Graphics card dead. Thoughts on cause wanted.

[juneau]

Not often i post in here for help but i'm kinda stumped on the cause of its death apart from the obvious.

My GTX460 has been a PITA since i've had it and always shows signs of corruption after my PC had been powered up for a lengthy amount of time (about 2 weeks). A quick power down and power on and the corruption would be gone.

2 days ago i was playing TF2 and the game froze then my screen went blank, 'no signal' diaplayed. Turned off and back on again and everyrhing was fine for the rest of the day. The day later it did the same thing again. On boot this time i say small green squares on the bios splash screen. Tried drivers, reseating, removing any dust traces and nothing worked. It ended up with not being able to boot into normal mode with the nvidia drivers installed, so it was either the windows default driver or safe mode.

Took a screen shot that i posted on another forum of the corruption and removed the 460 and replaced it with my 8800GTS.

This is when i got a little confused. I came across the thread i made with the uploaded screeshot and it was clear of corruption which is a first for me as usually the corruption is captured.

I've just tried the card one more time and tried both DVI ports and the VGA port and the issue is there on all.

This doesn't sound like a GPU or RAM issue, so what do you guys think? Something broke on the display output section of the card is my only idea.

[Duke{CLR}]

Did you try another monitor and or cable?

You may want to search the EVGA forums for this problem, I'm not sure what brand yours is but there could be common issues.

Minis 460 SE acts up every now and then too and it always has a problem on the BF3 map Karkand.


Good luck.

[juneau]

Did you try another monitor and or cable?

You may want to search the EVGA forums for this problem, I'm not sure what brand yours is but there could be common issues.

Minis 460 SE acts up every now and then too and it always has a problem on the BF3 map Karkand.


Good luck.

I didn't try another cable, but the fact the cable is working fine with my 8800GTS i doubt that'll be the cause. I guess it couldn't hurt to try though.

I'll take alook at the forums and see what i can find. Wish i had gone EVGA again with this card as i seem to have the best luck with them.

[Dead...Again]

Sounds like the card may be going bad, or maybe it is overheating? What brand is it? Is it still under warranty?

[juneau]

Sounds like the card may be going bad, or maybe it is overheating? What brand is it? Is it still under warranty?

It's definitely not over heating, I never saw it go over 80c even during summer. The brand is Palit and there is no warranty left.

[Apache Warrior]

That is why I prefer to buy EVGA and have a lifetime warranty.
Apache

[Caddys83]

That is why I prefer to buy EVGA and have a lifetime warranty.
Apache

Not sure if EVGA Europe has the same warranty.

[juneau]

Not sure if EVGA Europe has the same warranty.

10 years here. Which in graphics card terms, might as well be lifetime.

[Caddys83]

10 years here. Which in graphics card terms, might as well be lifetime.

[Apache Warrior]

10 years here. Which in graphics card terms, might as well be lifetime.

3 or 4 years is lifetime, usually. But I always move mine down to lesser computers as I upgrade. My store computers tend to be my old gaming computers.
Apache

[juneau]

3 or 4 years is lifetime, usually. But I always move mine down to lesser computers as I upgrade. My store computers tend to be my old gaming computers.
Apache

That's what i do. I think the longest a graphics card of mine has been in full use it for about 7 years before it's completely retired.

[Donziboy2]

Sounds like a bad card, although if you have issues after leaving the thing running for 2 weeks then that is normal. Any memory leaks will cause issues after long periods of time.

Also the cooling on the card might not be effective on secondary components like the memory, most video cards only monitor the gpu temp and nothing else, there is a crap load of components on a video card.

Also take a look at your power supply, if your new card is more susceptible to small variations in your supply it could be causing issues. The tolerances may be tighter on newer cards then older cards, or cheaper vs better quality cards.

If you can try the card in another pc that may help find the issue, if it still does it on another pc, chances are its the card.



I just recently pulled a 10k Raptor 150GB from an older system, it had 23k hours on it. I got tired of the noise it made, it was louder then my fans.
And the graphics card from the first pc I built over 12 years ago is still running strong in my mothers pc.

[Duke{CLR}]

Juneau I remember having an issue with a video card that had some heating issues but it wasn't showing on GPUz. I took the card apart and there was a blockage on one part of the card, I think someone on the EVGA forums had pointed me that way. You could always remove the cover and take a peek. You could even try repasting the GPU.

[juneau]

Juneau I remember having an issue with a video card that had some heating issues but it wasn't showing on GPUz. I took the card apart and there was a blockage on one part of the card, I think someone on the EVGA forums had pointed me that way. You could always remove the cover and take a peek. You could even try repasting the GPU.

I've completely cleaned it out.

Gonna look at some of the things donzi pointed out, but i've pretty much declared the card dead.

The heatsink on this card doesn't actually touch the RAM. So i wouldn't be surprised if that's damaged it over time.

[WalkinTarget]

Send it my way ! I love a challenge, even if I end up pulling my hai .. oh wait, I'm pretty much bald anyways ...


Might just have to bake it !