Help, My Computer Is Acting Up!

Hi guys! Recently, my computer has been acting up a lot. It's been going fine until maybe a week ago when I started getting weird graphical glitches that usually eventually lead to a crash. Here's an example of the glitches I've been getting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxKPcpB4Wfc&feature=plcp

Anyone know what these are? I suspect the graphics card is the culprit, but it's relatively new (less than a year old) and it's a top notch one, I think it was like $500-$600 when I bought it. I've also noticed that one of my fans seems to sometimes not turn on, so it may be an overheating problem...the fan is actually built into my computer case, so it's difficult to replace it. If that is a possible problem, does anyone have any ideas on how to fix it?

Thanks in advance for all your help!

 

It is pretty clear that your graphics are acting up but there can be a number of reasons. First thing to do is download speccy from piriform which will give us some idea what may be going on. You can get it here (free version) we will want to see all the information o the summary page partiularly when it is acting up as well as when it first boots. http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download/standard

 

Hi and welcome to CHF

If it is less than a year - and your Video Card is at fault - you should be able to return it for a replacement.

Take one set of readings at idle about 5 mins after switching on.
Take another set when playing a game.

Speccy should tell us the Make and model of the card - but post it anyway.

I assume that the card has a fan - Is this working ?

Try taking the card out - clean the contacts with a pencil eraser then replace.

 

As the others have suggested there are many reasons that can contribute to GPU glitches, the most common are driver related.
Open a cmd prompt and type dxdiag and hit enter, look on the pages listed under GPU and it should tell you the current driver you are running, then check Nvidia or AMD (ATI) depending which group your card is made by and check the drivers they list as most current if yours and the most current do not match update to the latest one, the process is explained or ask if you are unsure what to do.

Windows Update drivers in regards to add in cards are not normally as up to date as the Manufacturers websites

 

I suspected that the drivers might be the problem, so one of the first things I did was try updating my graphics card driver. Unfortunately, it didn't help =(

However, I did try cleaning out the contacts, and that actually seems to have worked...is it possible that they were just dirty, or maybe that the card was loose? So far I'm having no problems, but just to be safe, here are my speccy readings:

Idle:

CPU
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07GHz 45 °C
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (8-8-8-20)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. SABERTOOTH X58 40 °C
Graphics
HP x20LED (1600x900@60Hz)
1535MB GeForce GTX 580 (EVGA) 43 °C

In idle screen for game:

CPU

Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07GHz 57 °C (was 60 °C briefly when I alt-tabbed)
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (8-8-8-20)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. SABERTOOTH X58 43 °C
Graphics
HP x20LED (1600x900@60Hz)
1535MB GeForce GTX 580 (EVGA) 57 °C

After running game for a while:

CPU
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07GHz 58 °C
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (8-8-8-20)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. SABERTOOTH X58 50 °C
Graphics
HP x20LED (1600x900@60Hz)
1535MB GeForce GTX 580 (EVGA) 72 °C

 

more than likely it was loose, glad you got it sorted though