GeForce 570M Strange Problem

zolmir

Honorable
Dec 15, 2013
2
0
10,510
I have been using my GeForce 570M without any major problems for a little more than 2 years. Recently, I installed GIMP and used it to create some old paper effects & such on some pictures. On that same day, my laptop immediately restarted itself without any error messages, and repeated it after logging on to Windows. I chose to shut it down and wait a bit. The problem did not repeat for a few days.

The problem repeated when I was playing a graphics-intensive game very recently (Skyrim). I googled sudden restarts, and removed the option to restart my PC on a BSOD. This time I saw the problem with my own eyes. There were weird green/purple residues on my screen and my GPU shut restarted itself. Afraid of inflicting permanent damage, I restarted my PC. Before I could even log on to Windows, the screen had weird purple shapes, and it restarted itself again. I shut the PC down.

The next time I used the PC, this time the error happened when I was browsing the web, which is not intensive at all. I let it rest for a while. The error repeated itself while I was playing Crusader Kings 2 and Skyrim yesterday.

Today I installed OCCT to test my GPU. It reproduced the error within 53 seconds and I shut the PC down to prevent damage.

Do you have any idea what the problem might be? I can still use the graphics card, but something is definitely wrong with it. Might it be the RAM on the card? Is there any ways to discover the error without hurting the hardware? I read OCCT might damage hardware, so I stopped using it.

Thanks in advance!
 

zolmir

Honorable
Dec 15, 2013
2
0
10,510
I will use a clean boot now to see if there is any improvement. I cannot use another monitor (it's a laptop BTW). The fan might be a problem, but now the error repeats even with no intensive use (minimal heating). Actually it has crashed 4 times since I posted this message, and I did nothing but browse the net.