[SOLVED] How do you know if your GPU is broken? Rx 5700xt not giving signal to monitor anymore...

[warglaive]

Built the computer in march 2020 and it worked fine up until this week, then it began restarting the whole system in the middle of a game (World of Warcraft, not anything stressful). Now it has declined to the point I cant even get into the motherboard bios, or at least cant SEE the bios. Monitor is getting no signal and my b450 tomahawk max motherboard is showing a red VGA LED... fans run (sometimes super loud on GPU on restart, sometimes normal) power is there, just no signal out the hdmi cable.

It was intermittent for a while that I could see the bios, now the thing just wont give any signal at all. I replaced the GPU with an old one I have (geforce GTX 950) and I got a notification that "something had changed" and it loaded me into the motherboard BIOS, then it would ONLY go to the bios every single restart.... but I DID at least get a signal to the monitor. The VGA led was still on with the geforce GPU installed, so i dont know how that works concerning my 5700XT having the same LED but no signal to the screen.

I noticed in the BIOS that it generally did not detect my m.2 drive, but then once or twice it did show up. No idea how to troubleshoot that.

I tried the 5700xt in both PCIe slots, neither worked or made any change. Tried 1 stick of ram, tried both, tried each separately. No change.

Cant get product support from MSI because the form requires information I cannot get since I cant get a signal to see it... very hesitant to retry the geforce GPU again because now that's the ONLY one i have and need it for the older computer I'm typing this up on now. Not like I can just go buy another GPU, they are out of stock everywhere and if they are available the price is 50-100%+++ more than retail. No onboard GPU so cant try that either just to see if there's a signal out.


System hardware that I know:

Radeon rx 5700xt mech OC

MSI tomahawk b450 max

ryzen 5 3600x

Ripjaws 3600 ram 16g x 2

Western digital 1 tb blue sv550 nvme SSD



Again, this has worked fine for 9 months and just recently started restarting the system randomly during GPU load and now quickly declined to the point I cant even see BIOS.

Any help appreciated, thanks!

 

[rgd1101]

make and model of the psu?

 

[warglaive]

OOPS! forgot that part.

Coolermaster MWE gold 650

 

[warglaive]

update:

So i got my hands on another GPU and still have the same problem, so hopefully it's not my own GPU.... being I could sometimes get into the motherboard bios, but now cant at all, is that the most likely culprit to replace? Hard to troubleshoot that without simply getting another MB, isnt it? Would love any advice on that too...

Any other way to diagnose without simply replacing every component? Dont really need a whole second computer but that's the endgame in that scenario replacing every part.

 

[warglaive]

OK.... so update to the update, I reseated the ram again and got no change - still not getting any signal. Moved away to check the connection to the monitor (again) and before i touched anything i heard a soft "pop" from the computer, as if something shorted maybe? I had not touched or changed anything, and could see no evidence inside the case of any damage.

Computer rebooted itself a minute later and i got signal showing the motherboard bios, with my original card, and all the temps looked good. My m.2 drive was again not showing up on the storage screen, it had once out of maybe 6-10 times i got to the bios previously before it stopped doing anything.

I grabbed my original windows 10 usb install drive and rebooted with that plugged in, got the windows install guide to come up. Tried to system repair and anything i tried to do said it could not do that - was that because it was trying to repair the USB windows 10? Or could not detect any drive containing windows 10?

Am i solid in leaning toward the probability my m.2 is just bad and the "pop" may have been that? Possibly allowing the system to completely not detect it there and therefore bypass the issue? It's the only storage at all i have in the computer.

Western Digital 1TB WD Blue SN550 NVMe Internal SSD - Gen3 x4 PCIe 8Gb/s, M.2 2280, 3D NAND, Up to 2,400 MB/s - WDS100T2B0C

Copy-pasted that info from the original purchase site. Would the best bet be to get another and try to reinstall windows on the new one? Worst case i just have 1 tb more storage.

 

[LoadingNWait]

has your bios loaded your ssd , i mean the bios information shows the hardware name

 

[warglaive]

has your bios loaded your ssd , i mean the bios information shows the hardware name

One time out of maybe 10 restarts to the MB BIOS the SSD showed up, I havent checked it since it got past loading windows yet.... I'll check it now.

I reseated the SSD a few times throughout and no change. Will try checking now and update.

edit- OK! It now shows the SSD on the bios, can that reduce the possibilities to most likely SSD or motherboard? It now boots "fine" like nothing ever happened, but I'm sure that wont last so it would be good to know what to check next time.

I havent even hooked it back up to the internet yet, not doing anything taxing on it until i can try diagnosing the original issue.

 

[DSzymborski]

A "pop" is highly unlikely to be an SSD. The SSD not working could be a result of the pop, which is more likely to be something like a capacitor on the PSU, which is far from an amazing model, though better than Cooler Master's typical dreary offerings.

 

[warglaive]

A "pop" is highly unlikely to be an SSD. The SSD not working could be a result of the pop, which is more likely to be something like a capacitor on the PSU, which is far from an amazing model, though better than Cooler Master's typical dreary offerings.

Whelp... it started working again after the pop. The SSD is now detected in the BIOS (this try) and that wasnt happening before teh pop.

Maybe a loose or faulty cable/connector from the PSU?

edit- to reiterate, it began shutting down and restarting the PC at first, that was first issue. Degraded to no function at all.... got that "pop" and it worked further than ever on the next try. Now it seems to function OK and is reading that missing SSD in teh BIOS. (that time anyway)

 

[DSzymborski]

Whelp... it started working again after the pop. The SSD is now detected in the BIOS (this try) and that wasnt happening before teh pop.

Maybe a loose or faulty cable/connector from the PSU?

The fact that you've had trouble at load is a big red flag for the PSU. I'd swap it out to test in any case. Purchase from somewhere with a good return policy if it's not the issue.

 

[warglaive]

The fact that you've had trouble at load is a big red flag for the PSU. I'd swap it out to test in any case. Purchase from somewhere with a good return policy if it's not the issue.

Ok, thank you. I actually just ordered one that I can use in this other PC i'm typing on now should that not be the issue.

But if it's working now, do i have to wait until it breaks again to test the new PSU? Until it doesnt work i cant see any change in effect from swapping them... right?

 

[DSzymborski]

Ok, thank you. I actually just ordered one that I can use in this other PC i'm typing on now should that not be the issue.

But if it's working now, do i have to wait until it breaks again to test the new PSU? Until it doesnt work i cant see any change in effect from swapping them... right?

It's hard to say as either approach has upsides or downsides. Personally speaking, with an unknown problem that could be the PSU, I'd want to be proactive about running it with a new PSU rather than worrying about upsetting the apple cart. But that's me and my desired risk profile.

 

[warglaive]

It's hard to say as either approach has upsides or downsides. Personally speaking, with an unknown problem that could be the PSU, I'd want to be proactive about running it with a new PSU rather than worrying about upsetting the apple cart. But that's me and my desired risk profile.

Ok, yeah that makes sense. To protect the rest of the components, swap it out and when it happens again consider other issues being culprit... if it never does, problem solved?

I think i can live with that, thank you for your help!!!

edit- i think i can even throw it into this computer and have less concern for damage since it's so outdated anyway. Good plan, i hope.

 

[DSzymborski]

Ok, yeah that makes sense. To protect the rest of the components, swap it out and when it happens again consider other issues being culprit... if it never does, problem solved?

I think i can live with that, thank you for your help!!!

Basically. Also, installing a new PSU gives you a good opportunity to make sure all the cables are connect firmly.

Just in case you're not aware, do make sure to not reuse modular cables unless you're getting an identical PSU. Pinouts on the PSU side are not universal and in the worst-case, you're going to have a bad time.

 

[warglaive]

Basically. Also, installing a new PSU gives you a good opportunity to make sure all the cables are connect firmly.

Just in case you're not aware, do make sure to not reuse modular cables unless you're getting an identical PSU. Pinouts on the PSU side are not universal and in the worst-case, you're going to have a bad time.

Identical identical or same brand? The one on order is actually just the same PSU at 550w, which is still more than enough for the system according to calculators.

I want to use new connectors anyway just in case it's one of those so I'd use everything new in the problem system. I'd use the old connectors in this comp just to see how that works out, hopefully if there was a shorting issue i can visually catch that when re-cabling everything. Thanks again!

edit- i think it might be a version 1 vs version 2 thing, however. Unlikely they changed the connector type tho, right? If my 650 is v1 and the 550 is v2?