Two days ago my PC began to start artifacting with random letters disappearing from the screen. Yesterday, the problem worsened to include small 4 pixel artifacts scattered throughout the screen, which change whenever the screen refreshes.
I am leaning towards thinking that the issue is with the cpu, as I disabled the gpu drivers(through device manager in windows), and the problem still persists. Furthermore, I have also tested the ram with windows diagnostics, with no errors being reported. Additionally, the problem is not present when I boot into the BIOS.
I have read online that this issue is usually caused by bad VRAM, but since I have disabled the GPU drivers, I believe that the gpu is not the issue.
Does anyone have any ideas on if this can be fixed? Do you think that underclocking the cpu would possibly fix the issue, or reinstalling Windows 10 would do anything?
My System: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/5977?b=1 (Laptop with 5200u and 940m)
Usually with laptops like yours the Display is handled by the iGPU(short for: integrated GPU), and the dGPU (940m in your laptop) will use optimus to drive your display, unless you disable the iGPU.
try to disable the iGPU (Intel® HD Graphics 5500) and keep the 940M enabled.
now if that worked for you, then go ahead and download intel XTU overclocking utility and try to downclock or downvolt your iGPU and see if it makes a diff or not.
I think it would be pretty odd if your the iGPU is turned out to be faulty.
As about what you've read about vram, usually artifacts like that would only appear under load when the vram is being taxed.
My other suggestion is to make sure its not a malware, download any linux distro ISO(ubuntu for example), load it into a usb stick (using rufus software) and try to boot from it to see if the artifacts are still there.
Good Luck
and Keep us posted.
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Thank you for responding.
I tried disabling the iGPU and re-enabling the 940m and it fixed the issue. I find that to be really weird as I set the 940m to run while in games before, but the artifacting still was present in these games.
Thank you for your help. :)
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While disabling the iGPU did stop artifacting while running basic programs such as a web browser, or MSI Afterburner- it has prevented me from running games.
When I tried to play Goat Simulator, I only got like 0.5 fps. Furthermore when I opened CSGO it showed the following error message
and when I tried to open NVIDIA Control Panel I got the following error message.
At this point I think that the issue might be caused by NVIDIA Optimus, as from what I read this causes the GPU to process the image and transfer the image to the IGPU to be displayed. However, this does not explain why normal programs such as google run properly.
Does anybody know what could cause this or what could fix this? The only thing I can think of is trying to install Linux and seeing if that solves the problem as from what I read NVIDIA Optimus is not compatible on Linux.
PS: I tried looking around in the BIOS, but couldn't find an option to disable the iGPU
Not really much of a suprise, but the problem is also present in Ubuntu....
At this point, I think you should check your ram before we make more assumptions. a bad memory in some cases may lead to screen artifacts.
First, run Windows Memory Diagnostics tool (WinKey+S -> mdsched)
if it didn't show any errors, you can also double check physically.
According to http://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-E5-573G-Notebook-Review.146740.0.html
Your notebook computer should come equipped with 2x(4GB) memory sticks, try to remove one of them at a time and check for artifacts. also when you test them try a different slot each time.
Good Luck.
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My laptop model (Acer Aspire E5 573G 52G3) comes with 1 8gb stick of ram, with 1 ram slot empty. I tried running Windows Memory Diagnostics and memtest86, and both tests returned no errors.
Got any other ideas?
have you tried changing ram into another slot, although it is very unlikely to be the issue but i think it worth a try.
other than that im out of ideas :( sorry.
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