Weird screen tearing, what gives?

norgeek · November 19, 2015

My display situation is a little complex. I have an EVGA GTX 980Ti Hybrid outputting to a TV and (soon) a gaming monitor, and a passively-cooled ZOTAC GT 720 1GB connected to two 24" and a 22" 1080p 60Hz displays. The issue has only ever occurred on the 720. I'm running Windows 10 64bit pro. Drivers are current. I've had the Zotac since start of June and the 980 since early August. Before the 980, the 720 was working together with an HD7870. The problems started.. well, a few weeks ago. I think. I've been gone a lot recently and haven't had time to get overly annoyed with the issue, but now that I'm here a lot more and my use of the system has changed I'd like to deal with it.

Until a few days ago I've been using an Nvidia surround setup on the 980, and the TV and two old panels on the 720. I first started noticing the issue on the TV, and admittedly my first thought was "Aw shoot, has the panel gotten cracked somehow?!" due to the weird tearing pattern(image below). A couple of days ago, in preparation of receiving my Z35 ultrawide, I completely recombobulated the whole layout. The 980 now runs the TV (and the saddest little 20" 1680x1050 temporary screen I could dig up), and the 720 is in charge of two 24"s as primary browsing monitors off to the side (as well as a smaller monitor that just does Spotify and the odd .PDF). The tearing problem has moved from the TV to both the 24"s which is why I'm suspecting the 720. Thing is, the issue might have been there on all the 720-connected displays since it first started some weeks(?) ago, but because the displays (other than the TV) never displayed any quick image changes it never became apparent. While it's nice to be able to watch Netflix on my TV again without the problem, it makes youtube videos, webshop galleries, or even just scrolling down Twitter (or even hunting down typos in this post) on the 24"s somewhat less enjoyable.

I have tried to recreate the pattern I see in the image below. It's not a perfectly accurate representation. It's (almost?) always the same pattern, a triangle with two lines beneath. The area with the red lines will have quite severe tearing, while everything white is perfectly normal. I also believe I have observed a few cases of a complete diagonal line from top left to bottom right corner, but only a few times. It is not a constant issue, it'll disappear and reappear seemingly at random.

I primarily use Chrome, and I know people have reported horizontal tearing there. I've tried the tips I've seen like forcing Vsync and setting the output to 59Hz. While I haven't been able to reproduce the problem on Edge, that might just as well has been my card not wanting to act up during testing as it didn't happen on Chrome either at the time. Also, is the Chrome-tearing-issue limited to a single GPU in multi-GPU-systems?

So, anyone have any ideas? Is it a different form of Chrome tearing? Is this "normal" Chrome tearing and I'm just not understanding what "horizontal tearing" is? Is my Zotac unhappy? It's usually running at around 51 degrees Celcius when the system is idle, 50 when it's under load (increased airflow). The cables are all different now, and as far as I know they've all been working fine in the past. Could it be my relatively ancient system? My Gigabyte GA-EX58-DS4 has developed some other weird quirks throughout the years, and for all I know my Tagan TG700-BZ might be getting fuzzy. They're both from late 2008. I'm desperately trying to hang onto this system until Skylake-E launches in another year or so, but I might get a new PSU earlier if that's the case. Have I failed at searching and overlooked the thread where this was solved already?

Help me LinusTechTipsers, you're my only hope!

yannickverc · November 19, 2015

Gotta be honest, I didn't read your whole post. But could you provide me/us with a screenshot of when it happens in-game?

norgeek · November 19, 2015

It doesn't appear on screenshots, I just tried several times. Pretty sure I hit the button at the right time, too, as the effect froze for a moment.. which I guess I kinda odd? I'll try to grab something with my phone the next time it happens.

Managed to get a few bad screenshots off of a phone video. Not showing the whole screen (as my craptastic Z3+ apparently decides to zoom in a lot when it finally gets around to record a video), and I haven't been able to reproduce the issue since then. Seems like the effect is varies more than I had the impression of, too. At least the effect is quite obvious: