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Resolved Question

PC hangs after a few minutes of high GPU load, won’t boot fo

Aug 31, 2017 6:27PM PDT

These are my specs:

-GPU - PowerColor Radeon HD 7970 3GB
-CPU - Intel Core i7-3770K
-CPU cooler - Noctua NH-D14
-Case - FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4
-MoBo - Asus SABERTOOTH Z77
-PSU - REVOLUTION87+ 650W 80+ GOLD
-RAM - 2x 8GB DDR3-1866 Corsair Vengeance XMS3
-Storage - SanDisk SSD 480GB

So this issue first cropped up a couple of days ago while I was playing a game. These are the steps I have taken since then:

-Checked all cables, connections inside the PC.
-Taken the GPU out and put it back in again.
-Moved the GPU to a different port.
-Reset the BIOS settings to default.
-Updated to the newest BIOS version.
-Tried booting with only one of either of my two RAM sticks.

I have also run Prime95 which caused no problems and the CPU barely even broke 50C due to the heatsink.

While running the Heaven benchmark the crash occurred a few minutes in while the GPU was still a bit under 70C.

None of this has helped, what still happens is after about 5min of the GPU having an even somewhat heavy load the whole PC hangs. The screen goes a solid color with a bunch of slightly different colored vertical striped across the screen. The components keep going until I manually shut it down. Then it won’t start properly for a while afterwards. The screen receives no signal and the VGA LED on the motherboard lights up red. The mouse and keyboard are also not recognized. However all the fans including case GPU, CPU and motherboard fans start normally. Sometimes it will start properly fairly quickly again, other times it can take up to 20 min until it works.

I can still do anything that does not require much GPU load and the PC runs just fine, even streaming or watching video seems to still be within its capability.

Now unfortunately I don’t have a second PC to take the parts out one by one and test them. But I have been doing some reading and from what I understand this could be a motherboard, PSU or GPU issue. The GPU isn’t even coming close to overheating when the crash occurs and even when the PC doesn’t POST properly all the components seem to start just fine, so I don’t know if the PSU is an issue. The likeliest option to me seems like the motherboard, due to the failed POST after each crash.

However I’m no expert, which is why I’m here asking if anyone has seen something like this before and what I can do to determine which part is faulty. Like I said I unfortunately can’t test the parts in another PC because I don’t have one.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Discussion is locked

marsupial6 has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

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Hangs
Sep 1, 2017 4:18AM PDT

Get a can of compressed air and a small brush.
Give the innards a good cleaning.
Get all the fans and heatsinks nice and clean.
Don't forget to give the psu a few shots of air from both directions.
Test.

Your psu being a tri-rail is suspect

If it still fails leave the side panel off and point a small fan at the innards...test.

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PSU cleaning
Sep 1, 2017 6:30AM PDT

So I clean my PC fairly regularly - except for the PSU. Cleaning that seems to have fixed it, which is strange because it was not getting that hot before. I'm still slightly skeptical if the issue is gone, but I guess I'll just have to see if it stays fixed.

Thank you very much for reminding me to clean the PSU.

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Yup
Sep 1, 2017 7:04AM PDT

I had not cleaned mine in years.
When i did blow it out I was amazed at the cloud of dust that got blown out.
You might need to blow it out a couple of times if it has a heavy buildup.

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Not quite fixed
Sep 1, 2017 12:26PM PDT

So the issue has not quite gone away but it seems to work up to a much higher load than before. I think my PSU is pretty clean now. I have ordered another GPU to test with, so I will see if that changes anything. Thanks again.