Popping Sound, Smoke, Card Dead

[oedipus2012]

I built my PC about 6 months ago. It ran fine and there were no problems. A few weeks ago I had a hard drive failure (SSD). About two weeks ago I put in a new hard drive and everything was fine.

Today while fast forwarding a youtube video my video locked up. The screen froze and had purple lines across the screen, I could still hear the audio but the screen was froze and I had to restart my PC. It happened again later (also while fast forwarding the video) as well. I thought maybe it was issue with the driver so I tried a new one and decided to run Furmark to stress test the card. I have run furmark in the past with this card and had no issues at all.

When I started Furmark within a few seconds my PC restarted, I heard a popping sound and then saw smoke and smelled something burning. I immediately turned the PC off, unplugged the power supply and let it sit for a few minutes. I then removed the card and my wife and I both gave it a sniff and we both agreed that it had a burnt smell coming from it. I also noticed upon removing it that there was a piece loose inside the card, on the side where the power cables plug into it. Looks like a heat sink. Here's a picture that I took of the card and you can see the loose piece....

http://i49.tinypic.com/2encbpw.jpg


The PC seems to work (using the onboard graphics). But I'm worried that this could be a bigger issue than just the graphics card. I know from looking online that many associate a popping sound and smoke with the PSU. I read online where someone suggested removing the power supply and taking a flashlight to look into it from the fan area for burned wires or a burning smell. I did that and saw neither.

I also gave the motherboard a visual inspection and the capacitors at least visually look fine. I don't see anything leaking or any burned areas on the board. I plan to check the backside of the board tomorrow.

So obviously I need to RMA the card but should I be concerned about the PSU or something else?


This is my build....


Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V Gen3
Processor: i5 2500K
Memory: 8 GB Corsair Vegeance
Power Supply: Corsair 750W TX750M
Graphics Card: EVGA GTX 560 Ti

 

[unclejehmimah]

It was the GPU. I had this same issue with this same card once on a p67 board with the same PSU and CPU.

 

[unksol]

Pops are usually components blowing. If a heatsink was improperly installed and came loose that could do it. Of course furmark can severly overheat your card and void your warranty, and there's no reason to use it besides temp testing. So whether the heatsink was installed wrong or you just melted it off, and whether the warranty will cover it who knows