[SOLVED] GPU Issues accumulating over the past couple months - No solutions found

[drewdecurtis]

Hello,

This is my first post on this forum, but I have come here many times in the past to solve technical issues. I have decided it is time to make my own post on here to seek out some help regarding GPU issues I have been having. This issue is very complex and not a short story, but please bear with me as I am at my wits end trying to fix this.

I will first explain my computer's history before I get to the actual problem at hand. My current PC is the work of several years of upgrades. The original build of this computer is as follows:

Built sometime in mid 2019:
CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 2.8 GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock H310M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB SC Video Card
Power Supply: Corsair SF 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply

Above is the original build. For now on I will only list upgrades instead of the entire part list:

Upgraded sometime in early 2020:
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB SC Video Card

Upgraded sometime late 2020:
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB SC2 Video Card

Upgraded sometime in mid 2020:
Some old 1080p 60Hz panel to a LG 1440p 144hz panel

Upgraded this week:
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GM 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply


The problem:
Many games are giving me issues recently. Some games I decided to pick up recently, some I am revisiting after years since the last time I played.
Games I play often and without issues are Overwatch, Rocket League, Valorant, and GTA V.
Games I used to play often, but now cannot due to crashing are Battlefield V, Civilization VI, and Apex Legends.
Games I want to start playing, but cannot due to crashing are Rainbow Six Siege.

I've tried "Repairing" and "Verifying game files" for each of these games without any changes in behavior. Now...

I used to play Battlefield V and Civilization VI for extended periods of time without any crashing, frame drops, artifacts, or other GPU related issues until recently.

An error I have been getting in Apex Legends recently is as follows:

Spoiler: Apex Legends Error

0x887A0006 - DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG The application's device failed due to badly formed commands sent by the application. This is an design-time issue that should be investigated and fixed.

I used to play Apex Legends a lot around the time I had a 1070 in the system and quit after my friends stopped playing. I found some new friends who play lots and this inspired me to get back into it.
The game now runs for about 2 minutes (no matter what graphics settings are chosen), give or take, and displays many screen artifacts before freezing, then crashing. I have done lots of research into solving this problem as it seems to be pretty well documented. None of the fixes I have found online have worked for me. I made a post about this on r/ApexLegends which describes the solutions I have tried and the (lack of) success I have had with each. This proves to me that the problem is not unique to Apex and something beyond a software problem is happening here.

I am having similar problems with Civilization VI, but I am able to work around the problem by minimizing the load on my GPU by setting all my graphics settings to Minimal. Previously, running this game on a GTX 1080 game me no problems, but I have also played it on my GTX 1080 Ti in the past and had no issues. I am fine with this as Civ is a very simple game and my enjoyment is not really negatively impacted by doing this. However, this is a work-around and not a solution to the problem. Without setting my graphics settings to Minimal, the game runs for about 2 minutes before crashing. I have run the game using DirtectX 11 and DirectX 12; both still crash but I only get an error message out of the DirectX 12 version, which is as follows:

Spoiler: Civilization V DirectX12 Error

Unhandled Exception
Code EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Error writing address 0x65400

Call Stack
-----------------------------------------------------! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0
! , line 0

Battlefield V is taking this problem the worst. As the game renders an actual game environment in the main menu, the GPU is under load immediately. I typically could run this game at near maximum settings in the past on my GTX 1080 Ti, but since this series of issues has begun, it crashes nearly 30 seconds after launch no matter what graphics settings are set.

Rainbow Six Siege has a similar issue to Civ VI as I used to be able to play on my GTX 1080 and the GTX 1080 Ti with no issues, but I am now having issues. If I set the game to minimal settings, it runs fine and never crashes. However, I have started having issues at the same time Apex has begun to refuse to run smoothly.

Spoiler: Power Supply Replacement

Where I live in California, the wildfires require power companies to cut power to large areas without much warning. My 450W 80+ Corsair Power Supply has had its fair share of power outages (upwards of 20) since the past summer's big fires. That power supply has also run very normally since then and I had no reason to believe it was causing this problem. Since my GPU is under load seemed to be the issue, I suspected that over time the upgrades to a GTX 1080 Ti running a much higher frame rate and resolution than in the past had started to take their toll on the machine. I recently purchased a new power supply from EVGA and found this was not the problem. All issues persist.

I recently tried updating my Motherboard BIOS, which had never been updated. This fixed nothing.

Spoiler: Mining and Overlocking History

Now that you have gotten this far, I will get down to what I suspect is the root of this issue. Those who are well informed know that cryptocurrency mining is very very taxing on any GPU and significantly reduces its lifetime. The reason I left this until the end is because I do not genuinely believe this caused the issue. I have only mined cryptocurrency for very short amounts of time, no longer than 1 hour continuously, and with days in between doing so. I had overclocked my GPU to what I found to be an unstable overclock to help with this, which I very quickly undid and reset my GPU's settings to default using EVGA Precision X1. I can't say for certain that these problems with games crashing began before or after having experimented with mining. I want to exhaust any other possibilities before resorting to the idea that I killed my GPU due to a mere single-digit amount of hours mining Ethereum. Seems unlikely to me.

I have overclocked my GPU to a stable level in the past but returned it to default settings due to not noticing a significant increase in my games and knowing it was somewhat unsafe to be overclocking my already high TWP GPU on what was a 450W PSU knowing my system was always hovering somewhere near that 450W maximum on high loads.

I have updated and downgrades my drivers many times to many different versions, using DDU between each installation. I have tried registry edits, BIOS updates, and the like.

I will try to update this post with any more information that comes to mind that I might've forgotten. For now, this is a complete list of everything.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. - Something I haven't tried yet is GPU BIOS flashing. Is this a reasonable idea? Could a corrupt GPU BIOS be causing me issues? I've never tampered with that sort of thing before.

 

[drewdecurtis]

I guess this was too long for anyone to care enough to read it fully.

TL;DR - I've been having issues since before I did the mining and many games I've been having crashing issues with have run without issue in the past. Any ideas? I've tried all the easy stuff.

 

[Jacozeelie]

Have you tried to clean all hardware, reconnect all cables and plugs, running pc with only one ram stick? Tried diffrent power supply, bigger?

 

[Tfo052]

Hello, do you have any more known good gpus or any other computers that you could put the cards into to test them? artifacting is usually (most of the time) a sign of a dying gpu and there is not permanent fix for it.

If the gpus work fine in another system or you don't have another one for testing, you can try removing all traces of the drivers manually and then get them directly from nvidia's website (DO NOT go to any 3rd party sites eg: drivereasy, driverscape, etc...). If they are still doing this and the are in warranty, RMA them because it is probably the gpus dying.

What are the temps under load?

If they are not in warranty, you an try repasting them if you are comfortable doing that.

I have never attempted gpu flashing but I would not recommend it without fully knowing what you are doing as if you fial the update, it can completely brick the card rendering it completely useless. I don't think a bad chip bios could cause this but there is a chance it could.

I think because it has been used for mining, that may have killed it. What were the temps during the mining? Even short periods at near 100c could have melted components in the die or the solder under the chip Also did you get them used or new? They could have had a past life of mining if you got them used.

 

[M3rKn]

Unplug and re-install everything. I literally do that almost every time I troubleshoot. So often its something simple. Especially when hardware changes are involved.

Have you tired re-installing your games? Modern games, even the "older" ones that you are coming back to receive regular patches and updates. The ones you play regularly get an update or patch "as you play" (this will result in fewer glitches since there are less variables to deal with). With the older ones may get two or more updates when you relaunch them (more variables). This can cause instability due to updates overriding one another. In the process some updates add content, fix bugs, take away content, etc... So if the updates are not consecutive weird bugs can occur.

Do you still have your 1080 (non-ti)? I would try testing with that GPU if you still have it. (FYI there is no need for you to DDU your drivers, its NVIDIA to NVIDIA they run on the same driver)

As far as your mining predicament goes I really doubt it caused damage. You say you overclocked it, but... Miners undervolt their GPUs (they call it overclocking), but they actually underclock or undervolt to drop temps and improve efficiency. The only thing they overclock is the memory. If you actually overclocked it like a gamer would to gain more FPS performance then that's different, but you would still need to run the card 24/7. So I wouldn't pay it any mind.

Could do a fresh install of windows. Your rig has gone through a few hardware swaps and is going on its 3rd or 4th year with the same O/S. There have been times when a fresh O/S fixed all my issues.

 

[scout_03]

test your gpu with gpu-z rendering option and see if it hold use hwinfo on sensor tab to follow voltages fans speed and temp in system in the same time mining is hard on gpu .

 

[drewdecurtis]

Have you tried to clean all hardware, reconnect all cables and plugs, running pc with only one ram stick? Tried diffrent power supply, bigger?

I do not have any spare power supplies to test the build with. I haven't tried re-seating the GPU in the PCIe slot, but I will try that.

 

[drewdecurtis]

Hello, do you have any more known good gpus or any other computers that you could put the cards into to test them? artifacting is usually (most of the time) a sign of a dying gpu and there is not permanent fix for it.

If the gpus work fine in another system or you don't have another one for testing, you can try removing all traces of the drivers manually and then get them directly from nvidia's website (DO NOT go to any 3rd party sites eg: drivereasy, driverscape, etc...). If they are still doing this and the are in warranty, RMA them because it is probably the gpus dying.

What are the temps under load?

If they are not in warranty, you an try repasting them if you are comfortable doing that.

I have never attempted gpu flashing but I would not recommend it without fully knowing what you are doing as if you fial the update, it can completely brick the card rendering it completely useless. I don't think a bad chip bios could cause this but there is a chance it could.

I think because it has been used for mining, that may have killed it. What were the temps during the mining? Even short periods at near 100c could have melted components in the die or the solder under the chip Also did you get them used or new? They could have had a past life of mining if you got them used.

As mentioned in the first post, I have reinstalled drivers many times with no success. I only download drivers from NVIDIA's site and used Display Driver Uninstaller in between each install.

I have not tried the single ram stick trick, but I will try that.

GPU temps during mining never exceeded 65 degrees Celsius, I always had my fans going strong to prevent a heat death. I did buy the card used, but the owner told me it was never used for mining. I know that could be a blatant lie, but I used this car for over a year before I had started to experience issues so I find it hard to believe this card could've been used for mining.

I bought the GPU third party without a warranty.

 

[drewdecurtis]

Unplug and re-install everything. I literally do that almost every time I troubleshoot. So often its something simple. Especially when hardware changes are involved.

Have you tired re-installing your games? Modern games, even the "older" ones that you are coming back to receive regular patches and updates. The ones you play regularly get an update or patch "as you play" (this will result in fewer glitches since there are less variables to deal with). With the older ones may get two or more updates when you relaunch them (more variables). This can cause instability due to updates overriding one another. In the process some updates add content, fix bugs, take away content, etc... So if the updates are not consecutive weird bugs can occur.

Do you still have your 1080 (non-ti)? I would try testing with that GPU if you still have it. (FYI there is no need for you to DDU your drivers, its NVIDIA to NVIDIA they run on the same driver)

As far as your mining predicament goes I really doubt it caused damage. You say you overclocked it, but... Miners undervolt their GPUs (they call it overclocking), but they actually underclock or undervolt to drop temps and improve efficiency. The only thing they overclock is the memory. If you actually overclocked it like a gamer would to gain more FPS performance then that's different, but you would still need to run the card 24/7. So I wouldn't pay it any mind.

Could do a fresh install of windows. Your rig has gone through a few hardware swaps and is going on its 3rd or 4th year with the same O/S. There have been times when a fresh O/S fixed all my issues.

I have tried reinstalling all the games I am having issues with and that changed nothing.

I do not have my old GTX 1080 as I sold it before upgrading to the GTX 1080 Ti.

I used to be in the habit of reinstalling windows every year or so to prevent and solve issues I had come across. It usually took a year for windows to break down and start having some fatal issues, this would prompt me to reinstall. I did a windows reset while maintaining my settings and files this time instead and it did not solve anything. I will soon be resorting to a complete windows reinstall soon, but have put it off due to less time in my schedule recently.

 

[drewdecurtis]

Unplug and re-install everything. I literally do that almost every time I troubleshoot. So often its something simple. Especially when hardware changes are involved.

Have you tired re-installing your games? Modern games, even the "older" ones that you are coming back to receive regular patches and updates. The ones you play regularly get an update or patch "as you play" (this will result in fewer glitches since there are less variables to deal with). With the older ones may get two or more updates when you relaunch them (more variables). This can cause instability due to updates overriding one another. In the process some updates add content, fix bugs, take away content, etc... So if the updates are not consecutive weird bugs can occur.

Do you still have your 1080 (non-ti)? I would try testing with that GPU if you still have it. (FYI there is no need for you to DDU your drivers, its NVIDIA to NVIDIA they run on the same driver)

As far as your mining predicament goes I really doubt it caused damage. You say you overclocked it, but... Miners undervolt their GPUs (they call it overclocking), but they actually underclock or undervolt to drop temps and improve efficiency. The only thing they overclock is the memory. If you actually overclocked it like a gamer would to gain more FPS performance then that's different, but you would still need to run the card 24/7. So I wouldn't pay it any mind.

Could do a fresh install of windows. Your rig has gone through a few hardware swaps and is going on its 3rd or 4th year with the same O/S. There have been times when a fresh O/S fixed all my issues.

I tried a fresh installation of windows and had no success.

 

[drewdecurtis]

New issues

Overwatch, a game I typically play on low settings without any issues is now giving artifacts, strange polygon errors, and crashing/freezing. Most games are exhibiting the same behaviors of running fine with few or no errors/bugs for a few minutes before crashing...

So very strange and frustrating. Please, help!!

 

[drewdecurtis]

So I built a new computer, reusing my GPU. No problems now. Problems solved. To me, this confirms my suspicion of a Motherboard fault.

EDIT: I was using DEBUG MODE in NVIDIA control panel for a while so get around my problems.