Hi all,
So: The one thing we all dread and secretly hope never happens to us, seems to have befallen me.. *drumroll*
I think my GPU is starting to give up the ghost... There I said it. I still need some help nailing down the exact problem, so I will briefly walk through the sequence of events and the symptoms. If you need additional info, please ask. System specs are in my signature. There is a quick summary at the end of the post if you want to skip the long version.
The problem started after a two-hour session of Star Wars: Empire at War. It's a few years old by now so the GPU was never under serious strain. I experienced a sudden and total system freeze, accompanied by some jagged distortion on the screen.
After a reboot, Windows came up in the default 800x600 resolution, and could not detect the GPU. I rebooted again, and everything seemed fine. Tried the game again, and after about two minutes, the freeze happened again, once again with a distorted image.
I suspected some kind of driver issue, so I uninstalled the driver, rebooted into safe mode, cleaned it out with Driver Sweeper, and installed the latest Nvidia drivers. After a reboot the system came up fine, but any form of load on the GPU seems to trigger the crash again.
Last night I pulled the GPU, cleaned it, inspected the mobo and card for visual signs of damage, and found none. During this time, I ran the system from the on-board display, did a virus scan to load up the CPU a bit, and it seemed perfectly stable. I replaced the card, fired up StarCraft 2, and after about two minutes in the main menu, it froze again. Same visual distortion as before.
So, quick recap:
1) Putting the GPU under load causes a hard lock-up with screen distortion. 2D desktop mode appears stable.
2) System is stable with onboard GPU, and putting the CPU under load does not trigger the crash.
3) No evidence of sudden overheating or voltage drops, although its difficult to confirm since the system locks up.
Other suspects could of course be PSU going faulty or the mobo itself. Next thing I want to try is borrow a working GPU from somewhere and see if this fixes the problem, or maybe try my GPU in another system.
In the meantime, any opinions or advice would be welcome. Thanks in advance.
So: The one thing we all dread and secretly hope never happens to us, seems to have befallen me.. *drumroll*
I think my GPU is starting to give up the ghost... There I said it. I still need some help nailing down the exact problem, so I will briefly walk through the sequence of events and the symptoms. If you need additional info, please ask. System specs are in my signature. There is a quick summary at the end of the post if you want to skip the long version.
The problem started after a two-hour session of Star Wars: Empire at War. It's a few years old by now so the GPU was never under serious strain. I experienced a sudden and total system freeze, accompanied by some jagged distortion on the screen.
After a reboot, Windows came up in the default 800x600 resolution, and could not detect the GPU. I rebooted again, and everything seemed fine. Tried the game again, and after about two minutes, the freeze happened again, once again with a distorted image.
I suspected some kind of driver issue, so I uninstalled the driver, rebooted into safe mode, cleaned it out with Driver Sweeper, and installed the latest Nvidia drivers. After a reboot the system came up fine, but any form of load on the GPU seems to trigger the crash again.
Last night I pulled the GPU, cleaned it, inspected the mobo and card for visual signs of damage, and found none. During this time, I ran the system from the on-board display, did a virus scan to load up the CPU a bit, and it seemed perfectly stable. I replaced the card, fired up StarCraft 2, and after about two minutes in the main menu, it froze again. Same visual distortion as before.
So, quick recap:
1) Putting the GPU under load causes a hard lock-up with screen distortion. 2D desktop mode appears stable.
2) System is stable with onboard GPU, and putting the CPU under load does not trigger the crash.
3) No evidence of sudden overheating or voltage drops, although its difficult to confirm since the system locks up.
Other suspects could of course be PSU going faulty or the mobo itself. Next thing I want to try is borrow a working GPU from somewhere and see if this fixes the problem, or maybe try my GPU in another system.
In the meantime, any opinions or advice would be welcome. Thanks in advance.