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Graphics Cards

wiery
Adept I

How to determine what is causing visual artifacts

So I recently built my first gaming PC just over a month ago after some extensive research online. Everything has been running smoothly and looking great over the past month, and I have spent well over 100 hours gaming on it. All of a sudden yesterday, I started experiencing flickering horizontal bars of vertical lines across different parts of the screen. This continued until the screen eventually went black and I had to shut down the computer by holding the power button. Now whenever I turn the PC back on I see this visual artifact even when I'm not doing anything - at the login screen, the desktop, and while playing games. Sometimes it goes away and I can be on for a few hours without seeing it, other times it'll come back right away or not disappear at all. I've tried uninstalling the drivers and installing the latest ones, to no avail. 

When I take a screenshot of the artifacts and view it later (when there is no artifacts), everything looks normal. This leads me to believe that it is not a graphics card or driver issue, but rather something to do with the monitor or connection. However, when I use AMD Cleanup to remove all drivers, without installing any display drivers afterwards, the visual artifacting is gone. 

I really have no idea what could be causing this problem or what to do about it. All of the components in my PC are basically brand new and I have never overclocked anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

Here are my specs:

- OS: Windows 10 64 bit

- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600

- MOBO: MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC

- Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700

- RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB

- Storage: Samsung 860 evo 500GB

- PSU: Corsair RM750x

11 Replies

GPU Artifacts are generally caused by:

1- Overheating

2-Overclocking

3-GPU Driver

4-Defective GPU card.

Since you are seeing the Artifacts at Login it is possible you have a defective RX5700 or Monitor or cable. Try connecting your TV Set (another monitor) to the computer and see if you see the same Artifacts. If you do then that eliminates the Monitor.

Do you see the Artifacts when in BIOS or first booting up?

Download either Furmark Fuzzy Donut or OCCT and stress test your GPU card with the AMD Driver installed. See what occurs or if your computer shuts down or freezes. Keep a close eye on Temperatures and Voltages while the Stress tests are running.

Also try installing a previous RX5700 AMD driver to rule out a bug with the latest AMD version from here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/previous-drivers/graphics/amd-radeon-5700-series/amd-radeon-rx-5700-s... 

Note: Many Users are having problems with the RX 5700 Series GPU cards mainly due to AMD driver issues.

Thank you for the reply! I have been monitoring the temp of my GPU through the Radeon Performance overlay and it has not reached any worrisome temperatures. I also have not overclocked any of my components. 

The problem is that the artifacts are mostly noticeable when the refresh rate of the monitor is set to 144 Hz, barely noticeable at 120 or 100 Hz, and not noticeable at all at 60 Hz. I don't have another 144 Hz monitor to test with, and every 60 Hz TV I have tried has shown no artifacts. So I don't think I can conclude anything based on that. I have also tried switching from DisplayPort to HDMI, as well as trying multiple HDMI cables and they have all shown the same artifacts at 144 Hz. 

I don't see any artifacts when in BIOS or first booting up. I will try the stress test today and update here with the results. I will also try installing a previous driver to see if that helps. 

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Your GPU card seems to be fine. Otherwise artifacts would have occurred at any Resolution frequencies.  Most likely using a Stress test it would pass without any issues. But no harm just to see the results out of curiosity.

If might be a Radeon Setting that is causing the issue like is Freesync enabled or disabled or some other settings that affects Monitor's Resolution or Frequencies.

By any chance are you using a Direct HDMI to HDMI  or DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable or are you using an adapter like DP>HDMI or HDMI>DP adapter?

Reason why I ask is some Adapters may not work with higher frequencies like 144 hz.

Unless you have a corrupted AMD driver installation. To eliminate that part use this basic method to remove all traces of the current AMD driver and installation later on:

Uninstall the current AMD Driver using DDU as per this method:

It could be due to a corrupted AMD Driver installation.

Download free program DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller). Run it in Safe mode with the internet disconnected.

You can also run it in Windows Desktop but then you would need to Reboot the computer for DDU to finish erasing all of  the AMD Driver traces from your computer.

 Once it finishes uninstalling the current AMD Driver in Safe mode and boots back to Windows Desktop, still with the Internet disconnected, delete the AMD Installation folder C:\AMD if it was created before.

Now install the full AMD Drive package you downloaded manually from AMD Download page. Not the express package. Run the package and if it installs correctly again delete C:\AMD folder and reconnect the internet.

This should prevent any conflict when installing the new version from the previous version.

By the way, C:\AMD is always created whenever you run the AMD Driver package

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I still haven't tried the stress test, but I just used AMD Cleanup Utility to remove all drivers and then downloaded an older version (20.4.1) which seems to have fixed the problem! Is that essentially the same as using DDU? Fingers crossed the artifacting doesn't return in which case I guess we can assume it was a bug with the newer driver or corrupted version?

No, I am using direct HDMI to HDMI and direct DisplayPort to DisplayPort. Also, just so I know, what would too high of a GPU temp? During high intensity gaming it reaches around 80 deg C at most. Is that ok? Also, what is the GPU junction temp? That is sometimes higher that the GPU temp for me. 

Thanks again for taking the time to reply and for your help! It is VERY appreciated

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DDU is probably better than AMD Clean Utility which deletes all AMD software and drivers from your computer. DDU just deletes the GPU driver and its related software.

80C is very good temperatures for an RX 5700 GPU card. The Maximum Operating Temperature of the RX 5700 Series GPU cards is 110C.

This thread I opened previously AMD explains about the RX5700 Temperatures: https://community.amd.com/thread/247082 

Ok gotcha. That makes me feel a lot better. I just ran the FurMark stress test for over 20 min and no problems at all. Peak temp was 82 C. That was without anti-aliasing mind you. 

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Unfortunately, I just turned my PC back on to notice the artifacting is back! I guess the old driver version didn't fix my problem after all...

At this point I'm starting to think it is probably my monitor that is causing this. When I take a screenshot of the artifacting it is not visible in the screenshot which means that it can't be the GPU right?

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I would believe if you took a screenshot when artifacts are present it should show up in the image also.

If it passed FurMark without any artifacts then I would try a different Monitor and see if it still occurs.

Do you have Freesync enabled or disabled?  If enabled, disable it and see if the artifacts still occurs or not. Also make sure in Windows the Resolution and Hz are correct. Like 60 Hz instead of 59 hz as an example.

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you have not solved it? The same thing happened to me, but with na rx 5600xt

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It turned out to be a defective monitor (Razer Raptor 27). After doing a bunch of testing and swapping it out with my friends monitor I was able to confirm that it wasn't a problem with the graphics card. 

Japheth
Adept I

The same thing happened to me and im still dying to figure out a solution

Device: Asus Vivobook KM513UA

Processor and graphics : AMD Ryzen 5 5500U with Radeon graphics ( integrated)

 

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