/3/ - 3DCG

[Anonymous No.673149]

Computer problem. Need input.

Computer was acting up last week and crashed on me with graphics failures. Thought it was graphics card. Updated and continued on my way and today it crashed and corrupted my boot drive. That's a new one for me.

Reinstalled Windows 10 and re-installed my editing software. Decided to test things out. Now that things have cooled down and were up to date, I started up a game that caused the crash and hard drive errors. Crashed again. But this time I restarted before computer could go full retard.

Turned comp off, pulled the GFX card, and started up no problem but with the obvious "you don't have a graphics card" aesthetic.

Ok, it must be the card... But wait... There's more.

After ordering a new card and fucking with some settings, i started to see hesitations. Well, duh, I have no GPU to share the load. But it started to show the same signs as card failure. So I started the same game but reset all the graphics to default. Immediately shit started flickering. Not the light show and sparkles that you get with the GPU, but like 1/4 of the screen going all diagonal and flickering black.

Question: I know the mobo isn't capable of handling extreme graphics, and even on the lowest settings, it can still get rough. But would it flicker or just skip frames as though laggy? I don't have another comp to toss the card in to try it out, so how do I know it isn't mobo, memory, or CPU problems, and the GFX is just fine?

I can't start the computer with the GFX card in. It says the boot drive can't be read when I do. So to me, that's a card issue, but my old experience with mobo gaming is just laggy as hell crap graphics. Not flickering and corrupted visuals.

[Anonymous No.673150]

>>673149
tl;dr:
How do I know my graphics card is the culprit of a major catastrophe and not the CPU, memory, or mobo?

[Anonymous No.673151]

Try doing something basic like chrome with no graphics card and see if it fucks up again. If it does, it's probably the motherboard

[Anonymous No.673153]

>>673151
Chrome seems to work fine. I figured the game was an extreme, but in my past experiences, games just ran like ass, not full on glitchy.

[Anonymous No.673160]

>>673149
It would depend... If you actually have graphics integrated into your mobo then it is time for an upgrade. APUs (CPUs with integrated graphics chips) replaced mobo graphics like two decade ago. The only modern mobos with graphics chips are server boards and those chips struggle with even the most basic desktops; nevermind windows 10... Or gaming.

If you were actually referring to the integrated graphics of your CPU then you might need a new CPU. If the integrated graphics chip blew up then chances are there is some serious damage to the CPU as a whole... That said, CPUs are rare the original failure point. They are very, very robustly build pieces of hardware. If they break its usually because something else broke them and if something else broke them then something else is broken.

Now, if your CPU's integrated graphics is working fine for workloads that it is designed to handle then you might be safe... CPU integrated graphics use system ram. The weird flickering you experienced while trying to play your game might... MIGHT be caused by paging. If you have very little system ram and you try to load a lot of textures (like what happens while your playing a game) you're computer will start writing information in your ram to the computers harddrive. This is to free up system ram for active programs. However, if you push this feature too far it can swap vital information into the page file. This can result in very, very weird behavior.

Many programs running their graphics on a GPU will also use system ram if you cap out your GPU's graphics ram (this feature isn't universal though, some programs just crash). From what I understand, many 3D programs use this feature for obvious reasons (4k textures chew through graphics ram like warm butter). You may have even pushed your gpu to the point where it ate all your system ram as well; resulting in a vital bit of system memory being paged and crashing your computer.

CONT'D

[Anonymous No.673161]

>>673160
Nevermind, I really can't comment any more without knowing more about your exact hardware...

A couple suggestions though;
>don't.... DON'T plug your new graphics card into your computer until you know it isn't a hardware failure issue. It could very well fry the card and you're money will by lost; warranties don't cover damaged caused by the user's faulty hardware.
>if you have very limited resources on your computer try using a lighter OS. Ubuntu or Linux Mint are fairly easy to use, and they are a fraction of the resource hog that Windows 10 is. There are even ultra light options, but those take a lot of set up to use for anything other then graphical server management.
>if paging is the issue you'll want to buy a couple sticks of higher capacity ram. A lot of vidya games now will gobble up more than 8 gigs when running on an APU... Just buy some used ram off ebay, if money is an issue. Ram can break, but it is nearly as robust as your processor. Most people sell their ram on ebay because they just don't want it sitting in a drawer somewhere; not because its broken.

[Anonymous No.674666]

The hdd itself may be the issue. I had a similar seemingly undiagnosable problem that i thought for sure was the mobo. Turns out that the hdd was failing to read random things like drivers and certain parts of the os (one time i booted and all the sound controls were gone, another time certain files were unreadable) reformating appeared to work but quickly windows ceased functioning. Try booting off another hdd or usb. Sry for phonepost

[Anonymous No.674962]

>>673149
did you install all the updates for your OS especially the micro-code updates for your CPU?

[Anonymous No.674963]

>>673149
try replacing the PSU, is it an old pc? A failing PSU can cause hardware failure or damage to components, i've had this happen.

[Anonymous No.674965]

>>673149
In order:
- Try the questions thread on /g/ next time
- Boot into a live Linux USB and test the same things
- Monitor your thermals to make sure nothing is overheating
- Check your HDD with some SMART monitoring tool to make sure it isn't dead/failing/corrupted
- Reset your BIOS settings just in case
- Run memtest86 to make sure it isn't your RAM
- Make sure your power supply is large enough to handle your hardware, and isn't failing
- Check obvious things like your motherboard having blown capacitors, signs of shorting, water damage, dead rat stuck in the fanblades, etc.
- Get a cheap motherboard with the same socket and swap it out to check whether the problem still exists (with your old graphics card, CPU, PSU and RAM), then sell or return it

[Anonymous No.674982]

>>674666
Possibly this.
I won't act as if I know your hardware exactly. But if you plug in your GPU and the motherboard doesn't accept it, then you use the IGPU and it's glitching up like crazy, doesn't this all point at the motherboard?

[Anonymous No.678257]

Space Ghost is obviously a Space Man, who died, and became a Space Ghost.