GTS 250s failing?

[mithrandir44]

Hello, I have GTS 250's SLI and recently my PC has been blue screen crashing on games such as Mass Effect 3, artifacting on youtube when i go to full screen, and having driver kernel errors and recovering every so often, symptoms are becoming more frequent. The videos go green like someone tossed paint on them in boxes and lines. I'm a novice to this stuff and just bought a new card before thinking but I believe they are indeed dying. one card completely gave out, the other seemed fine but is now doing the same thing as the first. turning SLI off and switching the cards places on my board saved me a month but now this one is going as well. Just wanted opinions and feedback from everyone.

 

[inzone]

If the cards are in fact dying then you will have to get a new video card.

 

[mithrandir44]

I know there could be many reasons, but does this sound like graphics cards? how would I know if its not the port? guess if it was the port it wouldn't work at all and wouldn't be progressive.. I'm assuming its my cards, since all of the issues revolve around them when they become stressed with a game or such.

 

[Phyrexiancure]

are you overclocking them or any other component? if you didn't test your cpu and memories stability with programs like prime95 your could slowly corrupt your operating system. This would lead to instability. Try turning your hardware to the original frequencies and see if this continues. Since your getting that screen I would guess its a graphics issue, try installing the latest graphics drivers from nvidias website also. Do you have another graphics card to test like one installed on your motherboard or cpu. If they don't do the same thing it it is a issue with your 250 gts'.Try also seeing if it could lead to them overheating thats causing this, 100 degrees Celsius is the absolute max though thats a still to hot for me personally. Use MSI afterburner to measure temperatures. If you pinpointed it being a gpu issue that is neither driver, heat, or an overclocking issue than your only option would be to replace them. Hopefully you have a warranty on them.

 

[Phyrexiancure]

reinstalling windows would he very helpfull with all your hardware a retail settings. though this might be a pain since having only one harddrive or partition of a harddrive makes transfering files and reinstalling timeconsuming

 

[amuffin]

Overheating? Get a program such as msi afterburner to monitor temps. If the temps are high, get a can of compressed air and blow the cards out.

 

[mithrandir44]

Heat lvls are staying within range of what they are suppose to be, but I do get lucky.. I have two harddrives and have already saved everything worth saving to the other in case this was an option. I will give that a shot as well. I decided to go ahead and upgrade graphics anyhow so a new card is on its way. Guess I will know if it was the cards as soon as I get the new one hooked up. I did have an issue one day where my brother decided.. to run two high end games at once x.x i didnt catch him in time for the mistake, skyrim and final fantasy xiv where both on at once, thats when one card gave up at once and I had sli off at the time.. so i took the first card out and swapped places with the secondary card and kept sli off, it has worked since but this is my main reason i think its the card. I think it was too much for either of them and they got burnt out bc of that. The second card to least amount of damage and is now finally catching up and dying. I run off of phenom IIs quad processor AMD 8gig ram 2,000 GIG memory 2 HDDrives. and of course the two sli gts 250s. I just bought a new PSU for the 2 gtx 460s i have on the way. Hopefully its my cards and nothing more will have to be done, otherwise i have saved everything worth while on my second drive and will reinstall windows 7 on my main. Honestly when i had this pc built for me i knew even less about them than i did now and i do think he has them overclocked in bios. though im not sure anymore its been just over a year. I will look at that as well. Thanks guys!!

 

[Phyrexiancure]

whats the wattage and model of your old psu? 650w psu that actually creates 650w is what you want

 

[mithrandir44]

whats the wattage and model of your old psu? 650w psu that actually creates 650w is what you want

My old one is a 850w and it creates the full 850.

 

[nforce4max]

There is a lot of things that can and do kill cards but from what you have said suggested a slow death. Chances are the vram or power vrm was slowly failing. If the failure was in the power vrm it only starved the gpu or the vram of power. The vram can some times decay when overheated cracking the bonds and reducing the life of the memory ICs. In any words chances of recovering the cards even for academic purposes is likely very limited. It is a shame that both went like this as the G92 is more or less of the more legendary gpu(s) of the last decade.

 

[Phyrexiancure]

You shouldn't need to upgrade your psu if it creates its advertised wattage. Your sli system should take 500 to 600 watts without overclocking.

 

[nforce4max]

You shouldn't need to upgrade your psu if it creates its advertised wattage. Your sli system should take 500 to 600 watts without overclocking.

Each gtx460 sucks around 160w stock clocked under full load now figure that with sli in mind with maybe overclocking on the side. 750w+ is recommended for this setup.

 

[mithrandir44]

Each gtx460 sucks around 160w stock clocked under full load now figure that with sli in mind with maybe overclocking on the side. 750w+ is recommended for this setup.

Yeah its why i said in earlier post I purchased a higher watt, was running 850w have since gone up to 1200w for future upgrades as well. current setup is AMD Phenom IIx4 955 processor 3.20 Ghz with 2x 1,000g HDD drives, 8G RAM with my 850watt PSU and the 2 nvidia gts 250s, sli. Tomorrow will have the gtx 460s and my new PSU.

 

[mithrandir44]

There is a lot of things that can and do kill cards but from what you have said suggested a slow death. Chances are the vram or power vrm was slowly failing. If the failure was in the power vrm it only starved the gpu or the vram of power. The vram can some times decay when overheated cracking the bonds and reducing the life of the memory ICs. In any words chances of recovering the cards even for academic purposes is likely very limited. It is a shame that both went like this as the G92 is more or less of the more legendary gpu(s) of the last decade.

I have to agree, these cards worked amazingly. I'm sad to see them go but i feel this was a directly caused by having two high end games running at once with max settings on.. My brother didnt know any better but right after this I started noticing the pixilation and artifacts. First went blue dots all over and then into green lines.. the first card went the next day and i was able to keep the second card alive for two months, it just gave out completely last night. Blue screen crashing is instant. Least i learn my lesson.. make sure he knows what not to do on pcs.. and thanks to all of this I am learning more and more myself.

 

[mithrandir44]

My question is, tomorrow when i install the gtx 460's i just turn the PC on go to nivida and download the new drivers of course, but is there anything else Im missing? I remember the person I paid to build this unit mentioned bios and overclocked.. so if he had the 250s overclocked.. do i need to adjust something before hand?

 

[Phyrexiancure]

mothberboard bios' don't allow you to overclock discrete gpu's. it still would be a good idea to make sure your bios is set to default settings. Other parts might be overclocked and since you don't know if they are stable its best to leave them at default. Overclocking is in your best interest so you should find out how to do it. What cpu do you have? There are guides specifically for cpu types that are helpful for learning how to overclock. To overclock the gpu you'll need to do it in windows with software such as msi afterburner or sapphire trixx. Also when overclocking you need to know the healthy temperature limiit for your cpu and gpl. For cpu's out of box heatsinks aren't really good at keeping low temps so if you want better overclocks you should use quality heat sink.

 

[mithrandir44]

mothberboard bios' don't allow you to overclock discrete gpu's. it still would be a good idea to make sure your bios is set to default settings. Other parts might be overclocked and since you don't know if they are stable its best to leave them at default. Overclocking is in your best interest so you should find out how to do it. What cpu do you have? There are guides specifically for cpu types that are helpful for learning how to overclock. To overclock the gpu you'll need to do it in windows with software such as msi afterburner or sapphire trixx. Also when overclocking you need to know the healthy temperature limiit for your cpu and gpl. For cpu's out of box heatsinks aren't really good at keeping low temps so if you want better overclocks you should use quality heat sink.

So it ended up being the graphics cards, the new ones are working great! My PC is running smoother and.. not as loud.