Worst Computer problem ever faced (GPU related)

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Gabb

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I dont usually encounter any problems with my system since I keep stuff simple by just using it for games, so yeah this really was the worst problem Ive ever faced. It was an unusually hot day yesterday especially in my room. ( My computer is approaching its 1 year anniversary of being built )

Anyways heres what happened step by step:


1. During a few hours of playing TF2, game suddenly froze with sound effects looping over and over but slowly changing after a minute ( the sound effects that is )
2. Did ctrl+alt+delete and after a few minutes it actually worked, and went to task manager back in desktop but the game had already shut off at that point and given me some misc windows error
3. Ran TF2 again and tried to join a server but the loading screen was all messed up with random colored lines and dots ( the color was mostly yellow )
4. Computer stalled a bit but eventually got the program to close
5. Tried running COD 4 but the loading screen stalled and was unusually dim with the text being kinda fuzzy
6. Computer stalled a bit and eventually got that program to close
7. Ran ATI Tool and the second I turned on the show 3d view ( the view of the fuzzy cube that works your video card ) the computer stalled and made odd beeps when I clicked the mouse
8. After much delay that program was eventually closed
9. Rebooted my computer and all the programs worked fine as they normally had ( tested all the games )
10. Ran Scan for Artifact with ATI Tool and eventually got a delta error after 11 minutes where my card was running at a temperature of 104 celcius!!!
11. Ironically I got a higher score on 3d benchmark then I ever did ( 13,700+) when i tested it

temps in winter ( CPU idle around 25-30ish, load around 45ish ) ( GPU idle around 60ish, load around 75ish )
temps in summer (CPU idle around 40ish, loading around 55ish ) ( GPU idle around 65ish, load around 85ish )

So yeah, all this really confused me. I'm thinking the heat eventually got to my mildly OCed card but was it a hardware failure? Why would a simple reboot make everything work again? Maybe it was some kind of direct X9 error possibly? In the past ( in winter ) my card could do a scan for artifact test for 2 hours with no errors and not even reach 90 celcius temp, now it cant even do 11 minutes ( well it is the summer I know ). The temperature going from 70 ( idle temp during summer ) to 104 in the artifact test really amazed me...I mean I thought the card was automatically going to shut down at 100+ celcius temperature ( my previous 8800 gtx shut down every time I ran 3d benchmark which led me to believe it was defective ( tech support even told me so ) so I RMAed it and this one obviously doesn't do that ). Also what confused me was my video cards inability to display the TF2 background correctly...I mean...isnt that just a 2d picture? It displayed the beautiful desktop background just fine during all the shinanagans. Anyone think I should worry? RMA again? Any suggestions or comments? Any at all is much appreciated.
 
It could just be that the fan is going out and thus not cooling properly. It is an older technology (G80) and runs much hotter to begin with, so even if your fan were to slow down or stop completely it could cause that crash pretty quickly. Then the restart may have been enough to reactivate the fan.

Perhaps you should try taking out your card and reseating it just to make sure it has good power. Then make sure the fan is running properly and make sure there is no built up dust in or on your video card.
 
I'd go for dust on the card also. Time for a clean up and resit ;)

Cheers,

~ Tkey
 
sounds mostly like a heat issue...maybe turn your fan up on the card if you can

Yeah actually when i got the card i was told by EVGA tech support themselves to download Rivatuner and set the fan to constantly do 100% power, although I was told this may make the fan die faster

It could just be that the fan is going out and thus not cooling properly. It is an older technology (G80) and runs much hotter to begin with, so even if your fan were to slow down or stop completely it could cause that crash pretty quickly. Then the restart may have been enough to reactivate the fan.

Perhaps you should try taking out your card and reseating it just to make sure it has good power. Then make sure the fan is running properly and make sure there is no built up dust in or on your video card.

Yeah i wish I checked if the fan was still running or not ( Rivatuner would show the fans RPM as 0 if it stopped running right? ), but didn't think of it at the time. Whats weird to me is the crash. If it was a video card crash, how come the sound was looping over and over? Wouldn't a hardware related failure for the GPU just effect the video and not the sound?
 
A crash to any part of the system could inadvertently affect another part of system, depending on the cause.

EDIT: Gah, nitestick has faster fingers.
 
Like Nitestick and Surge have said, the video crashing can stop other processes too. I know this has happened to me when my GPU crashes at times. I'll get a bunch of red artifiacts, and a half-second sound loop will start playing. If I wait for much longer before resetting my comp, I'll get a BSOD related to my GPU. I just have to hit my reset button on my computer, and wait for it to boot up again.
 
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