Random Artifacts in Bios and Random BSODs

[Gelly54]

Hey all wondering if you can help me out please?
So me and a friend upgraded his PC from

OcUK HD 6850 1024MB
AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 455
Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2 (AM3)
Cooler Master GX 450W '80 Plus Bronze'

to

Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB
Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68
OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze'

Straight away we are getting crazy vertical artifacts in BIOS and into windows, we rebooted and everything fine then a fresh install causes BSOD.
We did manage to get windows on and sort out all new drivers on all hardware, but still very unstable and sometimes artifacts. Pretty much all the time after reboot it would reset display driver.

At first i thought GPU but i tried it in my machine and works flawlessly.
I swapped RAM about too and its not that.
We than put old motherboard in with new PSU and GPU and its running great.
Im starting to think its a bad motherboard?
Could a bad CPU cause artifacts in BIOS and reset display drivers?
Any info would be great before we send the culprit back for RMA/DSR

Thanks

 

[Greeny1994]

Power supply may not be up to the job.
OCZ aren't the best make to go with too.
A higher rated quality power supply may fix your problem.
But I would wait for other replies, you can only speculate.

 

[Greeny93]

I'm not stalking you Greeny #2, Honest.

Hmm it does sound like you've tried Every combination ! Sounds like a right ball-ache.

" we rebooted and everything fine then a fresh install causes BSOD "

Temporarily everything was fine? This would suggest some kind of driver problem.

1. Check you're on ALL the latest drivers, mobo/gpu etc.
2. Downclock the GPU, try running it at lower clocks and see if the artifacting goes (though if it worked fine in the other pc... =/ )
3. Try different combinations of PCI-e slots. Persuming you have more than one.
4. Use the PC with the old mobo, RMA the new ( Yes they can cause artifacting if the pci-e bus is faulty.
5. If problem persists with new mobo - pull hair out ^.^

 

[Gelly54]

Update: So he has had it running for 2 days now with his old CPU and mobo.
He has ran Heaven Valley and Arma 3 so all is stable.
Today im gonna go round and reseat the new i3 and fire it up with my hx850 and see what happens. If all is good with that, its the psu. If artifacts and instability carry on we are going to send mobo and cpu back. If an item is not working can it be sent back via DSR or does it have to be RMA? Im unsure because ive never had to do it.
Thanks for the input appreciate it

 

[Gelly54]

SOLVED! Twas the motherboard that was faulty. Replaced it and all is well.
I guess the motherboard is the last thing you can eliminate and in this case, it was