OK, here's specs:
Asus P5e-vm hdmi (OCed to 420mhz FSB, prime stable for years)
Intel Q9550
4x2GB Gskill ddr2-1000 (memtest 86+ tested as good)
nvidia gtx 570
antec neopower 650w
creative xfi pci soundcard
a concise catchup of the problems i've been having for the past week or two, from the start:
-shut my computer down one day and opened it up to clean it with canned air, something i've done countless time on my personal computers and at work. i was properly grounded and careful as always, the only thing odd that happened is that some mist sprayed out of the canned air (like it does when you hold it upsidedown) even tho i was holding it almost perfectly vertical. (while blowing out PSU i believe). I let the computer sit for 10 mins or so before powering it on to let any moisture dry out some.
-computer wouldnt start once i plugged it back in. the case/cpu fans would spin, but there was no video signal and no power to my USB devices (they usually flash and then stay on during POST). i lost the speaker for my mobo so i couldnt listen for beep codes. but it did start working again, after i removed 2 of the 4 sticks of ram, on a whim. I dont think the ram was responsible for this event, i think the mobo defaulted the bios during my many attempts to turn the PC on, and IIRC, the mobo defaults to too low of voltage for my ram, esp 4 sticks of it.
-so my BIOS was defaulted and i forgot to save my OC settings to one of the stored profiles, so i started from scratch. i got it back to where it was and decided to take it a bit further while i was at it, got things stable at 450mhz bus with some added vcore and vNB, still well within the rated limits of both.
-computer ran fine that day, played a ton of BF3 and skyrim with no problems.
-the next day i get a message saying my beta ver of MSI Afterburner is about to expire, so i grab the new beta, while i was at it i got the newest version of OCCT as well. You can set the volts on the 570 up to 1.1v using afterburner, i've had my card on 1.075v to keep the 725>900mhz OC stable, and its been fine for months, other than a brief period of instability (i think caused by a driver version) where my card needed to be bumped up to 1.1v to be stable, but with my aggressive custom fan profile set, it still never got much into the 70s C. after i installed the next drivers tho i noticed i was able to get it stable at a lower voltage again.
so on the day in question, i bump the voltage up to 1.1 and then the core clock to 910mhz, load up OCCT and run a stress test and my PC shuts off instantly as soon as i did. i turn the computer back on and run OCCT again, this time on the 900mhz 1.075 that was stable for so long, same thing it just kills everything instantly. So i turn computer back on and then lower core/shader and voltage back to almost stock (i never touch memory) and try again, and again the computer shuts off.
- this time the computer wont come back on. the case fans and lights come on, but there is no video. and this time the GPU's fan is running full blast, really loud, from the second i push the power button to the second i shut it off. i reset CMOS and unplugged, reseated GPU, checked power connections, everything, still nothing. I put the card in an older gaming rig and it did the same thing, no picture and max fan. So i get a hold of EVGA and send the card in. fortunately my mobo has onboard video (something ive always had disabled) so i enable it and lower my bus back to stock so it runs ok with it on.
- my friend comes over with his i5 rig which also has an evga gtx570 on it. I help him OC his card (something he wanted help with for months) and we get it stable at about the same settings as mine ran at. then we took his 570 out of his computer and put it in mine, i went in bios and disabled onboard video and reloaded OC profile. When we got in windows the GPU seemed to be working fine but my soundcard wasnt detected and neither was the onboard NIC. I restarted and shut down a few times and they still werent detected. I shut down/unplug computer and remove sound card and then get back into window, shut down and put card back in and then when windows comes back up the sound card and onboard NIC are both detected and working normally...
-i did a clean install of afterburner and OCCt for the heck of it. Then I set his GPU for the same speeds that we just had stable in his computer (900mhz and 1.075v) ran a brief OCCT scan to make sure it was ok and it seemed to be. I get in BF3 and play for an hour or so and get a crash to desktop with a popup in the tray about the display driver/adapter stopped responding so i lowered the clocks down to 850mhz and resume playing and it was fine for another 3 hours or so.
- we leave the GPU in computer overnight, PC is left on like normal, and then when i get back on it in the morning, i decide to try to figure out why it wasnt stable. I run prime95 to make sure my CPU/mobo OC is stable, and it seemed to be, i let it go through like 8 tests. Then i set card back to 900mhz 1.075v that it was stable at and launch OCCT while prime was still running to test and see if its the CPU and GPU both being under load that makes things unstable. Well, as soon as i start OCCT GPU test the computer shuts off again. we get back into windows and try running just OCCT by itself and it shuts off again. we get back in windows and set everything back to stock and try again and again it shuts off.
- this time theres no video when we turn the PC back on, but no max fanspeed like with the other card. I try the usual tricks but it wouldnt come back on. So we put it in his PC again and it does the same thing in his. and during the many attempts to get the card running again it did the thing where it ran on full blast fanspeed again. after a few hours we give up and decide that another GPU has been murdered by my computer.
- I switch back over to the onboard video and get into windows just to discover that my onboard NIC isnt working, but the soundcard is fine this time. I try disabling/enabling it in the bios, shutting down, unplugging, resetting CMOS, defaulting BIOS, but scans for hardware in windows never finds any network adapters or unknown devices even.
That pretty much brings things up to date. My friend is RMAing that card, and my replacement card for the first murdered card should be here in a couple days. Needless to say i'm really worried about frying a third card in my PC, and I'm really at a loss as to what the cause could be. Logically, since the GPU is attached to both teh mobo and the PSU i'm thinking it could be either one of those things... here are my guesses and supporting evidence:
1) It could be the PSU. While this antec PSU has served me well through a couple builds, it is getting a little old... and i have heard about dying PSUs causing odd problems like this. Also there was that tiny mist of moisture that the canned air blew into it (way back at the beginning of this story lol)
but does it explain why my onboard NIC is dead? or the weird period where the NIC and PCI soundcard both stopped working for a while? i havent heard any weird noises or smelled anything...
also i ran a PSU test under OCCT and it seemed to be fine, but at that point my GPU was already removed so it didnt have that load on it...
2) It could be the motherboard. During all of this i have been tweaking my CPU/mobo overclock, but i havent drastically changed any speeds or voltages really... temps all seemed fine and prime95 runs fine...
3) could be software/driver related. is it just coincidence that I installed new MSI afterburner beta immediately before running the stress tests that killed my first card?
thoughts?
Asus P5e-vm hdmi (OCed to 420mhz FSB, prime stable for years)
Intel Q9550
4x2GB Gskill ddr2-1000 (memtest 86+ tested as good)
nvidia gtx 570
antec neopower 650w
creative xfi pci soundcard
a concise catchup of the problems i've been having for the past week or two, from the start:
-shut my computer down one day and opened it up to clean it with canned air, something i've done countless time on my personal computers and at work. i was properly grounded and careful as always, the only thing odd that happened is that some mist sprayed out of the canned air (like it does when you hold it upsidedown) even tho i was holding it almost perfectly vertical. (while blowing out PSU i believe). I let the computer sit for 10 mins or so before powering it on to let any moisture dry out some.
-computer wouldnt start once i plugged it back in. the case/cpu fans would spin, but there was no video signal and no power to my USB devices (they usually flash and then stay on during POST). i lost the speaker for my mobo so i couldnt listen for beep codes. but it did start working again, after i removed 2 of the 4 sticks of ram, on a whim. I dont think the ram was responsible for this event, i think the mobo defaulted the bios during my many attempts to turn the PC on, and IIRC, the mobo defaults to too low of voltage for my ram, esp 4 sticks of it.
-so my BIOS was defaulted and i forgot to save my OC settings to one of the stored profiles, so i started from scratch. i got it back to where it was and decided to take it a bit further while i was at it, got things stable at 450mhz bus with some added vcore and vNB, still well within the rated limits of both.
-computer ran fine that day, played a ton of BF3 and skyrim with no problems.
-the next day i get a message saying my beta ver of MSI Afterburner is about to expire, so i grab the new beta, while i was at it i got the newest version of OCCT as well. You can set the volts on the 570 up to 1.1v using afterburner, i've had my card on 1.075v to keep the 725>900mhz OC stable, and its been fine for months, other than a brief period of instability (i think caused by a driver version) where my card needed to be bumped up to 1.1v to be stable, but with my aggressive custom fan profile set, it still never got much into the 70s C. after i installed the next drivers tho i noticed i was able to get it stable at a lower voltage again.
so on the day in question, i bump the voltage up to 1.1 and then the core clock to 910mhz, load up OCCT and run a stress test and my PC shuts off instantly as soon as i did. i turn the computer back on and run OCCT again, this time on the 900mhz 1.075 that was stable for so long, same thing it just kills everything instantly. So i turn computer back on and then lower core/shader and voltage back to almost stock (i never touch memory) and try again, and again the computer shuts off.
- this time the computer wont come back on. the case fans and lights come on, but there is no video. and this time the GPU's fan is running full blast, really loud, from the second i push the power button to the second i shut it off. i reset CMOS and unplugged, reseated GPU, checked power connections, everything, still nothing. I put the card in an older gaming rig and it did the same thing, no picture and max fan. So i get a hold of EVGA and send the card in. fortunately my mobo has onboard video (something ive always had disabled) so i enable it and lower my bus back to stock so it runs ok with it on.
- my friend comes over with his i5 rig which also has an evga gtx570 on it. I help him OC his card (something he wanted help with for months) and we get it stable at about the same settings as mine ran at. then we took his 570 out of his computer and put it in mine, i went in bios and disabled onboard video and reloaded OC profile. When we got in windows the GPU seemed to be working fine but my soundcard wasnt detected and neither was the onboard NIC. I restarted and shut down a few times and they still werent detected. I shut down/unplug computer and remove sound card and then get back into window, shut down and put card back in and then when windows comes back up the sound card and onboard NIC are both detected and working normally...
-i did a clean install of afterburner and OCCt for the heck of it. Then I set his GPU for the same speeds that we just had stable in his computer (900mhz and 1.075v) ran a brief OCCT scan to make sure it was ok and it seemed to be. I get in BF3 and play for an hour or so and get a crash to desktop with a popup in the tray about the display driver/adapter stopped responding so i lowered the clocks down to 850mhz and resume playing and it was fine for another 3 hours or so.
- we leave the GPU in computer overnight, PC is left on like normal, and then when i get back on it in the morning, i decide to try to figure out why it wasnt stable. I run prime95 to make sure my CPU/mobo OC is stable, and it seemed to be, i let it go through like 8 tests. Then i set card back to 900mhz 1.075v that it was stable at and launch OCCT while prime was still running to test and see if its the CPU and GPU both being under load that makes things unstable. Well, as soon as i start OCCT GPU test the computer shuts off again. we get back into windows and try running just OCCT by itself and it shuts off again. we get back in windows and set everything back to stock and try again and again it shuts off.
- this time theres no video when we turn the PC back on, but no max fanspeed like with the other card. I try the usual tricks but it wouldnt come back on. So we put it in his PC again and it does the same thing in his. and during the many attempts to get the card running again it did the thing where it ran on full blast fanspeed again. after a few hours we give up and decide that another GPU has been murdered by my computer.
- I switch back over to the onboard video and get into windows just to discover that my onboard NIC isnt working, but the soundcard is fine this time. I try disabling/enabling it in the bios, shutting down, unplugging, resetting CMOS, defaulting BIOS, but scans for hardware in windows never finds any network adapters or unknown devices even.
That pretty much brings things up to date. My friend is RMAing that card, and my replacement card for the first murdered card should be here in a couple days. Needless to say i'm really worried about frying a third card in my PC, and I'm really at a loss as to what the cause could be. Logically, since the GPU is attached to both teh mobo and the PSU i'm thinking it could be either one of those things... here are my guesses and supporting evidence:
1) It could be the PSU. While this antec PSU has served me well through a couple builds, it is getting a little old... and i have heard about dying PSUs causing odd problems like this. Also there was that tiny mist of moisture that the canned air blew into it (way back at the beginning of this story lol)
but does it explain why my onboard NIC is dead? or the weird period where the NIC and PCI soundcard both stopped working for a while? i havent heard any weird noises or smelled anything...
also i ran a PSU test under OCCT and it seemed to be fine, but at that point my GPU was already removed so it didnt have that load on it...
2) It could be the motherboard. During all of this i have been tweaking my CPU/mobo overclock, but i havent drastically changed any speeds or voltages really... temps all seemed fine and prime95 runs fine...
3) could be software/driver related. is it just coincidence that I installed new MSI afterburner beta immediately before running the stress tests that killed my first card?
thoughts?