Do modern graphics cards have thermal safe gaurds like intel cpus?

[STbob]

I had a fan fail on my secondary GPU. I run 6 monitors

- GTX 760 - Runs 3 1920 x 1200 IPS panels

- GT - 610 runs 1 IPS panel and a 64" Plasma TV

The GT 610 fan failed and there was no symptoms for like a week, even when watching movies on the Plasma no issues.

Then today watching a youtube video on that panel its screen just went Black. I had to reboot.

Checked the temps and it
- 80c idle, 90c-100c watching videos.

I underclocked it to lower temps (it was never over clocked) But finally I pulled both cards to check it. Turns out the fan plug was not fully seated. So the Fan was off even though gpuz and ThunderMaster reported fan speeds and I could even change those speed on a fan that was OFF.

So was that black screen a thermal protection? Or was it just a "I'm too hot Im going to just crash"

Anyway I have the fan working and temps are under 73c under load. And seems to be working fine.

 

[Gam3r01]

That was the thermal protection.
The cards clock down to prevent damage, and if that dosent work they shut off.

 

[STbob]

That was the thermal protection.
The cards clock down to prevent damage, and if that dosent work they shut off.

I checked the GT 610 live temps in two diff apps. It did not throttle down at all, it just got hotter and hotter. Around 101c is when it went black again. 102c is its thermal limit. It would have been nice for it to underclock automatically preventing the black screen. It was not a graceful shut down and no warning or errors. Very similar to a Blue Screen of death.

That made me wonder if there is any protection at all. Hitting 102 C it probably just crashed vs some kind of throttling.