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GPU / Mobo / Driver issue?

984 views 12 replies 3 participants last post by  Angryi 
#1 ·
Hey guys, I need your help.
A couple of days ago I bought a new mobo (Asus 970 pg/aura) to replace my overheating MSI and some faster RAM along with it. I installed everything without a problem, made a fresh Win 7 installation and... ran into these issues:

1) The whole screen seems out-of-focus: text is blurry, icons and pictures have jagged edges and generally fixing my eyes on one point on the screen causes eye strain. Here's a picture taken from a football manager game, mine is on the left, the one on the right is someone else's (google images): . No amount of messing with contrast, gamma or brightness has fixed this.

2) Videos. The picture is great as long as there's someting static, like a logo or a background of some sorts. But as soon as people start talking or the camera moves, the picture becomes real blurry and somewhat pixolated. Like if I switched from 1080 to 320 or there was a refresh issue. When the movement slows down, the picture gets better and there's visible focusing process. There's also strange color saturation at times.
Screenshot 1 - little motion, doesnt look like 1080, but still decent:
Screen**** 2 - in motion, notice the pixels and blur:

3) Games and pictures. Blur and jagged edges again. This is what happends when I zoom in to a 1080 picture: . The pixolation and jagged edges around the mirror are a perfect example of what I'm getting with every pict. Including 2GB pics in Photoshop.

Initially I thought this was my monitor (144hz LG 24gm77, dvi-d) acting up but it's kinda obvious that if I can take screenshots of the flaws and see them on different monitors, it must be something else.

I'll include my full specs and some additional info as well:

Mobo: Asus 970 Progaming/aura
GPU: Asus Ex 1050 Ti
CPU: AMD FX 8300
RAM: 4x4 Vengeance @ 2133
OS: Win 7 64bit
PSU: EVGA supernova G3 550W
SSD/HDD: 850 EVO, Barracuda
Temps: GPU (avg 38, Max 70), CPU (avg 32, max 42, core 15-18), mobo (27-34), flow (26-35)
RAM are running stable @ 2133/1.5V according to both bios and cpu-z, no memtest errors.
Nothing is OC'd as of now.
No BSOD, freezes, crashes. Games don't stutter, fps stable.

What I've tried so far:
-reformatted and reinstalled Win, twice
-a different monitor and input
-different PSU
-older nvidia drivers, directX reinstall

Any ideas?
 
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#2 ·
Hello Angryi,

CPU: AMD FX 8300
Are you aware that the FX 8300 only supports DDR3-1866.

RAM: 4x4 Vengeance @ 2133
Have you got a link to the RAM that you have so we can check the specs.

Have you tried booting into Safe Mode to see if the issue is still present.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Hello Angryi,

Are you aware that the FX 8300 only supports DDR3-1866.

Have you got a link to the RAM that you have so we can check the specs.

Have you tried booting into Safe Mode to see if the issue is still present.
Hey, thanks for your reply. I set the memory to run at 1866 and there's no difference. The RAM is CMZ8GX3M2A2133C11R ( http://www.corsair.com/en-gb/vengeancer-8gb-1-5v-dual-channel-ddr3-memory-kit-cmz8gx3m2a2133c11r ) and is on the mobo's supported vendor list. I forgot to say I've also tried completely different sticks (1333 Kingston).
I booted in safe mode and the pixolation in videos was terrible - (1080 quality). 720 videos looked 320x200, it was difficult to even make out faces.
Just to be sure, here's my gpu-z post:

Tried some adobe flash videos yesterday - I don't know how relevant this is, but entering and leaving fullscreen would turn my monitor off and on. When in fullscreen, it seemed like I was switched to the video's resolution (different mouse movement). There was visible screen tearing and even some distortion (lines of pixels of random colors) happening occasionally.
 
#5 ·
Actually that motherboard supports 2133 ram however you have to set the speed/timings manually. See this quote from the spec sheet;
4 x DIMM, Max. 32GB, DDR3 2133(O.C.)/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory
That board has two pci16 slots. Do you get the same problem when you install the video card in the second slot?
 
#6 ·
Actually that motherboard supports 2133 ram however you have to set the speed/timings manually. See this quote from the spec sheet;
Perhaps I should have elaborated as I was not intending to imply that the RAM was not compatible with the MB, I checked the MBs QVL and noted that the (CMZ8GX3M2A2133C11R) RAM that Angryi is using has been tested and proven by ASUS to be compatible with the Asus 970 Progaming/aura MB, what I was pointing to was that the AMD FX 8300 processors memory controller is only shown to be compatible with DDR3-1866MHz RAM.
 
#7 ·
Thanks for your replies guys and sorry for the late response, was busy during the weekend.

So first things first, here are the speedfan/hwm reports, first pict is just browsing the web and watching youtube, second is playing gta v with 2 other games, photoshop, vegas and browser running in the background:

Speedfan wouldnt report voltages - tried both the version from phillpower2's link and the latest one.
The fans showing 0 RPM arent plugged in into the mobo directly (case fans), 140mm/1000rpm. They work. Cpu fan's max rpm is 1200. Please let me know if there's something off.

After some messing around I think I know what the issue is, but I have no clue how to get rid of it.
I tried putting the 1050ti into the second pci slot, no difference. Then I dug out my old pc with an ancient gpu (gts 250, 512mb), no problem with the picture. Then I put the 1050ti into the old pc and... no problem with the picture.
I took some screenshots and there's obviously some kind of hw contrast/brightness thing going on on my current computer: - the pic on the left is my old pc, it looks literally the same no matter which gpu I used.

It makes me wish my monitor had a focus wheel, because in desktop, games, videos and pictures it feels like the focus is on the background. I believe this is why any flaws stand out so much.
Naturally I tried adjusting gamma, saturation, contrast and brigtness both on my monitor and in nvidia control panel with no luck. I could make text look great by boosting the contrast on my monitor to its max, then again everything else looked bad. Simply put, it feels like that weird hw brightness is just there and all I can do is adjust it.

So I'm thinking - could some of the bios features be causing this? I admit this is my first ASUS mobo and I'm not familiar with most of its specific features. Everything's still set on default.
Any ideas?
 
#8 ·
Both speedfan and hardware monitor are next to useless with any modern hardware. I would really really doubt you have a core temp of 9C as shown on your first screenshot. HWM shows a cpu temp of 8C which is also highly doubtful. Both programs were good in their day however that day has long past.
Asus has purpose designed monitoring software for almost all of their motherboards. Go to the support page and download/install. It is generally under AI Suite for more modern boards and asus probe for older boards.
 
#9 ·
Both speedfan and hardware monitor are next to useless with any modern hardware. I would really really doubt you have a core temp of 9C as shown on your first screenshot. HWM shows a cpu temp of 8C which is also highly doubtful. Both programs were good in their day however that day has long past.
Asus has purpose designed monitoring software for almost all of their motherboards. Go to the support page and download/install. It is generally under AI Suite for more modern boards and asus probe for older boards.
Sure, no problem.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Those temps and voltages look fine. If I understand your post, you installed an old gt250 and had no problem with the picture. There may be some incompatibility between the video card and motherboard. I did notice on the support page for your board, there are a LOT of bios updates that address stability issues. Are you running the latest bios?
Just as a simple test to find out if you do in fact have a hardware problem, boot the system with a linux live usb. If your video works ok under linux, you know the hardware is fine and it is a driver/windows problem. If you still have the same problem under linux, you can be sure it is a problem with the motherboard or some incompatibility with the board and video card.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I'm running the latest bios, yes. I flashed it as soon as I noticed something was off.
Both the old gts 250 and my current 1050ti ran well in the old pc and there were no gfx issues.
I will try to boot with the linux live usb, but it still seems to me like both the mobo and gpu are fine and this is some kind of bios / driver problem, mostly because there are no crashes, no weird sounds coming from my pc or anything like that. Both are asus products, too )
It's just this brightness thing I described.
 
#13 ·
Ok so I've tried Ubuntu -
Everything is sharp, vivid and has just the right amount of color saturation.
I have no clue what to reinstall because I've already formatted 3 times and this issue is there as soon as I enter windows without even installing any drivers.
 
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