Can overclocking make a PCI-E slot fail?

soheilsarhangzadeh

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Dec 3, 2017
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So I have a GTX 770 that I put in a 16x slot, and I tried overclocking it. The overclock was stable, but a few weeks later, my pc would always freeze. Temps were at 60c in game, tried trouble shooting every component, but nothing showed up. I finally found out that the GPU worked in the 8x slot. I bought a new mobo and it worked fine in the 16x slot. Did I get a faulty mobo, or did my overclocking break my PCI-E slot?
 
MB can get old or overclocking can push them over the edge. Probably a capacitor related to the PCIe slot failed. Running on the 8x slot makes very little difference in performance, even with the most powerful GPUs. The GTX770 is listed as a 230W card. Another possibilty is your PSU isn't up to the task, either in power, OR quality. If this is the case your new parts are at risk also.
 

soheilsarhangzadeh

Prominent
Dec 3, 2017
40
4
535

Hi, so the whole pc was new, and I bought a new motherboard now. Everything is working fine, and I just want to know if it is safe for me to overclock on the new motherboard. Did I just get unlucky with a broken motherboard?
 
Power supplies need to do several things. In an overclocking situation they need t do it well. Voltage regulation. If voltage drops AMPS go up and parts get fried. Ripple is how far the voltage wanders from it's specified level. This is like a vibration effect and can damage parts. Then there's overload protection which protects everything including not catching fire. On cheap PSUs this may be missing. Overclocking a 230W GPU could be using over 300W of power by itself. Without knowing what specific parts you're using MB,PSU it's hard to tell. if the parts aren't designed for overclocking it will probably happen again.
 
Gigabyte is a quality MB, and Be Quiet is a mid level PSU. But Nvidia recommends a 600W PSU to run that older power hungry GPU.
https://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Dell/optiplex-780-desktop
Any time you overclock you're risking your hardware. Your 100W low on your PSU to start with, and add in overclocking- it doesn't look good.
Newer cards like the GTX 1060 perform at that level on 120W. GTX1070 is 150W but expensive. Probably a bigger PSU like 650-700W would be a good idea.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12056/best-psus
The EVGA 650GQ is a good choice.