Mysterious green dots on screen. GPU problem?

[Insert]

Sometimes my PC starts emitting a mess of green pixels all over my screen at what appears to be randomly. This has happened once or twice in the past (once when I was playing a game in February and once again when I was just displaying my desktop). But as of recently it's been happening multiple times a day, where sometimes it will last 30 seconds to several minutes. I don't really know what causes it or why it happens (GPU?). Perhaps there's some kind of trouble shooting I can implement? I'm going to try using my on board graphics to see it still permits.

 

For those who need to know, here are my specs:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x94d8d

 

[GreezyJeezy]

if wiggling the cord doesn't help then your GPU looks like it dying, or see if a reset helps 

[DrMacintosh]

RIP. 970 Time to upgrade to the 1070 or a new AMD card. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

RIP. 970 Time to upgrade to the 1070 or a new AMD card. 

lol

 

for real tho they are probably stuck pixels on your screen

put up some epileptic slideshow of random colors on the screen for a minute then it could fix it.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, josephaltareb said:

lol

 

for real tho they are probably stuck pixels on your screen

put up some epileptic slideshow of random colors on the screen for a minute then it could fix it.

it would make more sense to use on board graphics if its stuck pixels no? That way it would eliminate the possibility of the GPU being the problem. 

[Insert]

8 minutes ago, josephaltareb said:

lol

 

for real tho they are probably stuck pixels on your screen

put up some epileptic slideshow of random colors on the screen for a minute then it could fix it.

I mean I could try that but wouldn't that just be a temporary fix. The dots don't stay on my monitor forever. They go away after a restart or over time.

 

 

I really hope this isn't a dying 970 since I just got it last June.

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, Insert said:

I mean I could try that but wouldn't that just be a temporary fix. The dots don't stay on my monitor forever. They go away after a restart or over time.

 

 

I really hope this isn't a dying 970 since I just got it last June.

remove the 970 and plug your monitor into your mobo. Try and replicate what causes the green dots to show up. If they do, its your monitor. If they dont, RIP. 970

[Insert]

Ok, gonna run my onboard graphics for tonight and tomorrow to see if problem still permits. I don't know if I can RMA my card, hopefully there's a year long warranty...

[LabRat]

cable/try jiggling as suggested or swap monitor side to back of pc and vice versa

/or try another port on the monitor or back of card or try a different cable.

maybe clean the card and reapply thermal; paste.

maybe the power supply?

maybe the card is shit and you've been lucky for a while.

maybe the monitor?

try uninstalling and reinstalling earlier divers.

edit...... maybe the power supply.

[DaZulu]

yea, be sure its not the cables your using or something else silly, i almost replaced a gfx card thinking it was broke. turn out to be a dodgy cable. saved me a few hundred. 

[Insert]

So just an update. I took out my GPU out a few days ago and put it back in to see if that would solve something. After this I didn't experience the problem for days. Recently I had to take my DVI cord out and upon putting it back in I got the issue again. After fiddling with the DVI cord, I am able to fix the green dots. So now I'm thinking it may be the DVI ports or my cable is faulty (been using both ports so maybe it's the cable?) I recently just bought this Displayport so hopefully this won't give me this problem? The problem happens every so often so I'm not sure if my 970 is RIP anymore which is good.

[LabRat]

well keep your finger crossed. thanks for coming back to share progress.

[Insert]

Just wanna report back in case anyone else in the future has this problem and stumbles on this thread.

 

So after switching to Displayport in the past 24 + hours, I haven't encountered any green dots. I think it was safe to say that the DVI cord may have been at fault. I guess moral of the story is to assume the best case scenario before replacing your most expensive part!

 

 

[LabRat]

[Nord]

As warranty usualy is 1 year, if I were you I'd still would try to figure out if it was just the cord or if not in fact the DVI-port on the GPU itself is broken.
Even trying a old VGA cable with adapters or so would probably be enough to figure that out.

 

Depending when in june you bought the card, you'd still would have at least a bit over a week to claim the warranty and get the (possibly) broken port fixed, for free.

[Insert]

Good idea. I'll probably still see if I'm valid and if I can take advantage of the opportunity, why not?

[granula]

Don't wish to zombie this but I just had the same issue with the green dots, as well as static from the speakers on the TV. I'm running my GTX1080ti through a UHD TV, via UHD HDMI port. And it seemed that the dots appeared only on 60hz.

Not sure whether this because of the TV or the card (most likely the drivers), but plugging the HDMI back into a non HDMI UHD port in the TV got rid of the dots.

I would put hard cash on the NVIDIA driver not being able to support the HDMI UHD feed at 60hz, rather than a blown card, but I don't have a high refresh rate monitor to test with, so back down to 30hz i go.. Nothing indicates a overheating card or bad anything else, so its a toss up between driver failure or TV setup.

 

I'm going to fiddle with the TV HDMI 2.0 settings as well, see if that can get it to 60hz.

 

hope this helps. 

[moshman]

This happend to me for a while, my solution is to choose the appropiate refresh rate of the graphic card and the Tv. My Tv is kinda ol, so, if i set the refresh rate to 24, no dtos appears, if i go up, same thing as you happens.

Hope it helps.

[Polaris990]

I'm having the same issue with my monitor, but I have a few extra details.

 

I unplugged everything from the monitor and powered up with no input signal, and the black screen worked fine for about 60 seconds then started flickering. I ordered a replacement power supply to test, will update with results.

 

Wondering if anyone else isolated this problem away from any inputs. The fact that it sometimes works makes me think I could replace the adapter or the board inside the monitor and save a full replacement...