Purple/green/white/etc screens of death

R

Raxxath

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
491
So a couple weeks ago I was playing Cataclysm a day or two after release night, when my screen suddenly turned purple during a cutscene and my computer became basically frozen. I restarted, but this continued to happen every half hour to hour, often during cutscenes, sometimes not.

After another day or two, it completely stopped happening while playing, but occurs when I first turn on the computer. Instead of the windows desktop, I get a weird looking, somewhat pixelated screen of one color or another, and a slight squealing sound comes from my case. It's getting to the point where I have to restart around 20 times before it will actually work properly.

I ran memtest overnight but got no errors. Any ideas what else could be causing this?

Specs:
Asus Sabertooth 55i
i7 870
2x2gb OCZ RAM that I've always ran underclocked
GTX 280
WD6400AAKS
 
Your GTX 280 is failing. RMA it if you can. There isn't much more you can do.
 
caniba said:
Your GTX 280 is failing. RMA it if you can. There isn't much more you can do.
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Really? I was suspicious of that, since I've been using it for a long time, but it's been running games just fine since that first few times I kept crashing. Would I be able to test it through ATItool or anything like that?
 
its a ram issue. the ram on that graphic card is failing... diffierent colored stuff is a indication of that. RMA time.
 
Run Furmark and see if the video card is stable then. If not, the video card is indeed shot and you're looking at a RMA.

What PSU do you have BTW?
 
Danny Bui said:
Run Furmark and see if the video card is stable then. If not, the video card is indeed shot and you're looking at a RMA.

What PSU do you have BTW?
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Same as the sig, which I need to update, Corsair 620HX. I'll run that in a little bit.
 
So I ran Furmark and sure enough, it crashed 20 seconds in. I RMAed the card and just received the replacement a few days ago. The first day or two everything was working fine. Then it crashed once, which I thought was a fluke until it crashed again yesterday. It's now crashing every 5 minutes while gaming.

So is the problem actually my power supply, or what? The thing is, the crashes are different now. My computer would stay "on" before, just with a frozen screen of weird colors. Now the screen loses the video signal from my computer, and an orange light turns on the back of the GTX 280. Also, the computer remains on, but the fan noise from the video card is gone until I restart it.

So what does this all mean? I don't have a multimeter or anything to test the PSU, is there another way? I'm seriously getting annoyed now.
 
It could be the PSU or the mobo. Unless they sent you another defective card, which can happen.
 
caniba said:
It could be the PSU or the mobo. Unless they sent you another defective card, which can happen.
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The only other video card I have is a 2600 Pro, hardly enough to put any real stress on the system. The problem seems to come and go, as I've played for a couple hours today with no crashes. I don't get it.
 
Okay, now I'm REALLY fucking confused.

About a week ago now I swapped the PSU and that seemed to fix the problem. I've been playing games every day with no problems.

...Until just now. The monitor lost signal and the orange light on the back of the video card lit up, just like it did before. What the fuck?! Why would switching the PSU fix the problem for a week or whatever, then suddenly have it reoccur? I have no idea what to do next.
 
Raxxath said:
Okay, now I'm REALLY fucking confused.

About a week ago now I swapped the PSU and that seemed to fix the problem. I've been playing games every day with no problems.

...Until just now. The monitor lost signal and the orange light on the back of the video card lit up, just like it did before. What the fuck?! Why would switching the PSU fix the problem for a week or whatever, then suddenly have it reoccur? I have no idea what to do next.
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Hmm, could be that there might have been residual damage from your first PSU that didn't show up until now. Or it could be just be a defective card or mobo.
 
Danny Bui said:
Hmm, could be that there might have been residual damage from your first PSU that didn't show up until now.
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But is something like that even possible? I don't see why it would perfectly for a week after switching the PSU, only to suddenly crap out again just like before.


Danny Bui said:
Or it could be just be a defective card or mobo.
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Again, I don't see how it could go a week of solid usage without showing any problems if either of those were to blame.

It crashed again in the same way last night, so it wasn't just a fluke. I really don't know where to go from here. Returning things is expensive, I can't just blindly RMA everything.
 
Raxxath said:
But is something like that even possible? I don't see why it would perfectly for a week after switching the PSU, only to suddenly crap out again just like before.
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Wouldn't have said it if it wasn't possible.

Raxxath said:
It crashed again in the same way last night, so it wasn't just a fluke. I really don't know where to go from here. Returning things is expensive, I can't just blindly RMA everything.
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Well you could try another PSU to make absolutely sure that the PSU isn't the root cause. Speaking of which. what PSU did you replace the 620HX with?
 
Danny Bui said:
Hmm, well the orange light on the GTX 280 usually signifies a PSU issue. How exactly are you connecting the PSU to the GPU? Are you using any sort of adapter?
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Nope, it's just a corsair modular cable, as it should be.
 
Well at this point I would try a different PSU of a different model and brand or swap out the GPU and see what happens.
 
Went about a week and half with no crashes, until just now.

I noticed that my music continued playing even after the screen went black and all. I couldn't stop it or anything with my Logitech G15 controls, though. Does that give any hints as to what's causing this?
 
Raxxath said:
Went about a week and half with no crashes, until just now.

I noticed that my music continued playing even after the screen went black and all. I couldn't stop it or anything with my Logitech G15 controls, though. Does that give any hints as to what's causing this?
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To me, not really. I've seen that same issue occur with faulty GPUs, hard drives, motherboards, RAM, and PSU.
 
Here's an HD Tach run of my hard drive, does it look okay?

Running Furmark still often crashes my computer, sometimes 5-10 seconds after I've closed the program...

HDTach.png
 
HDD seems fine.

Have you tried a different PSU? A different GPU?
 
Danny Bui said:
HDD seems fine.

Have you tried a different PSU? A different GPU?
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I've replaced the GPU and PSU once each. I have another PSU that I could try, though it's noisy and requires some ghetto wiring, but I don't have another GPU capable of playing games.

I get the feeling that it's probably the motherboard, but I don't have another to test it with.
 
Who says you have to play games on it? Just run boot and run Furmark with that other card to rule out your current GPU being an issue.
 
Danny Bui said:
Who says you have to play games on it? Just run boot and run Furmark with that other card to rule out your current GPU being an issue.
Click to expand...

I meant that it's such a low power card, it might not be able to put enough strain on the system to produce the problem. For example, say I put the 2600 Pro in and the problem seems to go away, making me think the GPU is the issue, when it's actually a faulty PSU that they 2600 Pro can't put enough strain on.

Anyway, I'll switch the PSU again soon.
 
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