I don't know what's wrong and it's pissing me off

[kelvinhall05]

So, I've had lots of stability issues with my system. Some BSODs, lots of artifacting, and some other stuff that I can't even remember. I know it's (probably) not a GPU issue since I used 2 GPUs and both had the issue (I'll explain more in a sec) but I have no idea what the issue is if it's not the GPU. I don't have any spare parts to troubleshoot anything, what should I do? I guess I'll give you guys an in-depth explanation on the one issue:

1. It only happened with my 7950 and my 5870 (less so with the 5870).

2. It didn't happen with an OEM 8490 making me think it might be a PSU problem.

That's all the info I have, although I made a few other posts about this problem a while back, so if you really need more info maybe try looking at those. Thanks!

[InertiaSelling]

Kind of hard to tell with so little information. Have you overclocked anything ? Do you get an error code on your BSODs ? What do your artifacts look like ? Vertical green stripes, weird tracks behind moving objects, noise on the screen that goes away when you move things ?

[fanchazstic]

apply any bios updates. might as well make sure all windows updates are installed as well. My guess would probably be PSU too, but that wouldn't be possible to test without swapping it. So do a RAM test. Google memtest and try that. If a stick of RAM is going bad it can cause instability. Not sure about the artifacts, but it would be a good idea to at least rule it out at the very least

Edit: I forgot to mention what's leading me towards psu issue. You said you have less problems with the 5870 and none with onboard graphics. The 5870 draws way less power than a 7950 and the onboard draws even less. Is your PSU properly sized (enough watts)?

[Cyracus]

13 minutes ago, fanchazstic said:

apply any bios updates... My guess would probably be PSU too

If it is the PSU and it goes kaput durin a bios update then it could brick the mobo, if you think there's any chance your PSU is unreliable, for the love of god, don't mess with the bios

[fanchazstic]

Just now, Cyracus said:

If it is the PSU and it goes kaput durin a bios update then it could brick the mobo, if you think there's any chance your PSU is unreliable, for the love of god, don't mess with the bios

fair point. I agree. Find a friend and steal his PSU to test if the issue goes away or remains

[kelvinhall05]

1 hour ago, InertiaSelling said:

Kind of hard to tell with so little information. Have you overclocked anything ? Do you get an error code on your BSODs ? What do your artifacts look like ? Vertical green stripes, weird tracks behind moving objects, noise on the screen that goes away when you move things ?

Vertical lines, can't remember if they were all green or not, but some were purple. I overclocked my old 7950 but I'm not using that card now. I can't remember the old BSOD codes since they happened back when I had my 7950, not now.

[kelvinhall05]

1 hour ago, fanchazstic said:

apply any bios updates. might as well make sure all windows updates are installed as well. My guess would probably be PSU too, but that wouldn't be possible to test without swapping it. So do a RAM test. Google memtest and try that. If a stick of RAM is going bad it can cause instability. Not sure about the artifacts, but it would be a good idea to at least rule it out at the very least

Edit: I forgot to mention what's leading me towards psu issue. You said you have less problems with the 5870 and none with onboard graphics. The 5870 draws way less power than a 7950 and the onboard draws even less. Is your PSU properly sized (enough watts)?

RAM is fine. Everything is as up to date as possible. There are no onboard graphics, and my PSU is in my signature.

[kelvinhall05]

1 hour ago, fanchazstic said:

fair point. I agree. Find a friend and steal his PSU to test if the issue goes away or remains

I don't have any friends who 1. live near me, 2. have PCs, 3. know enough to allow me to steal a component, 4. I doubt it would even be a good enough PSU.

[kelvinhall05]

1 hour ago, Cyracus said:

If it is the PSU and it goes kaput durin a bios update then it could brick the mobo, if you think there's any chance your PSU is unreliable, for the love of god, don't mess with the bios

I doubt it's unreliable, it's in my signature if you want the model.

[fanchazstic]

19 hours ago, kelvinhall05 said:

I doubt it's unreliable, it's in my signature if you want the model.

I don't think he's saying that the model of PSU is an unreliable model, but that yours could be unreliable due to a failure internally. If there is a possibility that the PSU is causing your problems, updating the BIOS would not be a good idea. Since we haven't ruled out the PSU as a problem, and is actually suspect of being the problem, updating the BIOS would be a bad idea. So nothing against that model or brand PSU, it's just that sometimes things do fail. Another possible thing that could cause the issue is maybe with the motherboard. Maybe a trace is broken and makes intermittent contact. Maybe a heavier gpu places more strain on the place where it's broken and causes it to become unstable. But to be completely honest there really isn't any more that anyone can do to help, with how little information is available. It seems you've tested all the easy stuff, so at this point either start replacing components like the PSU or motherboard until the problem goes away, or start RMAing stuff until the problem goes away. It sucks, but I don't think it would be possible to pinpoint the issue based on the current information.