Need some help. Is my GPU faulty?

[MegaUnlimi7ed]

I recently bought (on 14th June) the Sapphire HD 6870 and I came across two problems. The reason why I suspect it may be the card is because these two problems never happened before.

The first problem was that after about an hour or so my monitor just switched off as if its power plug was pulled and I couldn't switch it on via the monitor's power button, so I had to shut down the pc and turn it on again for it to work. This happened twice, though now it does not happen again. At first I thought it could've been the PSU but I've researched that 500W is enough.

The second and more serious problem is that a couple days ago me and my bro who play on the pc encountered the problem where the screen shifts and basically does what's shown in the screenshot below.


(A restart sorted it out each time though.)

Out of the current five times, they all happened when playing games (Rift; twice, Dirt 3; once, Borderlands; twice) Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2 were both played loads as well but nothing happened when playing them, so going by that I'm not really sure about this whole thing. Is it my graphics settings? Is it too much to ask of this powerful card to run these relatively undemanding games at max settings? :/ I've slightly overclocked it to 950 (core) / 1100 (memory). Also temps are pretty fine when I play the games, it is at 50 degrees when I play from what I've seen and 38 degrees idle.

If any of you have had this problem, what did you do, or what should be done? RMA it? (I got it from Aria.co.uk). Reconfigure settings? Re-install driver / CCC? Or is it not my GPU at all?

[kalniel]

You've bought a graphics card, voided the warranty by overclocking it and now when you see problems you might want to return it?

Remove all overclocks, check the seating, check the power connections, check the monitor cable, cleanout drivers and re-install.

What amperage does your PSU provide on the 12v rails?

[krazy_olie]

That is a bit weird.

Wouldn't rule a problem in the monitor, could be driving it at a weird refresh rate or something? Check that the device manager sees the monitor proper as a pnp monitor or a monitor with the correct name. If it says non pnp it isn't registering properly and you might need to manually configure it somewhat for the correct resolution/refresh rate. Try another monitor if you can, even a tv would do.

Definitely take away those overclocks for now. highly unlikely that the mild overclock would permanently damage but could be unstable (even if heat is low). If you are playing games fine then the core sounds ok though.

What's your connection to the monitor digital(dvi/hdmi) or analogue vga?