1. Screen Tears or Ghosting: Screen tearing and ghosting occur when the graphics card is unable to keep up with what’s happening on the screen. This can be caused by a bad or outdated GPU driver or the graphics card itself being faulty. Symptoms include horizontal or vertical lines across the display, as well as images that look like multiple copies of the same thing.
2. Blue Screen of Death/System Crashes: A graphics card issue may lead to frequent system crashes, which are usually accompanied by the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error message. This usually points to a graphics card problem, as the card is struggling to process graphical data.
3. Glitches and Visual Artifacts: Glitches and visual artifacts are caused by an inability to render the image correctly. This can include pixelation, smudging, or “blocky” images that don’t make sense. Artifacts can also take the form of jagged lines or shapes, as well as distorted colors.
4. Fan Issues: Graphics cards produce a lot of heat when working hard, so it’s important for them to have a cooling system in place. If the fan on the graphics card isn’t working properly or is too noisy, this could be a sign that there’s an issue with the card itself.
5. Freezing and Poor Performance: If the graphics card isn’t performing at its optimal level, you may experience problems such as freezing or poor performance when running graphically intensive games or applications. This could be an indication that the graphics card isn’t able to handle the workload, or that there’s a hardware problem.