[SOLVED] Graphics card(s) keep overheating/dying

[Ciesco]

Hi all,

A few years ago, I bought a refurbished Asus CM6730 with an ASUS GT640 (fan-cooled) graphics card. The original graphics card was DOA so the manufacturer got me a new one. One year later, the fan literally melted off the card (and it died). Fast-forward to this year, I finally got around to buy an MSI GT710 (heat sink this time) as replacement. 4 months later, I'm getting a partially pink screen and a jerky picture (not a cable problem, HDMI and VGA give the same picture) which make it seem like this one is overheating too...

In case that matters, my power supply is a modest 300W, but does that matter when having a heat sink? Plus these are pretty modest graphics cards. Also, I don't think the games I play are particularly graphics-intensive and would stress the card, but I could be wrong.

Anyway sounds like graphics cards just keep on overheating and dying on this config and I'd really like it to stop! Hopefully, it's just a matter of figuring out the faulty component in my config but I don't know where to start to figure that out. Since it keeps happening, it feels that the graphics card itself isn't the problem, but I could also just have been unlucky with the draw...

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Phaaze88]

Get rid of the power supply. Why didn't you consider it after what happened with the 2nd card?
That was the most consistent piece of info between the 3 cards.

It most likely killed off the original, then the second one dies, and now it's in the process of killing your current card - it's probably too late for it by now.

 

[Ciesco]

Well, that definitely has the merit of being pretty definitive. I guess I hesitated to blame the power supply since it was part of a pre-built configuration (including the graphics card which came with it).

I didn't want to imagine I had been sold an intrinsically broken config by Asus but sounds like I put too much faith in a faceless corporation.

Since it seems it seems like I've already stepped deep into stupid question territory, I would really appreciate if you could elaborate on these 2 equally uninformed follow-ups:

1. I understand how a fan-cooled underpowered graphics card would fail because the fan isn't properly controlled, but how can a heat sink fail to work since it's passive? Should I understand from these incidents that an underpowered graphics card ends up running so hard it'll overpower its cooling mechanism?
2. Is there absolutely no chance in hell that the overheating is somewhat triggered by something like a faulty motherboard?

Thanks again!

 

[Ciesco]

Just to add: the (probably stupid) reason I'm concerned about the motherboard is that the embedded graphics chip of the system is also fried (and has been since day 1).

 

[Phaaze88]

1 & 2)Refer to what happened to the fan on the 2nd card. That is not normal. How does a little 12v fan melt?
It happens by way of excessive discharge.
I'm no psu expert, but I can tell you that the psu is 'cooking' all three cards.

Motherboards don't kill cpus. But psus can kill everything, including motherboards.
The motherboard is just the 'messenger', so don't blame it... you've just been lucky so far with only graphics cards getting roasted.

See, one of the issues with prebuilts is that these companies cut corners in places to cut costs and keep prices lower.
Unfortunately, they commonly cut corners at the most important part of a PC.
Cheap psus tend to lack protections and other features that keep them from taking out the other parts in case things do go south.

 

[USAFRet]

Yep, this absolutely sounds like the PSU is at fault.

 

[Ciesco]

Sounds good, thanks all for your patience At least I'm glad to know it's an obvious fix. And I'll know better for next time.

 

[Phaaze88]

If the motherboard's igpu was the only thing fried on it, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
The rest of the board still works, right? But now that means you can't power up without using a discreet gpu.

Do you have a set budget? And which country, so I could recommend power supplies available in your area.

 

[Ciesco]

Hey! I appreciate that. Yes, as far as I can tell, the rest of the motherboard works good if not great. And if not, it is doing a great job at pretending to work.

I live in the US. I guess if I'm not very familiar with what you get for each price tier in PSUs. I definitely don't mind putting in the money to be conservative on wattage and leave room for upgrading the rest, but could you explain what else I should consider?

Thanks!

 

[Phaaze88]

For now, a new psu and a gpu and SSD to go with it.

PCPartPicker Part List

Storage: Crucial MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Low Profile Video Card ($84.49 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $194.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-08 22:29 EDT-0400

If you feel the addition of the SSD is too much, you can disregard it.

You should be able to get by on that for awhile.
Later on, I'd recommend replacing at least the motherboard and ram, because any compatible cpu you may want to upgrade to will be long obsolete, and the new mobo you would get won't be compatible with the old ram.