am unsure if I will still experience similar problems once I get an R9 270 back. I am fairly confident that it is some driver problem, since I have experienced problems on both cards, but I have no idea how to fix it permanently.

[TetraSky]

Did you try with a different monitor to make sure that wasn't the issue? (You can plug the PC in a TV via HDMI if you don't have a spare monitor)

Because to me it sound like your monitor can't handle 60hz properly, especially if this happened with more than 1 GPU. (It may also just be the cable)

[Darkman]

Did you try with a different monitor to make sure that wasn't the issue? (You can plug the PC in a TV via HDMI if you don't have a spare monitor)

Because to me it sound like you monitor can't handle 60hz properly, especially if this happened with more than 1 GPU. (It may also just be the cable)

^ This. It could even be the cable that needs to be replaced.

[Shakaza]

Did you try with a different monitor to make sure that wasn't the issue? (You can plug the PC in a TV via HDMI if you don't have a spare monitor)

Because to me it sound like your monitor can't handle 60hz properly, especially if this happened with more than 1 GPU. (It may also just be the cable)

I just tried using a different monitor. I still got the lines. And it isn't the DVI cable either, because I still experienced the issue with a VGA cable.

[dragoon20005]

remove the GPU and try with the mobo onboard display

 

if that is fine

 

RMA your GPU

[Shakaza]

remove the GPU and try with the mobo onboard display

 

if that is fine

 

RMA your GPU

There are several reasons why I am reluctant to do so.

 

First and most importantly, I can't RMA my HD 6670. I got it in a pre-built system a few years ago. There is no warranty or anything on the individual parts.

 

Second, if I use integrated graphics, due to some weird problem that's probably a BIOS setting, there is no display shown until after the PC boots, by which time my computer has booted into Linux Mint since it is selected automatically if I don't make my own choice. I could probably fix it, but that would only be evading my current problem.

 

Third, I am not entirely convinced it is a hardware problem. I had the HD 6670 in my system while I was trying to sell my R9 270, and it worked fine then. I was still using Catalyst Omega. I put the R9 270 back in and it only started showing problems after the driver reinstall, though I can't know for sure if it was the light blue screen that caused it. Now, assuming it was a hardware fault that caused the R9 270 to act weirdly, what are the chances that both my cards started malfunctioning within two days of each other? Isn't there some other explanation for the problems I've been having?