Hey all,
 
I noticed that whenever I put my PC into Sleep Mode and waking it up afterwards, green squares would pop up on my Picture Password that I use to unlock my PC (see picture below). These green squares only pop up on the Picture Password and only when waking up my PC from Sleep mode (see picture below). There are no squares on the picture password after a reboot. Browsing through pictures or gaming doesn't give these squares either.
I tried to change the picture password and I noticed that they also appear on others except for black pictures.
Clicking on the green squares makes them disappear. I didn't install anything recently except for the Update 1 of Windows 8.1 although that was 4 days ago. I had the 334.89 WHQL drivers.

 
I did a reformat after noticing this and installed Windows 8 without updating to Windows 8.1 to test this. I noticed in this scenario that there are no green squares but small green pixels on the Picture Password (see picture below). Unfortunately, immediately after the reformat Windows automatically installed the latest WHQL driver (335.23) so I'm not sure if any earlier drivers (before 334.89 WHQL) also caused this. Also, I'm not sure if these small green pixels were there before the reformat and before installing Windows 8.1 Update 1 since they are hard to notice. After updating to Windows 8.1 (that automatically installed Update 1 along with it) the green squares are back again (picture above).
 
 
 
My specs:
Windows 8.1 Pro Update 1 x64 with Media Centre,
EVGA nVidia GTX 660Ti 2 GB (not overclocked) with 335.23 WHQL driver
i5-3570K stock speed
8 GB RAM and 1 TB Harddisk.
Asrock Pro4 Z77 Mobo with latest BIOS (1.80)
 
Anyone able to reproduce this? Could it really be my GPU giving up despite the problem being so limited to the Picture Password after sleep mode and getting worse after an update??? My PC is 1,5 years old.

Hope to hear some relieving answers and a possible solution.

I did indeed reinstall all of my drivers from the Asrock website that are for 8.1 after I upgraded to 8.1 but that didn't do anything. Also, as stated above, green pixels were visible before upgrading to 8.1 so it seems unlikely that Windows 8.1 or Update 1 of 8.1 are solely the cause here. At least, that's what I'm guessing.

Do not let Windows install the drivers for you, download the latest 337.50 BETA drivers from NVIDIA's website. Open the package up and select a custom install. Select the display driver and PhysX Driver ONLY. Also check the box for "Perform a clean install" then install the drivers.

I see you've tried a few different newer drivers, but sometimes with older cards you have better luck with an older driver. For the 600 series, I recommend the 314.22 driver. It seems to fix a lot of random problems I see that are driver related on 600 series cards. Give it a clean install and see if your artifacting goes away.

Sorry for the late reply. As long as you do a clean install of the driver by going under Custom then checking Perform a Clean Install, you shouldn't have any problems. That driver should work fine on Windows 8.1, at least in my experience.

That would lead me to think it could be the monitor. If you can, try testing with a different display and see if you have the same issue. Also let us know what model your monitor is.

Ok, I just tried the 314.22 WHQL driver and it didn't fix the issue. I'm starting to think it could be my GPU hardware although it's just 1,5 years old

Because it could be a hardware problem?? If it is, it could lead to further more severe symptoms later on. That's what's worrying me since this PC is relatively new. A hardware problem in a new system isn't a good sign.

JohnnyGui
Because it could be a hardware problem?? If it is, it could lead to further more severe symptoms later on. That's what's worrying me since this PC is relatively new. A hardware problem in a new system isn't a good sign.

It's up to you. If it were me, I wouldn't worry about it because I know resming from sleep is very hard for hardware to do due to sudden jumps in voltage. For instance, I have a laptop which won't resume from sleep without crashing or giving a red screen most of the time and it was that way straight from the factory. I just don't use sleep. You could try a higher sleep state in the BIOS if that is an option.

Don't know why it's like that for you guys but I never had any problems, bugs or issues after waking up my PC from sleep. This is why I got surprised and worried when I saw the artifacts since everything worked flawlessly for the past 1,5 years.
 
Wwmmills: I understand it's unlikely that my card is at fault here since it only happens on the picture password screen. For the sake of another test, I disabled the picture password to show up after sleep mode and guess what.. when I woke up my PC there weren't any artifacts. I'll borrow a monitor some time to test it. Just tried it on a laptop without knowing a laptop only has a VGA output.
You do mention some good points about power settings, might test that later on. My PSU is a 750 watt Combat Power and it's 1,5 years old just like my whole PC.
 
About installing from the Asrock site; I install drivers that my mobo manufacturer is recommending, is that wrong? Updating BIOS, sound drivers and LAN drivers to make them compatible with Windows 8.1 since they're testing my mobo with it.
 

ty_ger07

JohnnyGui
Ok, I just tried the 314.22 WHQL driver and it didn't fix the issue. I'm starting to think it could be my GPU hardware although it's just 1,5 years old

If it is just a handful of incorrectly colored pixels that appear briefly only in one specific scenario, why make a big deal about it?

a handful of bad colored pixels could mean a larger problem could come later, if its not the monitor itself doing that and drivers don't fix it I would RMA the card.

dmkidd
JohnnyGui,
 
did you resolve this issue? I am also seeing the same on my end. I think I might need to physically re-install the GPU. it might be the PSU cables at fault.
 
-dm

The issue is still there on my end. Installing 337.88 WHQL drivers didn't fix it. What are your specs? Can you post a screenshot of the problem?
 
Ty_ger07: Could you please provide me with some links about how common these sorts of issues are after waking from sleep?