Artifacts caused by MB/GPU/PSU ?

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

No luck yet? Do you live under power lines? It almost sounds like a static charge is building up and causing a feedback loop. [Much like the noise one gets on Coax on a Hi-Fi Home theater system.]
Does your house have a proper ground? Does your power supply have the third prong.

How far are your speakers from the Monitor? Are they large magnet speakers?

I've watched this thread and it sure looks like you are checking everything. And most of the suggestions are right down the right alley. I'm just trying to think outside the box ... if that helps at all.

Have you checked your powerstrip and made sure your devices were plugged into different power strips.

Is your Large Monitor a Sceptre or one of their clones? [They have bad issues with their DVI boards internally]

[MaXKilleR]

I live in a university rez building, and I had the same problem back home.

I think we already established it’s not the power supply (cheap power supply did the same as an expensive one).

my speaker system is the Logitech z5500 so I'm sure its appropriately made.

My large monitor is the Starlogic (circuit city opened and produced) 20" LCD. The screen isn’t to blame because the artifacts are specific to dynamic locations.

My monitor and pc are both connected to the same extended power strip because nothing else would reach.

Some more info that might trigger an idea:
I connected both dvi and vga cables to the pc and let it run for a while. I only see artifacts in dvi because when I switch from dvi to vga the artifacts are gone (when I switch back they are back).

I'm guessing the analog smoothes it out or something -_-'

[screwballl]

So that means you have a bad video card OR a bad DVI cable.

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

Yup ... The DVI Cable or the DVI part of the Card as screwball said.
Every other option has been eliminated. [The monitor doesn't artifact on other PC's DVI right?] If it did ... then the DVI internal Monitor board would be the culprit ... unless you used the same cable.

[MaXKilleR]

I tested 3 different video cards (that work perfectly on my other pc). The chance of them having the same problem with the same symptoms that no one can explain.... so it’s not the cards.

I tested 3 different DVI cables (1 of which is a 60$ monster cable) and that didn't stop the artifacts either. And like I said before, the artifacts appear in specific dynamic places (desktop, title bar of the *selected* window). Oh and the screen starts flickering when I full screen a video file (this tells me it’s a 2d hardware-software "miscommunication").

Frankly I wouldn't care to use analog (in most cases you won't see any difference), it’s just that at these high resolutions there is a clear difference between digital and analog.

It brings me to the same conclusion as I had before, chipset and video card are not communicating properly (driver related). This doesn’t make sense at all, since the chipset (680i) and the video cards (8600gt, 7600gt) are both made by nvidia (meaning they are able to easily test and fix the compatibility of their own hardware).

[screwballl]

ok so if it happens on 3 cards, different cables then it is the PCIe slot itself on the mobo or the interconnect

[MaXKilleR]

Again, I have 2 pci-e slots (3 but the other one is x8) and both gave me the same results.

Oh and I used a dvi to vga adapter to get analog because my nvidia cards only have 2 dvi ports each (I tried both ports and got the same artifacts). Again that tells me that it’s a hardware-software "communication" problem (digital signal artifacts yet analog doesn't).

Maybe someone heard about this things happening to my type of chipset (NForce 680i) or my motherboard (it's actually the ASUS Striker Extreme without the extra ports, heat pipes, and bigger copper coolers).

Asus release a new bios update. Maybe that could improve compatibility.

[Elysium]

I'd try the new BIOS.

[MaXKilleR]

Actually, this kind of reminds me something. When I bought the motherboard, I updated the bios like a week later to a new beta and didn't use my pc for a while. Then when I started leaving it on for days the artifacts showed up.

Maybe it is a bios problem. All they have now are more new beta versions so it might not do much. The idiots didn't write or include any updates/fixes documentation.

[Elysium]

Try the newest BIOS. If that doesn't fix your problems, revert bact to the stock BIOS the board shipped with. I have solved a few of my own computer problems by going back to the older BIOS. Newer isn't always better.