Alienware X51 R2 Black Screen, 100% GPU Fan Speed

[DasJuicen]

I have an Alienware X51 R2 that is having severe issues with my GPU.

Intel Core i5-4430 @ 3.00 Ghz
8 GB DDR3 RAM
1 TB HDD
Nvidia GTX 760 Reference Model

It works completely OK until I try to do something with the GPU. YouTube, Netflix, etc. Whenever I launch a game, there's a variable time before the screen goes black and the GPU fan shoots up to 100% in a sound akin to a vacuum cleaner. Only way to reset it is to go through and reboot the PC. Game audio seems to glitch out and disappear, my TeamSpeak 3 audio remains however. Sometimes removing the video card and reseating it before launching a game gives me extended time whilst running it, for whatever reason. This happens during Fallout 4, War Thunder, any game on my machine I can think of, it will cause it to crash. However, I downloaded MSI Afterburner and then MSI Kombustor, ran the FurMax test, and it was fine the entire time. Nothing crashed, until I clicked, "Close" and then it crashes it every time.

Most confusing of all, this issue was present over a year ago but subsided at random. I had a Windows 10 Update about three days ago, and when it finished, the next time I booted up (The following morning) I had the same issue simply on boot.

HALP

 

[RobCrezz]

Open MSI afterburner, lower the GPU core by 100mhz, hit apply, try it again.

 

[DasJuicen]

Open MSI afterburner, lower the GPU core by 100mhz, hit apply, try it again.

So far, I haven't had a crash. I've already gone through and replaced the thermal compound on the GPU, I went through and just before trying this, I became superstitious and removed my two memory modules, and put them in eachother's spot, I also reseated the GPU maticulously so it would sit as clean as humanly possible in an Alienware x51 R2.

So I'm gonna keep at it for a little while more and see what comes of it. If nothing else happens, I'll mark this as the answer (I just don't want to mark it, then find out it was just taking a while for it to happen) -- In the meantime, if I could ask, why would retarding the GPU's clock by 100mhz have solved the issue? What would the underlying issue have been?

 

[RobCrezz]

Usually if its failing or just over time they sometimes cannot maintain speeds that they could when new. Sometimes just giving a bit more voltage can do the trick.

You may find you only need to reduce the speed by 50mhz, will just take a little testing.

 

[DasJuicen]

Usually if its failing or just over time they sometimes cannot maintain speeds that they could when new. Sometimes just giving a bit more voltage can do the trick.

You may find you only need to reduce the speed by 50mhz, will just take a little testing.

So, it all worked fine for about an hour then the issue resurfaced, I had left the clock speed at -100Mhz. I'm not sure if there's something else that has to be adjusted or not.

 

[DasJuicen]

Usually if its failing or just over time they sometimes cannot maintain speeds that they could when new. Sometimes just giving a bit more voltage can do the trick.

You may find you only need to reduce the speed by 50mhz, will just take a little testing.

Would you recommend I do anything with the voltage?

 

[DasJuicen]

As an update to the situation, I've officially hit the point where it's repeating the same behavior so frequently I'm not able to get it to boot with the video card inserted. I've replaced the thermal paste in the last day or two to see if it helped the symptoms, and it has not. I have moved the video card to another machine (albeit with an archaic processor) to see if it would perform the same behavior - and for what I was able to test, it did not suffer the same effects. Right now, every time I boot up this Alienware x51 R2 with the video card inside of it, it starts huffing and puffing with the fan at 100% and a black screen on my monitor. If I remove the video card and hook it up to the HDMI port on the motherboard, it's all fine (albeit, the coloring is a bit off. Might just be my HDMI cable.) so -- I'm at a complete and total loss. I've never had such a confusing issue with my computer.

 

[maxalge]

As an update to the situation, I've officially hit the point where it's repeating the same behavior so frequently I'm not able to get it to boot with the video card inserted. I've replaced the thermal paste in the last day or two to see if it helped the symptoms, and it has not. I have moved the video card to another machine (albeit with an archaic processor) to see if it would perform the same behavior - and for what I was able to test, it did not suffer the same effects. Right now, every time I boot up this Alienware x51 R2 with the video card inside of it, it starts huffing and puffing with the fan at 100% and a black screen on my monitor. If I remove the video card and hook it up to the HDMI port on the motherboard, it's all fine (albeit, the coloring is a bit off. Might just be my HDMI cable.) so -- I'm at a complete and total loss. I've never had such a confusing issue with my computer.

do you have the 330w power brick?

 

[DasJuicen]

As an update to the situation, I've officially hit the point where it's repeating the same behavior so frequently I'm not able to get it to boot with the video card inserted. I've replaced the thermal paste in the last day or two to see if it helped the symptoms, and it has not. I have moved the video card to another machine (albeit with an archaic processor) to see if it would perform the same behavior - and for what I was able to test, it did not suffer the same effects. Right now, every time I boot up this Alienware x51 R2 with the video card inside of it, it starts huffing and puffing with the fan at 100% and a black screen on my monitor. If I remove the video card and hook it up to the HDMI port on the motherboard, it's all fine (albeit, the coloring is a bit off. Might just be my HDMI cable.) so -- I'm at a complete and total loss. I've never had such a confusing issue with my computer.

do you have the 330w power brick?

I realized earlier I didn't have it, I have the 240w power brick. I'm just surprised it's worked all this time and it never had an issue. I ordered it on Amazon not too long ago. Can anyone explain why it would even begin to work on 240?

 

[maxalge]

As an update to the situation, I've officially hit the point where it's repeating the same behavior so frequently I'm not able to get it to boot with the video card inserted. I've replaced the thermal paste in the last day or two to see if it helped the symptoms, and it has not. I have moved the video card to another machine (albeit with an archaic processor) to see if it would perform the same behavior - and for what I was able to test, it did not suffer the same effects. Right now, every time I boot up this Alienware x51 R2 with the video card inside of it, it starts huffing and puffing with the fan at 100% and a black screen on my monitor. If I remove the video card and hook it up to the HDMI port on the motherboard, it's all fine (albeit, the coloring is a bit off. Might just be my HDMI cable.) so -- I'm at a complete and total loss. I've never had such a confusing issue with my computer.

do you have the 330w power brick?

I realized earlier I didn't have it, I have the 240w power brick. I'm just surprised it's worked all this time and it never had an issue. I ordered it on Amazon not too long ago. Can anyone explain why it would even begin to work on 240?

>.>

"It works completely OK until I try to do something with the GPU. "

lucky it didnt give up the ghost with a bang XD

 

[DasJuicen]

As an update to the situation, I've officially hit the point where it's repeating the same behavior so frequently I'm not able to get it to boot with the video card inserted. I've replaced the thermal paste in the last day or two to see if it helped the symptoms, and it has not. I have moved the video card to another machine (albeit with an archaic processor) to see if it would perform the same behavior - and for what I was able to test, it did not suffer the same effects. Right now, every time I boot up this Alienware x51 R2 with the video card inside of it, it starts huffing and puffing with the fan at 100% and a black screen on my monitor. If I remove the video card and hook it up to the HDMI port on the motherboard, it's all fine (albeit, the coloring is a bit off. Might just be my HDMI cable.) so -- I'm at a complete and total loss. I've never had such a confusing issue with my computer.

do you have the 330w power brick?

I realized earlier I didn't have it, I have the 240w power brick. I'm just surprised it's worked all this time and it never had an issue. I ordered it on Amazon not too long ago. Can anyone explain why it would even begin to work on 240?

>.>

"It works completely OK until I try to do something with the GPU. "

lucky it didnt give up the ghost with a bang XD

So, I 'mmediately ordered the 330w PSU. It came in today, popped it in, and booted up Fallout 4 -- Instantly did the same thing. Threw the GPU in another desktop with an archaic CPU, booted up Total War: Warhammer on minimum, did fine. (Minimum as in, 20 frames minimum) -- So there's some issue I'm clearly not seeing here. I dunno what it is.

 

[DasJuicen]

Any ideas?

 

[RobCrezz]

Like I said before, its possible the card is just failing. Can try adding another 0.1v to it and see if that helps.