My GPU dying? Constant shadow flicker in Valheim and a few other games.

[R-T-B]

So I've tried googling this but come up with nothing.

My card (an EVGA RTX 2080 Super XC Ultra) has been great, despite being a used ebay buy. Until recently. I've started getting shadow flicker in games. Like severe shadow flicker. I'd make a video, but the point is it's drastic. We are talking move the camera and the shadows completely change throughtout the scene.

After diagnosing, I noticed it only seems to occur when the VRAM gets hotter than 70C. What's worse, is that it seems to be worsening as a problem.

I tried newer drivers than what I am presently running (I normally run 456.71 due to a displayport->HDMI 2.1 adapter bug NVIDIA refuses to fix), nada. Same issue. Different API's can lessen or worsen the issue but it never goes away if the game shows symptoms. Some games show no symptoms. Valheim seems the worst of the bunch.

Bottom line / question: Is this a driver thing, a game thing, or is my card truly dying and I am doomed to go down the rabbithole of a pandemic RMA? Anything else I can try? In the event it is dying... Anyone have a GPU of equivalent or better specs they'd sell a guy at a normal price? Desperate plea I know, but my alternative is integrated graphics and a GTX 1060... 3GB.

I'm going to make a cellphone video soon to show this. I don't want to stress the cards vram more with encoding a possibly intense capture job. Plus, I'm not even sure if it would show there.

Also, I know Micron ram was an issue early on, but I appear to have Samsung according to GPU-Z.

 

[Athlonite]

I'd try the 1060 and see if the shadow problem still exists if it does then that rules out the GPU and leaves you with Driver or Game issue but I'm picking it's a game issue

 

[oobymach]

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If it's one game only, it may be just a glitch. Have you tried flashing bios?

 

[INSTG8R]

While I”m a Time Spy guy. Firestrike used to be one that would show GFX corruption if something was off.

 

[R-T-B]

While I”m a Time Spy guy. Firestrike used to be one that would show GFX corruption if something was off.

The Raytracing demo shows it in this case. What is it? Port Royal. Yeah. Firestrike is fine though. It's weird. Port Royal is a mess though, at one point the scene looks like it's got severe vsync scene clipping but it's not vsync related and jumps about randomly.

If it's one game only, it may be just a glitch. Have you tried flashing bios?

I could try other bioses but I don't think that's a good idea. As it stands there is only one bios for my card.

Is the card confined or does it have room to breathe?

Oh, she's got room to breathe. She's in a data closet with 3000RPM Sunon MagLev blower fans blowing through her, besides her own cooling.

Also, is it normal that at idle, the vram is like 10 degrees hotter than the core? Is that just how GDDR6 is?

I'd try the 1060 and see if the shadow problem still exists if it does then that rules out the GPU and leaves you with Driver or Game issue but I'm picking it's a game issue

I would but honestly, it's in my server system, and in my multiplayer Valheim server I polled the users, and no one has experienced this issue at all. And it's not exactly something you can miss. Several of those users are using Pascal cards.

I may end up doing it anyways though. I've already tried reaching out to EVGA. We'll see what happens. Supposedly under their second hand warranty still.

 

[INSTG8R]

The RTX demo shows it in this case. What is it? Port Royal. Yeah. Firestrike is fine though. It's weird. Port Royal is a mess though.

So you can repro it with something else, sounds like the VRAM is on the outs. The VRAM cooling isn’t great apparently and probably not helping...

 

[R-T-B]

So you can repro it with something else, sounds like the VRAM is on the outs. The VRAM cooling isn’t great apparently and probably not helping...

The three games I have been able to reproduce it with are Valheim, Kerbal Space Program, and the Port Royal benchmark.

Of those, two are Unity games. I wouldn't be surprised if whatever is wrong, Unity shows it worse.

The VRAM cooling isn’t great apparently and probably not helping...

I already took apart the cooler and attempted to redo pads, etc. It lowered temps but the temps still easily climb into the 80C mark while gaming on the VRAM and it begins artifactings somewhere around 65-70C (which in Valheim, it will reach in 10 mins). The core seems fine.

Downclocking the ram as far as possible does nothing.

I'm pretty confident at this point it's the same kind of bizzare degradation that Turing is famous for from the early batches. Just never heard of it hitting Samsung VRAM.

 

[delshay]

While I”m a Time Spy guy. Firestrike used to be one that would show GFX corruption if something was off.

Unigine Heaven is also very good at detecting faults. It's one of a few software I use when I hard-mod a GFX Card.

 

[INSTG8R]

Unigine Heaven is also very good at detecting faults. It's one of a few software I use when I hard-mod a GFX Card.

Yeah would also be in my arsenal for “breaking stuff” Superposition is even better IMO. It’s broken things after passing everything else.

 

[R-T-B]

At this point I am in RMA land. Even if the card passed those fine, something is amiss that is fixed as soon as the card is replaced, and it affects my favorite games which is unacceptable. That leaves the card.

Yes, the GTX 1060 3GB works better. Friggin lol. Here I am back at 1080p and slow at that.

I'll run more tests if requested to do so by EVGA support, which apparently says they will take 1-2 days to get back to me.

Anyone want to take bets on how long I'm going to be in GPU limbo?

 

[looniam]

Anyone want to take bets on how long I'm going to be in GPU limbo?

i doubt the winner will still be alive to collect, can next of kin have a claim?

 

[R-T-B]

Maybe I can sell this hunk of crap to a bitcoin miner since compute seems to pass...

Hold the phone!

This is weird, but I ran EVGA's own autooverclocking utility and...

It undevolted my card a bit, aparently. Plus added an OC. Now I seemingly have no artifacts? Going to game a bit and see if it holds... but it's been more than 10 mins.

What in silicon hell would explain this, though?

 

[jboydgolfer]

Unigine Heaven is also very good at detecting faults.

hell yea it is. if youre even a little close to your OC limit, you start to see those white static lines horizontally across the screen occasionally.
its so old, but man its abusively tough on even top tier GPU's.

 

[A Computer Guy]

So I've tried googling this but come up with nothing.

My card (an EVGA RTX 2080 Super XC Ultra) has been great, despite being a used ebay buy. Until recently. I've started getting shadow flicker in games. Like severe shadow flicker. I'd make a video, but the point is it's drastic. We are talking move the camera and the shadows completely change throughtout the scene.

After diagnosing, I noticed it only seems to occur when the VRAM gets hotter than 70C. What's worse, is that it seems to be worsening as a problem.

Have you ever inspected the paste and pads? Maybe time to re-paste and re-pad the card?

 

[R-T-B]

Have you ever inspected the paste and pads? Maybe time to re-paste and re-pad the card?

Did that, as mentioned above.

The undervolt/overclock combo helped, but ultimately it returned. As expected.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Anyone want to take bets on how long I'm going to be in GPU limbo?

I feel your pain. I want to replace my wife's GTX 1060 3GB but not at the current markup of cards. I wish I picked up that extra RX5700 on that $280 newegg special when I had the chance in late 2019.

 

[R-T-B]

I feel your pain. I want to replace my wife's GTX 1060 3GB but not at the current markup of cards. I wish I picked up that extra RX5700 on that $280 newegg special when I had the chance in late 2019.

I wish I hadn't sold my RX 5700 XT to grab this. Seemed like such a steal during the pre ampere crash... *sigh*

 

[Gmr_Chick]

I get weird shadows when playing Battlefront II. Like...let me see if I can describe it. If my character moves around a lot (while in 3rd person view), dodging and the like, there will be times when the character has this weird shadow around it, like an aura, after doing something like a combat roll. I've never actually been able to capture it though, because the aura disappears after maybe 1 or 2 seconds. I notice it most on the forest-like Takodana - Maz's Castle map.

My MSI 1660 Super has Micron RAM

 

[R-T-B]

This is more like the entirety of the scene drawing shadows in random places depending where I look. There really is no rhyme or reason to it

 

[delshay]

hell yea it is. if youre even a little close to your OC limit, you start to see those white static lines horizontally across the screen occasionally.
its so old, but man its abusively tough on even top tier GPU's.

My card no longer shows strange static lines or graphic corruption with Unigine Heaven. ..I modded it with over 100 capacitors (stacked) behind the GPU. ..Photo awaiting uploaded to Ghetto Thread.

Anyone that buys a second hand GFX card that's out of warranty should consider servicing it even if it shows no sign of any problems. Only do this if the warranty seal has been tampered with.. When I say service, I mean change thermal pads/paste to higher quility ones. Improve & protect your expensive cards, otherwise you may regret it later down the road.

 

[Space Lynx]

I get weird shadows when playing Battlefront II. Like...let me see if I can describe it. If my character moves around a lot (while in 3rd person view), dodging and the like, there will be times when the character has this weird shadow around it, like an aura, after doing something like a combat roll. I've never actually been able to capture it though, because the aura disappears after maybe 1 or 2 seconds. I notice it most on the forest-like Takodana - Maz's Castle map.

My MSI 1660 Super has Micron RAM

I'm pretty sure that is just VA panel smearing, it is normal for VA monitors.

This is more like the entirety of the scene drawing shadows in random places depending where I look. There really is no rhyme or reason to it

Hmm might be kind of dumb suggestion but it is worth a try imo, maybe turn off gsync and see. or tinker with overdrive monitor settings.

 

[R-T-B]

Hmm might be kind of dumb suggestion but it is worth a try imo, maybe turn off gsync and see. or tinker with overdrive monitor settings.

The LG OLEDs don't have overdrive. Their refresh time is near instantaneous anyways.

I have both toggled gsync on and off out of desperation. If I'm asking for help, it's usually because I've been beating my head against this for some time.

 

[Space Lynx]

The LG OLEDs don't have overdrive. Their refresh time is near instantaneous anyways.

I have both toggled gsync on and off out of desperation. If I'm asking for help, it's usually because I've been beating my head against this for some time.

clean install of drivers? i don't know. nightmare scenario, clean install of OS and everything. a chore for most, but I can have that done in no time thanks to fiber internet and well all I do is game. lol

 

[delshay]

clean install of drivers? i don't know. nightmare scenario, clean install of OS and everything. a chore for most, but I can have that done in no time thanks to fiber internet and well all I do is game. lol

That's what I would try first. Grab a spare drive & install basic OS/latest drivers & run the same game removing all overclocking (if any).

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Yeah would also be in my arsenal for “breaking stuff” Superposition is even better IMO. It’s broken things after passing everything else.

That's usually the first thing I run when testing GPU or VRAM OCs.

VRAM instability, in my experience has a thing for often not being so obvious. (compared to pushing the GPU core) For example, there's a good chance that you'll get some flashing lines that are hard to catch.