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I have a Windows 8.1 PC with ATI graphics (78xx series) card with up to date drivers. It's driving an old Iiyama 22" 1920x1080 50Hz LCD panel over a new DVI cable. I have two HDD, a little SSD for the OS and a couple of big magnetic discs for storage.
When playing games, my I sometimes see artefacts before the game crashes. Sometimes Windows crashes too. It happens on DirectX (up to date and under 9, 10 and 11) and OpenGL (both pre-v2 version and later).
After ensuring vents were clear, heat was under control and cleaned contacts etc, I returned the graphics card to the people I bought it from (Scan), who ran it under load (3DMark benchmark) for 24 hours without a fault being found.
Drivers are up to date and the windows dump crash report (when it takes out Windows) says that an unknown hardware fault occurs.
The rest of the machine runs fine when under load - I run artificial intelligence algorithms (no GUI) on it that run the 3 of the 4 processors at 80% and 10 of the 12GB of RAM used for 2-3 days without a problem. During that time, there's also high disk access against the magnetic discs.
If the monitor goes into standby, it sometimes omits a high pitched buzz sound after a while. I've replaced cables and isolated power.
Is it possible that a fault in the monitor is causing the graphics card to crash?
The only test I can't easily do is borrow another monitor, because I would need to borrow it for a period of time.
Edit
A co-worker has suggested I try a VGA cable, which is not plug-and-play. It's a good idea, I'll try that tonight (if the GfX card has a VGA out) and report back. VGA cable made no difference.
Tried 3DMark (it was version 11) to reproduce the test that Scan computing did, and found that it was still crashing.
Tried the onboard adapter - not powerful enough to run the same games but showed that there wasn't a problem in OpenGL.
You might also want to make sure it's actually outputting 50 Hz, and not 60, though, again, that shouldn't cause this particular kind of crash
Tried that, definitely outputing 60Hz.
Its very unlikely. A problem like this is normally caused by drivers. – Ramhound – 2014-02-24T13:37:12.020
> ran it under load for 24 hours What kind of load? There are many different loads, some of which would not stress the same components as what you are doing with it (e.g. artefacts are often memory/vram-related, not the GPU itself - and games can load a lot of textures into memory). Are you only seeing the effects while gaming? Is it a specific game? I mean, it's theoretically possible for a monitor to cause issues, but I wouldn't expect video artefacts. – Bob – 2014-02-24T13:37:27.353
Scan Computing ran it against 3DMark. I only see the effects when gaming and in a number of games. Does the monitor communicate its refresh rate/native res/etc? I think it must because the plug-n-play standard does. If the monitor is faulty, it could be messing with that while I play. – Dr Rob Lang – 2014-02-24T13:44:13.500
Have updated the question with extra detail and an idea to try VGA. – Dr Rob Lang – 2014-02-24T13:46:39.900
3@RobLang Your use of the term "plug and play" in this context is utterly incorrect and has no real meaning. Also, both DVI and VGA are able to transmit EDID information (monitor supported rates, resolutions, etc.) anyway. There have been stories of odd behaviour due to invalid EDID, but certainly not causing video artefacts only under load. – Bob – 2014-02-24T13:51:49.670
You might also be getting this because of a particular interaction between your hardware, that wouldn't be visible on the test system. – terdon – 2014-02-24T14:54:42.760
@terdon - what sort of things can I measure to work out the odd interactions? – Dr Rob Lang – 2014-02-24T15:54:12.017
@RobLang no idea, I'm just pointing out that the screen is not the only difference between your setup and that of Scan. If they don't detect an error and you do, it could be due to something else, not just your screen. – terdon – 2014-02-24T15:57:25.407
1@RobLang Have you tried running 3DMark yourself? Preferably the same version they were running. Also, since you don't have another monitor to test, consider testing a different video adapter - e.g. the onboard one. This may not be feasible if the issues only occur during gaming, though. You might also want to make sure it's actually outputting 50 Hz, and not 60, though, again, that shouldn't cause this particular kind of crash. – Bob – 2014-02-24T16:52:25.020
@Bob - thank you! I'll try those things and report back (update the question). – Dr Rob Lang – 2014-02-24T16:56:43.623