Hopefully someone can provide some hindsight

[Wiznerd]

So I'm about 90% sure that my graphics card is dead. The card is/was a N570GTX TWIN FROZR II/OC as found here: http://us.msi.com/product/vga/N570GTX_Twin_Frozr_IIOC.html#hero-overview. As of right now when plugged in the fans on the card itself will run but absolutely nothing will give me video output, not even the bios splash screen. I'm currently writing this on the same rig the card was in when it died only I've replaced the now dead card with a low power Nvidia GeForce 210. The 210 is running in the exact same PCI-E x16 port that the 570 was running in and everything else about the rig seems to be working as normal. I've also taken the time to put the 570 in another rig that I know is working and got the same results, no video output what-so-ever. Here are some more details about my rig:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 970 running at 3.5 ghz (stock speed)

Motherboard: ASRock 970 EXTREME4 AM3+ AMD 970 + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Memory: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600 mhz (currently clocked at 1333 mhz but I'm not sure what it was set two when the card died)

Power Supply: FirePower ModXStream Pro 700W 80Plus Semi-Modular High Performance ATX PC Power Supply 700MXSP, formerly PC Power & Cooling

Hard Drive: 3x 1TB 7200 RPM hard drives (all three hard drives are different but I don't have the individual brands of each as of right now)

Optical Drive: None

At the time of the incident I wasn't running with anything overclocked beyond what the card itself came with stock. I was however running with a slight voltage bump (I believe the stock was 988 millivolts and I bumped it up to 1013 millvolts). I normally wouldn't do this but without the voltage bump my Nvidia drivers would crash within 30 minutes or less when running DirectX 10/11 applications. I have been running with this particular setup for at least a year now and have had few problems.

Here are the basics of what happened when my card died. I downloaded Far Cry 3 and started playing. I played for about 45-50 minutes with no issues what-so-ever, but suddenly for no apparent reason my entire computer shut off, complete power cut out. It surprised me, but I didn't think too much of it. I checked the power strip and it seemed fine so I rebooted and everything started up as it normally. I made sure that my settings were correct in Asus GPU Tweak and tried again to start Far Cry 3 again to see if I could reproduce the problem. As soon as I started the application it took 2 seconds or less for the computer to completely die again. This time though when I tried to reboot I wasn't receiving any video output and basically all of the other symptoms listed above. Again, I'm fairly certain that the card is dead so instead of trying to fix it I have two questions:

1. Did I do anything obviously wrong to cause this to happen?

2. What could I do in the future to prevent something like this from happening again?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.: I want to apologize ahead of time if I've broken any forum etiquette with my thread, this is my first post here.

 

[Pinhedd]

So I'm about 90% sure that my graphics card is dead. The card is/was a N570GTX TWIN FROZR II/OC as found here: http://us.msi.com/product/vga/N570GTX_Twin_Frozr_IIOC.html#hero-overview. As of right now when plugged in the fans on the card itself will run but absolutely nothing will give me video output, not even the bios splash screen. I'm currently writing this on the same rig the card was in when it died only I've replaced the now dead card with a low power Nvidia GeForce 210. The 210 is running in the exact same PCI-E x16 port that the 570 was running in and everything else about the rig seems to be working as normal. I've also taken the time to put the 570 in another rig that I know is working and got the same results, no video output what-so-ever. Here are some more details about my rig:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 970 running at 3.5 ghz (stock speed)

Motherboard: ASRock 970 EXTREME4 AM3+ AMD 970 + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Memory: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600 mhz (currently clocked at 1333 mhz but I'm not sure what it was set two when the card died)

Power Supply: FirePower ModXStream Pro 700W 80Plus Semi-Modular High Performance ATX PC Power Supply 700MXSP, formerly PC Power & Cooling

Hard Drive: 3x 1TB 7200 RPM hard drives (all three hard drives are different but I don't have the individual brands of each as of right now)

Optical Drive: None

At the time of the incident I wasn't running with anything overclocked beyond what the card itself came with stock. I was however running with a slight voltage bump (I believe the stock was 988 millivolts and I bumped it up to 1013 millvolts). I normally wouldn't do this but without the voltage bump my Nvidia drivers would crash within 30 minutes or less when running DirectX 10/11 applications. I have been running with this particular setup for at least a year now and have had few problems.

Here are the basics of what happened when my card died. I downloaded Far Cry 3 and started playing. I played for about 45-50 minutes with no issues what-so-ever, but suddenly for no apparent reason my entire computer shut off, complete power cut out. It surprised me, but I didn't think too much of it. I checked the power strip and it seemed fine so I rebooted and everything started up as it normally. I made sure that my settings were correct in Asus GPU Tweak and tried again to start Far Cry 3 again to see if I could reproduce the problem. As soon as I started the application it took 2 seconds or less for the computer to completely die again. This time though when I tried to reboot I wasn't receiving any video output and basically all of the other symptoms listed above. Again, I'm fairly certain that the card is dead so instead of trying to fix it I have two questions:

1. Did I do anything obviously wrong to cause this to happen?

2. What could I do in the future to prevent something like this from happening again?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.: I want to apologize ahead of time if I've broken any forum etiquette with my thread, this is my first post here.

Yes the card is dead and will need to be replaced. It may still be covered under warranty.

If it was crashing at factory settings then it seems like a manufacturer QA issue.

 

[Mousemonkey]

That does sound pretty dead, in future leave the voltage settings alone would be my advice.

 

[anti-duck]

Does your PSU seem fine? That unit is questionable with people either saying it's brilliant or an absolute failure lol.

I'd honestly say that your GPU should have been looked at a long time ago when you had to bump the voltage slightly to get it running properly and it's just deteriorated ever since; maybe even speeding things up by upping the voltage.

 

[Egleu]

The power supply isn't exactly the best quality but it should have been sufficient for your rig. It doesn't seem like you did anything to cause this but I agree, the card seems dead.

If you do plan to upgrade to another high-end video card I recommend getting a different power supply. One from the top two tiers of this list would be best

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1804779/power-supply-unit-tier-list.html

 

[Wiznerd]

That does sound pretty dead, in future leave the voltage settings alone would be my advice.

Does your PSU seem fine? That unit is questionable with people either saying it's brilliant or an absolute failure lol.

I'd honestly say that your GPU should have been looked at a long time ago when you had to bump the voltage slightly to get it running properly and it's just deteriorated ever since; maybe even speeding things up by upping the voltage.

Yeah, the power supply seems to be running fine. Interestingly it was also while playing Far Cry 3 that my other PSU (a DiabloTek 950 Watt) fried. Far Cry 3 is probably the most demanding game I've ever run on this system so I guess it was just taxing it alot more than most of the other games I run. :/

 

[Pinhedd]

That does sound pretty dead, in future leave the voltage settings alone would be my advice.

Does your PSU seem fine? That unit is questionable with people either saying it's brilliant or an absolute failure lol.

I'd honestly say that your GPU should have been looked at a long time ago when you had to bump the voltage slightly to get it running properly and it's just deteriorated ever since; maybe even speeding things up by upping the voltage.

Yeah, the power supply seems to be running fine. Interestingly it was also while playing Far Cry 3 that my other PSU (a DiabloTek 950 Watt) fried. Far Cry 3 is probably the most demanding game I've ever run on this system so I guess it was just taxing it alot more than most of the other games I run. :/

DiabloTek... seriously?

 

[frag06]

That does sound pretty dead, in future leave the voltage settings alone would be my advice.

Does your PSU seem fine? That unit is questionable with people either saying it's brilliant or an absolute failure lol.

I'd honestly say that your GPU should have been looked at a long time ago when you had to bump the voltage slightly to get it running properly and it's just deteriorated ever since; maybe even speeding things up by upping the voltage.

Yeah, the power supply seems to be running fine. Interestingly it was also while playing Far Cry 3 that my other PSU (a DiabloTek 950 Watt) fried. Far Cry 3 is probably the most demanding game I've ever run on this system so I guess it was just taxing it alot more than most of the other games I run. :/

You never want to get a cheap PSU. You can go cheap on a CPU, GPU, ect. but you always want to buy a quality PSU.

 

[Wiznerd]

Thanks for the feedback guys. These forums are very helpful.

 

[Karadjgne]

Gpu is toast. Sounds like a fan died, you didn't notice the temps spiking and the VRM's got toasted.
Another scenario involves the psu. If it sent unregulated overvoltage through the card, it could very well have fried it. Considering the psu, its not an unrealistic idea.

The psu is the absolute single most important component in any pc. It touches everything one way or another. You can run a cheap mobo, wimpy cpu, crappy gpu and the pc will work. Run with a junk psu and it's not a matter of if it'll blow, but when. Seriously, there are YouTube vids of cheap psus shooting flames. Considering the extreme tolerances used in a pc, something powerful enough to arc-weld with should be important. Do yourself a favor, buy a quality psu that matches up your gpu requirements