Hi everyone,
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/93rcRB
I have had this build running smoothly for about two weeks now, up until a couple days ago (Tuesday). I decided to add the Western Digital 500GB HD, AFTER the build was complete, and it seems to have thrown something off.
When I initially installed the new hard drive, I was getting no signal from my video card in either the HDMI or DVI outputs. Keep in mind that the GTX660 came from a previous computer in which it worked flawlessly. I was thinking at first that my power supply may not be able to handle all the load, but PCPartPicker is telling me that my estimated wattage is only around 340W, so I can't imagine that's the problem.
I really have no clue what I did to resolve this, but after an hour or so of plugging things in and out it decided to start working again (the signal from my GPU, that is).
The next day (Wednesday), I used my PC for at least 10 hours straight (I work from home) with 0 issues.
So now, today (Thursday), I boot up my PC and everything seems to be going just fine, and I'm thinking it's finally all settled. While working I try to jump on to WildStar just to check my mail, etc., and my PC completely crashes (screen freeze). Try to reboot and again, there is no signal coming from my GPU.
So, again, I sat here for about an hour plugging things in and out, and now it's working again. Ugh. BIOS are updated, most recent video drivers are installed, and I'm at my wits end trying to figure out what the problem might be.
I have now had 3-4 instances where when I try to boot it's like the motherboard is not even detecting the GPU, and there is no HDMI or DVI output. When I use the on-board video and go into CPUID, device manager, etc., it doesn't recognize the GPU whatsoever, and if I try to install drivers it acts like the card isn't even connected (despite it being powered on/fan running).
My only thought is it might be a seating problem since the only fix I can ever come up with is randomly plugging things in and out, but who knows.
I also ran some stress tests using AIDA64 (can post screenshots if it would make a difference) and everything went smoothly, I think, and nothing seemed to be reaching excessively high temperatures.
Hopefully this is enough information for someone to be able to begin to try and understand what the problem might be, but if there's any more information I can provide I would be happy to. The PC is currently running fine again but I no longer trust it, and am afraid to put any stress on my GPU.
Thank you in advance!