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is my GPU fried?

BeastehBeasteh THAT WOULD NOTKILL DRACULARegistered User regular
edited November 2010 in Help / Advice Forum
hey folks

last weekend i was sat playing fallout:new vegas on steam when i noticed my pc was making a lot more noise than usual, sounded like the fan was in overdrive

then i noticed a strong smell of hot/burning metal, plastic and solder

i immediately powered off and opened her up, cleaned out a couple of dust bunnies, nothing major

my graphics card was scorchingly hot, i blew on it with some canned air and let it sit a while before restarting

ever since i have been experiencing severe fps issues on any game with 3d graphics, any of my steam games and wow

but it is not constant, sometimes everything runs fine for the entire day, others fps is fine for maybe 5 minutes before taking the express train to 1 fps town

the fan has not been making any more unusual noise, and the hot metal smell has not returned

i have a strong feeling that my gpu fried but i really dont have the experience with computers to be sure, is there anything that i can do to know for certain?

Beasteh on

Posts

  • BeastehBeasteh THAT WOULD NOT KILL DRACULARegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    cpu: intel core 2 duo E6550

    2.23 gigs ram

    gpu: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GS

    Beasteh on
  • ZombiemamboZombiemambo Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Don't artifacts usually show up when a GPU is broken? I don't know if that's always the case but it seems to happen pretty often. Have you checked out other parts in your PC?

    Zombiemambo on
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  • zhen_roguezhen_rogue Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Sounds like you might have blown a capacitor on your video card.

    I'd recommend cleaning your fan/card/chassis out to make sure there's no dust or hairballs adding to your heat gain. Make sure the vents are clear, and that your GPU fan is set to maximum when playing video-intensive games.

    If you can see your video card, look at all the capacitors (small cylinder/silo shaped objects) very closely to see if any have irregular/damaged sides or burn marks.

    As a sidenote, don't ever use compressed air on a hot system, especially near the heatsink. Copper expands and contracts rapidly with temperature changes - blasting cooled air over a scorching heatsink could crack it. Let the system cool a bit before blowing compressed gasses into it.

    If the GPU is that hot from playing games, i'd highly recommend lowering your in-game graphic options or upgrading your card. Dropping the resolution a notch, disabling anti-aliasing, and lowering shadow quality/number all are mega-savers on your GPU load. Hardware gets warm, sure, but it should never be hot/scorching during play.

    zhen_rogue on
  • ScosglenScosglen Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    Sounds like the card is damaged.

    Artifacts are a telltale indicator of hardware damage but I'm not so sure they need to be there to diagnose it.

    However, when you get to the point of loopy and inconsistent performance even when the card is cool, in my experience is a good indicator that the hardware is on a downward spiral and artifacts are likely to pop up in the future, followed by total failure.

    Scosglen on
  • BeastehBeasteh THAT WOULD NOT KILL DRACULARegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    thanks for the responses folks, there is no visible damage to the graphics card that i can see

    taking it to the shop on monday so we will see what is up

    Beasteh on
  • BeastehBeasteh THAT WOULD NOT KILL DRACULARegistered User regular
    edited October 2010
    update: turns out my gpu's fan had totally stopped working

    so i picked up a gts 250 and ordered a 500v power supply for it, arriving tomorrow

    noice

    i guess this can be locked! cheers

    Beasteh on
  • StrifeRaZoRStrifeRaZoR Registered User regular
    edited October 2010
    RIP 8600GS. The 8600 Series was a gateway into my current cards, the 8800 GTX. I never want to upgrade these two I have. Such a reliable card. The 8600 was good times. I had dual 8600GT's in SLi when I built this system about 4-5 years ago.

    I mourn the loss of such a great older generation card. *sniff*.

    But anywho, GTS 250, not too shabby. What manufacturer? XFX, EVGA, BFG? Just curious, as I'm an nVidia Fanboy :D

    StrifeRaZoR on
    StrifeRaZoR.png
  • BeastehBeasteh THAT WOULD NOT KILL DRACULARegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    PNY, the card is still nvidia geforce

    just installed the new PSU, i forgot to hook up the hard drive the first time i booted it up, whoops

    everything seems to be fine, it runs at around 60C playing new vegas on ultra, its quiet and there is only a faint 'hot metal smell' which i am attributing to it being new... pretty happy with it now

    Beasteh on
  • kleinfehnkleinfehn Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    Might want to consider picking up a new video card this Christmas. Even a $100 one will do much better than your 8600.

    kleinfehn on
  • BeastehBeasteh THAT WOULD NOT KILL DRACULARegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    did you miss the part where i said i got a pny gts 250 :whistle:

    Beasteh on
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