Artifacts

[masterceo]

it's been quite a long time now that i get sometimes artifacts, usually it's just a black line that flashes on my screen for about a sec or two. It all began when i changed my graphics card, I used to have a BFG8800GTS 512mb but, well, it failed at some point and i sent it back to BFG. They sent me back a 250GTS, but from the first day something was wrong. I would get bizarre flashing in CoD:MW, however it was acceptable. Since then it kept getting worse. The flashes are more frequent and started happening in all the games I have. Normally those are the symptoms of overclocking, but I haven't changed any frequency. It's not the temperature either, my PC was never running above 60C, because i bought a supplementary fan to keep it cool and quiet. All my drivers are up to date. It's really annoying since it breaks all the immersion. Any ideas guys?

PC specs:
motherboard:MSI K9N platinium
RAM: GEIL 2x1GB
Graphics card: BFG250GTS
CPU:AMD Athlon x2 5600

[karambaitos]

you actually might be that unlucky that you got 2 defective cards also nvidia drivers can sometimes screw up try using the driver you got in the box you could try and reinstall DX and overclocking isnt smart as you loose your insurance.

[Darkpowder]

I'm guessing your system is fairly old given the spec of the processor.
Ignore the software for now and consider: (and post here)
- Age, model no. and specification of power supply, check the amps on the rail powering your card.

[masterceo]

Ah yes, i forgot to mention: my old GFX card burned because my power supply failed. I bought a completely new one, it's a OCZ600SXS. It was working fine on my other PC.

EDIT:My power supply is about 3 months old

EDIT2: I had a similar problem on my old MSI 7900GT, with the difference that the textures would stretch on half of the screen and i wasn't able to see anything. It turned out there was some dust blocking the fan. I have no idea how it got there because i clean my pc once in 2 months. It's perfectly clean right now.

[Tim270]

Check your temps also, might be getting hot without dust, but as others have said be sure to clean/reinstall drivers.

[masterceo]

As i said, i have a much more performant cooling system, the avg temperature in my pc is about 50C, i checked the temp of my card, it's normal-54C. I completely reinstalled the drivers for my GFX card, still, no improvement.

[SnipingCoward]

overheating symptoms may still persist, due to previous overheating that permanently damaged components

have a look at the mainboard and cards and see if capacitors are leaking, bloating of rusting (http://www.mad-monkey.co.uk/resources/p ... acitor.jpg) this means grave system failure is imminent and the part needs to be replaced

aside from possible hardware defects:
maybe you are having other driver issues, like with chipset for your motherboard
also you could check if there is a bios update for your mobo - this might fix/help find optimal clock speeds

[masterceo]

checked all the cable connections and capacitors, they're all in perfect order. What is surprising tho is that i just played a 3 hour long round on PR and for the first time i had no artifacts at all, but just as i turned off BF2 my pc blue-screened. I have no idea what is going on.

EDIT: as i stated earlier, all drivers are up to date (at least that's what nvidia and MSI software tells me)

[SnipingCoward]

When having a blue screen (BSOD) it is important to write down the error code (e.g. 0x000000F4) and message. Googling this error can give you a hint towards what component might be in trouble or what files might be damaged. Also posting it here can help us help you.

I suggest you reinstall the drivers (use a driver cleaner tool that you trust). It can also be helpful to revert your driver to an older, more stable version.

[masterceo]

right, next time i'll make sure to write down that error code.
I will try to reinstall the drivers, could you recommend any software for cleaning them?

[SnipingCoward]

Personally: no
but I just get my information the internet too : How do I cleanly remove drivers? - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

[masterceo]

just got another bluescreen, this time i have the error code:

0x000000D1 (0xFF0849D, 0x0000001E, 0x00000000, 0xB7881ED6)

what could this be?

[SnipingCoward]

After a little googling: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I had this error once when my hard disk died.
This seems like either hardware failure or driver problem but I am uncertain which device it might be.

You should remove all hardware from the pc (esp. all USB devices etc.) and see if that BSOD comes up again. If not one of the devices might be faulty or the driver for it is corrupted.

Reinstalling all drivers might help too.
Mean while also try googling for "bsod 0x000000D1".

[masterceo]

now that you mentioned it, i remember that my O&O defragmenter showed that my HDD was somehow "corrupted", even after a format (while windows says everything is ok). Looks like I need to search for a new HDD. I will however reinstall all the drivers just to check if this might help, thanks for your support.

[masterceo]

Great. As i was just about to install fresh drivers, after uninstalling the old ones my PC wouldn't reboot but in VGA mode, in which the mouse and keyboard didn't work, so i was unable to do anything. I tried to repair windows with windows system recovery console, but it didn't even recognize that windows was installed. Now it doesn't boot beyond BIOS. Looks like my HDD died (i was going to get a new HDD this monday...) and with it, over 20+ GB of data which is very, very important to me. Is there perhaps any way i could try to recover it?

[SnipingCoward]

Yes, infact there are multiple ways.

One thing you can try is to start from a Windows CD and use the recovery console to run "fixmbr" and "fixboot". Those two commands might be able to recover your old disk layout and have it bootable again.

Another thing is to run TestDisk to restore the HDD's partition table (scanning the disk will take hours). I highly recommend reading through the manual of TestDisk before doing anything because having to do the whole system scan again because you forgot a step is very time consuming and anoying. You can also accidentially break the partition table if your just clicking about.
Make sure to turn on logging. That log file is quite valuable as it stores the scan results you might later need again, if you bodged up a step or canceled for any reason.
There also is a bootable Live-CD available.

Attaching the HDD to another PC/Notebook can help you scan the disk using another Windows and therefore having a wide variaty of windows-based recovery tools at your disposal. (I won't name any, google them your self. I use TestDisk or other Linux based tools like GParted).

I recommend googling and reading yourself into data recovery. From my experience I can tell you that you will not need to pay to get your data back - there are enough free tools out there.

[masterceo]

I will definately try to connect the HDD to a diffrent PC, but not today since i have no PC that i can connect it to.
I tried to start from Windows CD but as i said, i get a bizarre error which tells me that either the HDD is corrupted or it doesn't simply exist. I'm also afraid of using "fixmbr" (I already thaught about that) because i get a message that with my corrupted HDD some further damage may occur. Or is this just some windows bs that i should ignore and proceed?
Anyway, i should have an access to a second PC with which i might be able to repair my HDD with the advice you gave me, i will post results probably on friday. Thanks.

[SnipingCoward]

That warning is a standard message which of course is correct. There is a chance that fixmbr can damage a working partition table but since yours is already broken I would irgnore it and give it a try. Besides, from what I have experienced "fixmbr" and "fixboot" are both rather harmless commands, for me either they worked and fixed my problem or they simply didn't and were worth a try. TestDisk on the other hand should be a later option as this tool can really screw things up and is rather complicated to use.

Once your HDD and its partitions is recognized you should run chkdsk on the partition at some point. However be aware that chkdsk has a bad habit of losing data (creates "found.xxx"-folders and puts unnamed files there). But on the other hand the partition gains on stability and you might be able to access files again. I'd say try saving your files first, then run chkdsk if your are missing some ("chkdsk X: /r" will attempt to repair the partition X).

[masterceo]

Ok, this is really getting on my nerves right now.
I got a brand new HDD, Samsung 1TB, can't remember which model, and now i'm constantly getting BSOD, every day
error code is 0x0000000A (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x80522704)
googling didn't turn up ANYTHING.
Please, help me with this.

[masterceo]

alright, seems like JAVA was the cause, it was running in 64bit, reinstalled it and so far it works fine