- Mar 19, 2013
- 4
- 0
- 10,510
Hello
Been around toms hardware for some time now, always use it for pc component reviews but Now I am in need of advice.
As the title says I have 3 graphics cards go pop in less than a year,pc specs as follows
Windows 7 64 bit
8GB RAM corsair
GIGABYTE Z77 - D3H Motorboat
Intel i5 3570k OC to 4.2 GHz
Corsair 500r case with 2 extra 140mm roof fans
OCZ 650w X series PSU
Usual dvd drive, 3 hard drives, mouse, keyboard etc
3 Dell 1680 x 1050 monitors
I bought a xfx 7950 graphics card which after installing the card straight away encountered issues. When I powered on the gpu fans would remain spinning at 100% making for a very noisy pc and no signal would go to the monitors, screens would remain in standby. I would have to force a shut down and try again, sometimes it would happen again, others it would boot through....random. when it did boot the fans would constantly be spooling up and down and at idle it ran hot, near 70c. During gaming it got very very hot! Spoke to the retailer and they ram's it with the same 7950.
That worked no issues for around a year with intermittent intense gaming (battlefield 3, splinter cell, bioshock etc) and a lot of 3d modelling, photoshop etc all on 3 screens. Temps were consistently normal 75c ish under load. No issues, one evening shut it down and the next day when I booted I had random, coloured, flashing, spikey lines appearing all over the screen and really bad artifact in. Ran fur mark, temps remained normal with good frame rate but very bad artifact in. Read but replaced with a 7970 as the 7950 was no longer in stock. That was January.
Now since then i have done very little gaming but a lot of 3d modellling with mo issues, temps good and frame rates good. this weekend I discovered war thunder which across eyefinity was epic and had great frame rates. However i noticed (first proper gaming session) temps were quite high, started off around 60c, and steadily rose to the low 90's. I was concerned so stopped and googled but apparently high temps with the 7970 is normal (think a few comments made on this forum) so though ok it's fine, but I did stop with eyefinity and just ran one screen with the intent of reducing the load and the temps. They were hovering around the 80c mark when the pc just shut down without warning. No fps slow downs, bsod, beeping, noises, just shut down. When I rebooted I got coloured lines and artifacting in the bios but when it at temps to get into windows at the point the hardware acceleration would kick in you can hear the gpu shut down completely and the screen remains black. When I rebooted into safe mode (not hardware acclecerated graphics) I got to the desktop but coloured lines were everywhere but could still not get to the desktop in normal mode. Removed the gpu and replaced with a spare 8600 gts and everything was fine.
Now while i believe the retailer will honour a replacement under warranty i am now concerned that something is wrong in the pc. It could be that XFX cards are just crap and i had bad luck but i don't want a fourth.
So could it be the psu? Or maybe the motherboard? The pc has now been reformatted and everything is fine, no hang ups or weird behavior and I have run fur mark and although frame rates are low and power draw is less than the 7950 or 7970 there is no other behaviour to suggest another component is causing the failures. Also all 3 rma are under slightly different circumstances.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Short of spending over £80 for a new psu I am not sure what I can do. Psu is out of warranty.
Regards
Will
Been around toms hardware for some time now, always use it for pc component reviews but Now I am in need of advice.
As the title says I have 3 graphics cards go pop in less than a year,pc specs as follows
Windows 7 64 bit
8GB RAM corsair
GIGABYTE Z77 - D3H Motorboat
Intel i5 3570k OC to 4.2 GHz
Corsair 500r case with 2 extra 140mm roof fans
OCZ 650w X series PSU
Usual dvd drive, 3 hard drives, mouse, keyboard etc
3 Dell 1680 x 1050 monitors
I bought a xfx 7950 graphics card which after installing the card straight away encountered issues. When I powered on the gpu fans would remain spinning at 100% making for a very noisy pc and no signal would go to the monitors, screens would remain in standby. I would have to force a shut down and try again, sometimes it would happen again, others it would boot through....random. when it did boot the fans would constantly be spooling up and down and at idle it ran hot, near 70c. During gaming it got very very hot! Spoke to the retailer and they ram's it with the same 7950.
That worked no issues for around a year with intermittent intense gaming (battlefield 3, splinter cell, bioshock etc) and a lot of 3d modelling, photoshop etc all on 3 screens. Temps were consistently normal 75c ish under load. No issues, one evening shut it down and the next day when I booted I had random, coloured, flashing, spikey lines appearing all over the screen and really bad artifact in. Ran fur mark, temps remained normal with good frame rate but very bad artifact in. Read but replaced with a 7970 as the 7950 was no longer in stock. That was January.
Now since then i have done very little gaming but a lot of 3d modellling with mo issues, temps good and frame rates good. this weekend I discovered war thunder which across eyefinity was epic and had great frame rates. However i noticed (first proper gaming session) temps were quite high, started off around 60c, and steadily rose to the low 90's. I was concerned so stopped and googled but apparently high temps with the 7970 is normal (think a few comments made on this forum) so though ok it's fine, but I did stop with eyefinity and just ran one screen with the intent of reducing the load and the temps. They were hovering around the 80c mark when the pc just shut down without warning. No fps slow downs, bsod, beeping, noises, just shut down. When I rebooted I got coloured lines and artifacting in the bios but when it at temps to get into windows at the point the hardware acceleration would kick in you can hear the gpu shut down completely and the screen remains black. When I rebooted into safe mode (not hardware acclecerated graphics) I got to the desktop but coloured lines were everywhere but could still not get to the desktop in normal mode. Removed the gpu and replaced with a spare 8600 gts and everything was fine.
Now while i believe the retailer will honour a replacement under warranty i am now concerned that something is wrong in the pc. It could be that XFX cards are just crap and i had bad luck but i don't want a fourth.
So could it be the psu? Or maybe the motherboard? The pc has now been reformatted and everything is fine, no hang ups or weird behavior and I have run fur mark and although frame rates are low and power draw is less than the 7950 or 7970 there is no other behaviour to suggest another component is causing the failures. Also all 3 rma are under slightly different circumstances.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Short of spending over £80 for a new psu I am not sure what I can do. Psu is out of warranty.
Regards
Will
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