560 Ti Problem?

[ps617]

Hi all,
Two days ago I picked up my EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX560Ti. It is part of a brand new build that I got working yesterday. This morning I fired it up (had no problems the first day) and within 5-10 mins of me watching BF3 videos, my computer just died. It shut off and smelled like something had burnt inside. I checked around feeling if there was a noticeable amount of heat and I couldn't find anything. Now when I turn it on, I see no picture on my monitor and it sounds like the video card's fan is going crazy fast. My guess is that it thinks it is overheating but please keep in mind that it was on for 10 mins at the most and I have great cooling inside. Could I have fried my GPU from 10 mins of use or is it somehow the way I hooked it up that caused this problem? Please any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Specs:
NZXT Phantom Tower
RX-850AE PSU
Asus P8Z68-VLE
Intel i5 2500K
Nvidia GeForce GTX560Ti
Kingston HyperX 2x4GB DDR3
WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD

 

[jdog2pt0]

Lol, the fact that you smelled something (smelled like ozone right) means something absolutely got cooked. Pull the card out and look for any scorch marks or blown capacitors.

 

[jsc]

It may not be the video card. It may be the PSU or motherboard.
Work systematically through our standard checklist and troubleshooting thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems
I mean work through, not just read over it. We spent a lot of time on this. It should find most of the problems.

If no luck, continue.

The following is an expansion of my troubleshooting tips in the breadboarding link in the "Cannot boot" thread.

I have tested the following beep patterns on Gigabyte, eVGA, and ECS motherboards. Other BIOS' may be different, but they all use a single short beep for a successful POST.

Breadboard - that will help isolate any kind of case problem you might have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262730-31-breadboarding

Breadboard with just motherboard, CPU & HSF, case speaker, and PSU.

Make sure you plug the CPU power cable in. The system will not boot without it.

I always breadboard a new build. It takes only a few minutes, and you know you are putting good parts in the case once you are finished.

You can turn on the PC by momentarily shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes to. You should hear a series of long, single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence indicates a problem with (in most likely order) the PSU, motherboard, or CPU. Remember, at this time, you do not have a graphics card installed so the load on your PSU will be reduced.

If no beeps:
Running fans and drives and motherboard LED's do not necessarily indicate a good PSU. In the absence of a single short beep, they also do not indicate that the system is booting.

At this point, you can sort of check the PSU. Try to borrow a known good PSU of around 550 - 600 watts. That will power just about any system with a single GPU. If you cannot do that, use a DMM to measure the voltages. Measure between the colored wires and either chassis ground or the black wires. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire (standby power supply): 5 volts always on. The green wire should also have 5 volts on it. It should go to 0 volts when you press the case power button (this is also a good way to test the power switch and the associated wiring), then back to 5 volts when you release the case power switch. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata

A way that might be easier is to use the main power plug. Working from the back of the plug where the wires come out, use a bare paperclip to short between the green wire and one of the neighboring black wires. That will do the same thing with an installed PSU. It is also an easy way to bypass a questionable case power switch.

This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU.

If the system beeps:
If it looks like the PSU is good, install a memory stick. Boot. Beep pattern should change to one long and several short beeps indicating a missing graphics card.

Silence, long single beeps, or series of short beeps indicate a problem with the memory. If you get short beeps verify that the memory is in the appropriate motherboard slots.

Insert the video card and connect any necessary PCIe power connectors. Boot. At this point, the system should POST successfully (a single short beep). Notice that you do not need keyboard, mouse, monitor, or drives to successfully POST.
At this point, if the system doesn't work, it's either the video card or an inadequate PSU. Or rarely - the motherboard's PCIe interface.

Now start connecting the rest of the devices starting with the monitor, then keyboard and mouse, then the rest of the devices, testing after each step. It's possible that you can pass the POST with a defective video card. The POST routines can only check the video interface. It cannot check the internal parts of the video card.

 

[ps617]

I appreciate you taking the time to post all of this. However, I have already determined that the video card is the problem. My main question is, is there way to possibly hook up the video card wrong? I have 2 PCI 6 prong connectors coming straight from the PSU to the video card and the card is in the first slot of my motherboard.

 

[jdog2pt0]

You fried it, don't beat a dead horse. If the card is in the first available fitting slot, and you have the power properly hooked up, then no, it isn't hooked up incorrectly.

 

[ps617]

But I'm trying to figure out how. It was barely turned on and no way it could have fried because it was cool inside the case. Could it have occurred because I didn't wipe all my old driver data?

 

[zootnerper]

Maybe you were unlucky and just got a duff GPU card.

You don't say how you know it is the GPU card that is fried other than the fan sounds like it's going fast. People can't help without information. Have you tried it in another computer?

I doubt the drivers would fry it, it just wouldn't work or would give poor performance.

 

[ps617]

Well there was a distinct burning smell that was coming from inside my computer. When I took the card out, I could smell it strongly from inside of the card. I was thinking that maybe with the old driver data or something that it would require a different amount of power causing it to burn. I don't know much about this stuff, just a thought.

 

[jdog2pt0]

Well there was a distinct burning smell that was coming from inside my computer. When I took the card out, I could smell it strongly from inside of the card. I was thinking that maybe with the old driver data or something that it would require a different amount of power causing it to burn. I don't know much about this stuff, just a thought.

Nope, the drivers wouldn't cook the card. Like zootnerper said, you probably got a bad card (happens). Try putting it in another computer just to be sure though.

 

[JMESUN]

560ti with 448 cudas are reworked 570 to my knowledge might be a faulty card from the get go ie solder etc