Symptoms of a faulty GPU can vary depending on the specific hardware, but generally they include:
1. Artifacting: This is when the image displayed on the screen glitching or has various anomalies that leave the image distorted in some way. This can range from simple distortion or flickering to more advanced issues such as random blocks and shapes appearing across the display.
2. Poor Performance: This can manifest itself as frame drops in video games, slow downs of applications, or general sluggishness of graphical processes.
3. Crashes and Freezes: If the system is crashing regularly or freezing up for no apparent reason, this can be a sign of a faulty GPU.
4. Flickering or Dimming: If the output from the display appears to flicker or dim while gaming, this could be due to a faulty GPU.
5. Image Distortion: This can range from minor distortions all the way to complete inversion of the display, such as only seeing negative colors.
6. Overheating: If the GPU is running too hot, it can cause problems such as crashes and poor performance.
7. Fan Noise Increase: The fan on the GPU will kick in to help cool down the processor when needed, but if it’s making excessive noise then this could indicate a problem.
8. Blue Screen of Death Errors: Blue screen of death errors often indicate a problem with the graphics processing unit.
9. Erratic Mouse Movement: If the mouse cursor is stuttering or moving erratically, this could be due to a faulty GPU.
10. Random Shutdowns or Restarts: If the computer shuts down abruptly or restarts randomly, this could be due to an issue with the GPU.