Monitor problems

[Mobius]

About 5 minutes after playing F.E.A.R for the first time, I noticed dots on my monitor. Sort of like dead pixels. My room smelt of burning too.

I rebooted and they were still there, so I turned my pc and monitor off for a few minutes and it was fine after that. I played a few other games, etc and nothing went wrong. I went back to F.E.A.R and got the same problem about 20 minutes in.

I can't play F.E.A.R due to this. It sucks. I have a Samsung 913n. My graphics card is a Radeon x850 256mb, AMD 64 3700+ and 2gb of ram.

Please help. It smells of toast.

 

[smurkin]

Are these dead pixels quite big? and do they flash around...if so, thats most likely your video card RAM. And, burning smells are NOT good. I would have a look inside - use your nose, try to sniff out the stink - it could well be the psu.

 

[Mobius]

Are these dead pixels quite big? and do they flash around...if so, thats most likely your video card RAM.

What do you mean? Like, how do I fix this?

The smell was only there for a while, its gone now. I tried playing again and the pc locked up again, then pixels began appearing. I turned the pc off for about a minute and now its fine again. Really irritating though, since I want to play F.E.A.R for more than 5 minutes without the pc locking up.

 

[smurkin]

Well, are they like bloody big sparklies like on old analogue sattelite - black squares or rectangles (2-3mm long) that appear/disappear quickly when the game is playing ? I get these when I o/c my video RAM too far. Apart from down-clocking your RAM, I dont really know what to suggest.

Tbh, I recon this is just a red herring - pcs should definitely not smell of burning - I would have a sniff around - I strongly suspect your psu is faulty - there isnt much else inside a pc that can make a burning smell (although I once had a cold cathode controller that stunk for days before burning out all brown and nasty). I wouldn't put this off - fawlty psus can cause mucho damage . If not, it could be fawlty video RAM.

 

[Mobius]

I opened it up and took a look inside. Everything seemed alright. I couldn't see the PSU perfectly because it was encased in that box type thing, but from what I could see there was no burnt stuff or whatever, and there was no smell of "burnt" at all.
I'll give a few games a try today and see what happens. The same problem occured with CoD2 last night as well.

Its sort of difficult to explain exactly what happens but its like "Game freezes, if I wait long enough then dots appear on the screen, as if I've got some dead pixels on my monitor. If I reboot (turn the switch on and off, because the keyboard stops responding) then the same problem occurs. I have to turn the entire system off for about 30 seconds then it will be fine.

 

[Loki]

My guess would be either heat, or a to small PSU.
Had a similar problem with my comp, until I got som additional cooling.

 

[Mobius]

Seems to be alright now. Left it off overnight and it cooled. I think the reason it kept going wrong last night was because I was turning it on and off without giving it ample time to cool down a bit. Played Fear for hours without a problem this afternoon. Got Speedfan to check my temps and all seems good.

 

[Mobius]

Hmm, happened again whilst playing "The Movies." Didn't get the dead pixels, but instead all the colours in the game began flickering, then it did the usual. The burning smell reappeared too.

I opened the comp up and am fairly certain its something to do with the graphics card. It was almost to hot to touch, which I'm fairly sure isn't normal. The metal thing what sort of surrounds/holds it in place was absolutely boiling.

What can I do? Shall I cover it in thermal paste or something?

 

[Ch3tan]

Is the fan working? Have you overclocked the card?

 

[Dommers]

What card is it?

 

[Mobius]

I've never overclocked it. The fan is working fine (I have it open now, and its blowing air fine.) The card itself is really hot again though. Its a Radeon x850 256mb card.

 

[inactionman]

The video card may be faulty, get in touch with the vendor/manufacturer.

Also, so we can eliminate it as a possible cause for the problem, what make/rating is your PSU? As just before a friend of mine's PSU died, he smelt burning as well.

 

[Mobius]

PSU is a Fortron/Source Powersupply ATX 400W rev2
120mm, SATA Special Edition, 24pin

(https://komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=301418)

Its strange that I can play a game for 12 hours when my pcs been on for over 24 hours but then it will go wrong if I play a game for just an hour or whatever.

 

[Gat_Decor]

Mine does exactly the same (although my PC is on 24/7) i can be playing World of Warcraft for an hour or so then the screen goes 'pixelated' and will eventually make a high pitched noise, through the soundcard and then re-boot. It is definately my graphics card on its last legs

 

[Mobius]

I'll be pretty fucked off if its a problem that needs it to be sent back to the website. I've already had to send back a faulty harddrive, and I've only had the computer a couple of months.

 

[inactionman]

Never heard anything about that make of PSU (good or bad), but you probably want to smell the air coming out of the PSU, to see if the burning is comming from there.

If you've had the video card more than 3 months you may have to send it back to the manufacturer, which can be a pain (expect a 14 day turnaround).

 

[Mobius]

Urgh...*rage*

 

[Chilly]

*any* bit of a PC can smell like burning. or rather, any electronic component that carries current (ie, most of it). What you may have smelled was burning dust which is what most people associate with "burning electronics". I'm sure you know what I mean. It might, on the other hand, have been some compenents getting way too hot and melting their casings or various other bits that are not vital to operation.

I think it would be a good bet that the problem is heat related. Clean all your fans, and make sure the contact between the heatsink and the GPU on your graphics card is good, and likewise for your CPU. You may want to get some arctic silver or something and replace the stock thermal goop, although its all the same stuff really so it's not that important, as long as there *is* thermal goop.

To try and further pin it down: how long can you use it normally, without playing any games. IE, bugger all GPU load, but perhaps high CPU load. Run a program that works out big numbers lots overnight and see if it sends your PC titsup. If that is fine, try running any of the many gfx card strain tools that basicly render a bastard of a model and spin it and light it etc etc and monitor the GPU temperature the whole time, noting the temp if and when it goes titsup.

Failing all that, PSU could well be faulty, but it doesnt really sound like it.

 

[inactionman]

What Chilly said, except, don't touch the graphics card! If you remove any screws/whatever from it you will almost certainly invalidate your warranty!