Screen has purple squares?

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Vicinity

2[H]4U
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Jan 30, 2009
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I've had my new eVGA 9800+ for a little over a week and I was about to run Fallout 3 and my computer locked up and I had a pattern of purple squares (checkerboard like) covering my screen. Computer becomes useless and has to be shutoff through the power supply. Is this "artifacting"? Should I RMA?

Edit: It wasn't JUST on Fallout 3 either, just was the most recent example.
 
Vicinity said:
I've had my new eVGA 9800+ for a little over a week and I was about to run Fallout 3 and my computer locked up and I had a pattern of purple squares (checkerboard like) covering my screen. Computer becomes useless and has to be shutoff through the power supply. Is this "artifacting"? Should I RMA?

Edit: It wasn't JUST on Fallout 3 either, just was the most recent example.
Click to expand...

If it happens every time you run something graphics intensive then yes. Time to RMA.
 
program for free called video stress test.Used for testing memory.It takes a while to complete but, will let you know if this component is failing.

btw is card stock speeds no overclocks
 
Vicinity said:
I've had my new eVGA 9800+ for a little over a week and I was about to run Fallout 3 and my computer locked up and I had a pattern of purple squares (checkerboard like) covering my screen. Computer becomes useless and has to be shutoff through the power supply. Is this "artifacting"? Should I RMA?

Edit: It wasn't JUST on Fallout 3 either, just was the most recent example.
Click to expand...

I had similar things popping up in fallout 3 for two weeks after the game came out. My card eventually died and they sent me a replacement.

Do me a favor and look in your even log. I got errors such as nvidia driver restarting, and such and such. Eventually it shut down just like yours and when powered up again I had a screen full of all kinds of crap.
 
DrDoU said:
program for free called video stress test.Used for testing memory.It takes a while to complete but, will let you know if this component is failing.

btw is card stock speeds no overclocks
Click to expand...

It has the eVGA overclock, but I never fiddled with it.

I ran that program, it came back with no errors.
 
sc3252 said:
I had similar things popping up in fallout 3 for two weeks after the game came out. My card eventually died and they sent me a replacement.

Do me a favor and look in your even log. I got errors such as nvidia driver restarting, and such and such. Eventually it shut down just like yours and when powered up again I had a screen full of all kinds of crap.
Click to expand...

How do I get to it?
 
Sounds like classic signs of artifacting due to defective, overheating, or failing memory to me, but it could also be a power supply issue.
 
Vicinity said:
I've had my new eVGA 9800+ for a little over a week and I was about to run Fallout 3 and my computer locked up and I had a pattern of purple squares (checkerboard like) covering my screen. Computer becomes useless and has to be shutoff through the power supply. Is this "artifacting"? Should I RMA?

Edit: It wasn't JUST on Fallout 3 either, just was the most recent example.
Click to expand...

mine does the same thing. eVGA GTX 260.
It only has happened on CounterStrike Source on one Gun Game map, Lego Mafia.
It has crashed the last 3 times I played on that map. Other maps are fine, and I sometimes play for a few hours at a time.
Both of my screens get the pattern and the machine is locked up.

My card does run a bit hot in my case, 68-70 idle and 77-80 under load with Fan set to Auto.

PSU in mine is an Antec TP-III 650Watt
 
I bet on the graphics card as well... I have had that happen a couple times. It started out with subtle artifacting, then whole parts of the image in the wrong place, then blocks of random color showing up here & there... then larger blocks and actual letters/numbers/symbols (like a BIOS, but with glyphs instead) started showing up here & there.... bad video card every time.
 
had you alt tabbed while playing?

I have this in hl2 games if i alt tab, but it isn't every time.
 
s[H]aqFU;1033688089 said:
had you alt tabbed while playing?

I have this in hl2 games if i alt tab, but it isn't every time.
Click to expand...

Nope. I hardly ever alttab, but it always works when I do.

Well, my PSU is new too, but I upgraded it for the card. Its now a Corsair TX650W.

I have noticed another problem that may be linked, I did cable managment through the back of my motherboard (like most people have with the CM690), but when I put the side panel back on that side, pressure where all the cords come through to the back causes the system to crash and it will not boot (at all) unless that pressure is removed, so I cannot put the side panel on.

If I RMA my card, should I do it through Newegg or eVGA, which is the quicker/safer way?
 
Also, I ran Video Memory Test again, every setting on and turned up, it completed in 11 minutes, no problems. I think if its the power supply, Prime95 will probably crash my system, so when I go to sleep tonight, I'll run Prime95 and see if my computer will stay on until tomorrow.
 
Vicinity said:
How do I get to it?
Click to expand...

Its under administrator tools, and is called event logger. When you get into the event logger look for something like system logs, I cant remember because I am not in windows. You should look for warnings and errors, mostly things that mention nvidia.
 
sc3252 said:
Its under administrator tools, and is called event logger. When you get into the event logger look for something like system logs, I cant remember because I am not in windows. You should look for warnings and errors, mostly things that mention nvidia.
Click to expand...

I found it in Vista, its "Event Viewer" under admin tools. Searched it pretty thoroughly, nothing mentioning nVidia, but apparently I had a BSoD recently.
 
Vicinity said:
I've had my new eVGA 9800+ for a little over a week and I was about to run Fallout 3 and my computer locked up and I had a pattern of purple squares (checkerboard like) covering my screen. Computer becomes useless and has to be shutoff through the power supply. Is this "artifacting"? Should I RMA?

Edit: It wasn't JUST on Fallout 3 either, just was the most recent example.
Click to expand...

If you bought it from a store locally just take it back and get a new one. At least then you could rule out the card.
 
Nope, bought it from Newegg. Newest card any store around me sells is something in the Geforce 4k series (yeah, not lying).
 
Found the problem from Evga.com, apparently it has to do with the downclocking feature. I tried the fix over there and hopefully it works.
 
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