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Question

PC Crashing, Possible GPU Problem?

Mar 1, 2014 12:50AM PST

Hi guys!

Having lots of problems today with my PC.

On Thursday I purchased an additional coolermaster fan for my PC in preperation for my new PC Parts that I will be getting in the coming weeks.
The case was absolutely filled with dust. Mostly all over the GPU and bottom of the motherboard (funnily enough the top of the motherboard with the CPU and CPU cooler were completely clean). I carefully cleaned away most of the dust and put it back together. I think some may have fallen into the GPU though but I can't be sure.
I installed the new on the front of my case over the first fan that I already had installed. It worked perfectly.

Tested a few games, mainly Tomb Raider, Football Manager 2014 and Assassins Creed 3. All ran at 60fps except Tomb Raider which ran at a normal 40fps.
What I did notice though was that my peak temps were hitting 80 degrees on all the above games (especially suprising in Football Manager).

I wasn't worried too much because it would quickly returing to its normal idle of 30 degrees when the game was shut off (would often also drop when out of the 3D match engine in Football Manager).

That was Thursday. Today the problems started.
Football Manager 14 crashed my system twice once it hit around 63 degrees, artifacts popped all over the screen during the crash.

Tomb Raider crashed at around 55 degrees but didnt crash the system it just quit the game, again artifacts popped all over the screen as it crashed.


I ran a video memory street test and I had no errors.
I'm thinking it's one of two things:

•Maybe the new fan is using too much power on my PSU?
•Dust on the GPU?


MY PC Specs:
-AMD Phenom II X4 ~3.2ghz
-Gainward GTX 460 1GB
-450 Watts PSU
-8gb DDR3 Ram

Help would be greatly appreciated! PC works fine normally until it hits those temps.

TL;DR:
Cleaned PC case of dust, installed new fan. PC games crashing at around 55-60 degrees.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
New Thermal Paste ?
Mar 1, 2014 12:56AM PST

Give it a shot.

Digger

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Could definitely try it after some brainstorming
Mar 1, 2014 12:59AM PST

I could sure try it but I'm not sure why I would starting having problems out of the blue.

Could it possibly be my PSU struggling because of the additional fan?

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Yep
Mar 1, 2014 1:11AM PST
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Damn!
Mar 1, 2014 1:18AM PST

I'll plug my new fan out soon in that case and run a few tests.
I'm getting a Gigabyte GTX 770 next week anyway so I need a new PSU regardless but I'm giving my current graphics card and PSU to my brother. Hopefully it will be ok for him.

I'm probably going overkill with the additional fan at the moment anyway. I'm just getting worried about hitting 80 degrees on it constantly.

MSI is reporting that the GPU fan is being capped at 40%. Any idea if I should increase it?

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if it's crashing now
Mar 1, 2014 1:36AM PST

why draw the extra power but another person here may be better qualified to answer that.

Best of luck

Digger

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P.S
Mar 1, 2014 1:38AM PST

Again, I would still refresh the thermal paste

Digger

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Dead card?
Mar 1, 2014 3:36AM PST

Ok huge amount of problems in the last few hours.
My PC started crashing at the desktop with no games booted. After a restart it was getting lots of artifacts on the windows loading screen and then gave me the BSOD. Error code 116 which is a graphics driver one I think.

Driver 334.89 are apparently causing a **** ton of problems for people describing my exact problem.

Booted into safe mode, uinstalled drivers, used driver cleaner pro to clean it up. It successfully booted into windows. Installed older driver (332.21), restarted and got BSOD again.

Honestly not sure what to do now, it worked for most people when they went back and installed older drivers.

After all of todays problems I'm thinking my GPU has died :-/

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Time for the Pro's
Mar 1, 2014 3:40AM PST

to step in, I gave my opinions

Digger

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Answer
Looks old.
Mar 1, 2014 4:00AM PST

2010 is OLD in PC years. It's time to inspect every capacitor on every board and PSU. The only passing criteria is perfection.

It's also possible that power supply noise has reached a high enough point to make what was a good PC bad. Only you know how old the gear is.
Bob

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Just bought PSU + GPU
Mar 1, 2014 7:15AM PST

I just bought a Seasonis G Series 650 PSU and a GTX 770.

Hopefully when they arrive I won't run into any problems. Almost ALL the nvidia drivers are making my GTX460 crash at the windows startup logo.

No idea why it has happened, the card seems to have completely died. I'm still fuming over it because it all happened out of the blue.

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Keep us posted. You didn't indicate what brand and model
Mar 1, 2014 8:58AM PST

the old PSU was but in any case.....that was on the low side for the old GPU requirement....esp if it was a split rail PSU.

Seasonic makes good PSUs and a 650W unit should handle the requirement.

While you're replacing and upgrading stuff....good time to remove the old and apply new thermal paste.

VAPCMD

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Quick Update
Mar 5, 2014 5:11PM PST

Just to get back to you guys rather than saying nothing more.

I've tested my brothers old AMD Radeon HD 4850 graphics card and it worked perfectly on my PC with the AMD drivers.

It does seem the GPU has died. I've read about the oven technique but I was planning on upgrading my GPU in the near future anyway, having it die just made it happen quicker.

I ended up not getting a GTX770, I got an MSI R9 290 instead (along with the same PSU listed above). It arrived yesterday and to my horror (and stupidity) it had no VGA slot.

I googled for adapters which seemed very cheap but I was reading about them not working on my GPU because it cannot convert a digital signal to an analog signal.

So today I'm off to buy a 22 inch LG HD IPS Monitor which has HDMI and DVI-D. It will be nice to finally have a monitor with HDMI in it.

Thanks for all you help guys! My head has been absolutely wrecked for the whole week but I'm almost done now!

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Good for you
Mar 5, 2014 7:24PM PST

Glad it all worked out ,but not quite done yet my friend.

Let us know how it's working with the new parts monitor after you've Kicked A$$ on a game.

Digger

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Everything Works Great!
Mar 12, 2014 9:01PM PDT

So my problem in the end did indeed seem to be my GTX 460 having died.

My new GPU, PSU and Monitor are working fantastically!

The GPU is a serious powerhouse and my monitor display is exceptionally better for my VGA only one (even though they both run at 1920x1080).


Thanks for all your help guys! When I was rebuilding all this into my computer with my cousin we cleaned out the whole case. I never realized I had a dust filter in front of my two front fans. Needless to say it was completely black with dust, some do the blackest dust I have ever seen.

I completely cleaned it all and will now do regular maintenance once a month or so.

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What do you mean VGA slot....do you mean VGA connector on
Mar 6, 2014 10:50AM PST

the new GPU ? If yes....you can also just get a DVI to VGA Adapter.

VAPCMD