Is my friend killing his graphics card?

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Doge Verm

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Jan 22, 2015
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So I visited my friend last friday and we were gonna play some coop games (me on laptop, he was on his own pc) and his PC's case is open on the left side and he continuously keep touching his graphics card and when I asked him what he was doing he said he was checking the "temps"
Is he killing his graphics card by this? He was touching this metal part on the left side of the graphics card (GTX 770)
 
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Killing it, Id say no. Touching it won't break it, but dropping it and pulling it out of it's socket will.
I often have my side panel off, and by having it off, won't break the internal components. In what way was he checking the temps?
 
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Yes, that is a really bad idea.

Worse than killing the card, your friend is exposing himself to the possibility of electric shock. If he wants to check the temps of his GPU tell him to download HWiNFO or MSI Afterburner:

Afterburner: http://gaming.msi.com/features/afterburner
HWiNFO: http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

This is right on up there with sticking a fork in wall socket to see if it has power or not.
 
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Also, if there is a side fan in the case panel he has removed, then he may be causing to to heat up even more or just screwing up the airflow profile in general. However, touching it to judge overheating is rather useless, computer parts are often hot to the touch without being overheated, if the card starts overheating it will either throttle or crash, no need to molest it.
 
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You can download programs that can monitor the temps of your components, no reason to physically touch them to see how hot they are... I'd recommend using OpenHardwareMonitor, this will show you the temps of all your components, not just the GPU.
 
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Yes touching the inside of your pc, really anywhere while it's running is not a good idea. In fact, with it unplugged it's best to use an anti-static harness to ensure you don't pop anything or reduce a part's ability to provide stable operation.

On a joke note: Tell your friend before touching the card to rub his feet really vigorously on the carpet THEN touch the part (STOP HIM BEFORE HE DOES IT THOUGH)

On a serious note, just casually comment you'd be afraid static shock would ruin a part or more of your pc you don't want to afford to replace, then let him keep doing it. You'll find your next casual comment will be better received after he finally pops a component. Some folks need to find out all for themselves. And congrats on having a buddy to do some LAN gaming with!
 
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Well the amount of people who shortcircuited their pc with static generated through clothes is about zero. But yes I agree that darwin will eventually cath up with your friend one way or the other.
 
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sure, if you only touch the outside. but not when it is on, and you touch the components itself.
 
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Does your friend have a thermostat superpower you don't know about? Because other than that there is no way him touching it would even remotely indicate what temprature his card is either than either one of these:

Hot
Not so hot I can still play

Just have him download the overclocking software as mentioned above. If he is really concerned he can always get a radiator liquid cooling mod for it there are various tutorials on this. Also touching any pc component while on is a bad idea for 2 reasons :

A - You can shock yourself
B - You can possibly blow the part, if you have some static electricity you are unaware of and touch a component there is the possibility to actually blow that component and that is not nice.

Finally I would urge you to give your friend a pc anti static wrist wrap if he likes touching his pc.
Also advise him that keeping the pc open is not advisable since it will attract more dust than having it closed. Rather invest in a biggest heat sink, fan, whatever cooling his pc has than expose it to constant dust.

Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO is a good and affordable option for CPU. I already suggested him getting a radiator and liquid cooling for the GPU ( not too cheap but if you are that concerned it's worth it I guess )
 
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After a few years of working on boards you can get quite accurate on the temps. I worked with one guy who could get within a degree of the infrared thermometer all the time. As far as touching the card or components as long as he touches the power supply or metal parts Of the case for a few seconds thats all it takes to drain any static. Unless he has the experience he wont be able to know if the card is hot or warm ie its normal operating temps or not. He also will probably be just be feeling the temp of the cooling fans etc not the actual gpu core temp. For that he really does need to use software as suggested. Lots of it around and some like cpu-z logs the temps so he can run it and game for a bit and really see what is going on. Sure there are others that do the same as well. And as far as the case being off it will drop the temps for board mounted parts by about 10°c. It doesnt hurt other than increasing the dust inside the case. And that would be something he should look at doing is vacuuming out the case, and blowing out the fans and heat sinks on the cpu, the vid card and the power supply. Anyway what he is doing wont hurt anything but it also wont tell him anything with any accuracy.
 
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