Windows 10: Artifacts on Screen

Hello, the other day I was downloading applications when suddenly artifacts started appearing in the taskbar and windows. They also appeared a lot in thumbnails, YouTube videos, and games. These artifacts are usually vertical rectangles in black, purple, and gray colors. They change shape and position when I move the mouse over an element. I thought it might be a virus, so I formatted the hard drives, but the problem persisted. I installed Windows from an ISO image, and the issue persisted. I installed Windows 10, and the problem persisted. So, I tried installing Linux, and the artifacts didn'

:)

 

Overclocking / Undervolting guide for Vega 56 or 64?

Here's a quick laundry list:

List of software to use for overclocking and testing
Examples:
Wattman (and how to find and use it, like an overview, including profiles)
Unigine Valley or Heaven (use this for quick testing while changing settings in Wattman and checking for stability / artifacts) ...just suggesting this
How to monitor cores / mem speeds and temps during testing (I've seen screen overlays, and others using GPUz)

Step-by step overclocking in Wattman
Fan speeds
Power limit
Temp limit
Voltages
Core speeds
Memory speeds

 

Screen Artifacts and Crashing

The problem: Screen artifacts occur randomly. Artifacts usually get worse before my screen freezes, blacks out, and comes back on. This repeats until it crashes. Once, I got a blue screen with the error code "Memory Management".

Details: I have two monitors and they are behaving the same. This is a desktop computer. The screen behaves correctly in safe mode.

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285

I've tried:

• Updating graphics driver (twice). Used DDU the second time.
  
• Scanning for malware (twice). I've since wiped all files.
  
• Checked wires.
  
• Dusted computer. Checked fans.
  
• Disabled startup programs (This worked temporarily but would come back the next day. Now, it doesn't work for long at all). I thought the problem was conflicting programs on startup, but I've wiped everything.
  

I'm hoping this isn't a hardware problem. I don't have another computer to test my GPU on. If there is a way to fix this, please help me!

 

What causes these odd font artifacts around numbers

The artifacts you are seeing appear only with numbers, but that's a red herring. It's a screen artifact like any other screen artifact that sometimes affects a monitor. The problem is that these artifacts have a million causes, give or take.

Presuming that you have a graphics driver that is supported on Windows 10, and that you have already tried restarting your computer, here are some fixes that have worked for others:

• Refresh the screen (press F5.) You may have to do this 2 or 3 times.
• Turn off ClearType.
• Open Task Manager and End Task on Windows Explorer. That forces the Windows shell to restart.