Card is dying?

Philmassive · 25 Dec 2023 at 15:14

I've been running a 970 for about 6 years now, kinda faded away from pc gaming and whenever i think about upgrading it, life always seems to throw something in the way.

Anyway, seems the card is developing a fault. The fans are now revving at 4000rpm constantly, even though card temp is 28 degrees on desktop. Took the card out gave it a thorough clean and drivers redone etc, no change.

Has anyone any advice? Is my card gonna blow? There's no artefacts or anything on screen, it's just noisy as heck. I tried to use afterburner but that both bewildered me and didn't do anything?

If i need a new card, what do you recommend around the £200 mark? Doesn't need to be amazing, my gaming needs are quite light, i think maybe PUBG would be the hardest pusher that I would try to play. Although it would be nice to maybe try and get back in touch with gaming.

Thanks for any help.

random_matt · 25 Dec 2023 at 15:19

Thermal paste needs to be redone personally. I would scour the used market for that price range. The A750 is a good buy though if you can stretch it a little further.

Philmassive · 25 Dec 2023 at 16:10

random_matt said:
Thermal paste needs to be redone personally. I would scour the used market for that price range. The A750 is a good buy though if you can stretch it a little further.

Would bad/thin paste not lead to much higher idle temperatures though?

random_matt · 25 Dec 2023 at 16:47

Philmassive said:
Would bad/thin paste not lead to much higher idle temperatures though?

Six years is a long time, maybe it has gone dry.

mahius · 26 Dec 2023 at 09:53

Not many options at the £200 mark for brand new cards. I hear the 6600XT is the only acceptable cheap card these days.

Personally I'd look at 2nd hand at that price point. I bought a 2nd hand 980ti around this price after 1000 series released. Now one can find much better options for that price.

Quartz · 26 Dec 2023 at 10:23

Philmassive said:
If i need a new card, what do you recommend around the £200 mark?

Something like the RX6600 or A750. Given your requirements the performance increase over the 970 will be very noticeable.

Aretak · 26 Dec 2023 at 15:03

Sounds like the fan controller on the card has failed. You could always take the shroud and fans off it and strap a couple of regular fans to the heatsink with zip ties, then control them via the motherboard. Although it's probably about time to upgrade a 970 at this point anyway. There are some solid used options in the £200 range that'd more than double your performance, like a 2070 Super or a 6600 XT. Or a 3060, which is a little slower but gives you more VRAM security.

fastwunz · 26 Dec 2023 at 15:49

3060ti will smash 1080p and perform admirably at 1440p too

TrojanWhore · 26 Dec 2023 at 19:17

Definitely try re-pasting first, or as Aretak said if the fan control is broken, strap a couple of 120mm fans to it. (or could try a custom fan curve using MSI afterburner, just keep a close eye on temps!)

If you just want to replace anyway then the best you can do new is probably an RX6600..... Intel A750 would be decent, but as far as I understand will be much better supported in newer games and may have issues in older titles (this may have improved recently but I'm too lazy to go looking for recent benchmarks).

If you go 2nd hand, then should be able to get a nVidia 3060 or maybe 3060ti (faster but less VRAM), possibly an AMD 6700XT (best of both).
If you'd rather not max out your budget then then you should be able to find a 1070/1080 for considerably less and would still be a pretty huge jump in performance (around double)

andy_mk3 · 26 Dec 2023 at 19:28

Quartz said:
Something like the RX6600 or A750. Given your requirements the performance increase over the 970 will be very noticeable.

On average the RX6600 gives twice the performance vs a 970, while using less power to boot

For £200 I think it's a great upgrade considering how the GPU market has been for the past few years.

I run an RX6600 for some light gaming on my living room PC, and it performs superbly well.

Philmassive · 26 Dec 2023 at 23:48

Thanks for the advice guys. While repasting could be done, im a bit marsbar fingered so I reckon I would make a right mess of it.

Ive been keeping an eye on ebay just to see what's going and for how much. Would going for the likes of a 3060 cause any sort of bottleneck? With it being far newer than my pc? Or is that not a thing?

ED209 · 27 Dec 2023 at 07:38

Philmassive said:
Thanks for the advice guys. While repasting could be done, im a bit marsbar fingered so I reckon I would make a right mess of it.

Ive been keeping an eye on ebay just to see what's going and for how much. Would going for the likes of a 3060 cause any sort of bottleneck? With it being far newer than my pc? Or is that not a thing?

May as well give it a try, could save yourself some money if it works. Just take your time with it

If it does not then you can buy a new 1.

BUDFORCE · 27 Dec 2023 at 07:52

Philmassive said:
The fans are now revving at 4000rpm constantly, even though card temp is 28 degrees on desktop.

Hi, unfortunately some of the advice you've been given in this thread has been quite frankly appalling.

You don't need to repaste, that will achieve nothing.

Your card isn't overheating, the fan controller is broken/faulty and it defaults to 100% fan speed, which if you think about it makes sense.

I've seen this happen to graphics cards before. Functionality wise your card will be fine, and probably go for years to come. Unfortunately you'll either have to put up with the noise, or try and ghetto mod a replacement fan on top.

Philmassive · 28 Dec 2023 at 19:02

BUDFORCE said:
Hi, unfortunately some of the advice you've been given in this thread has been quite frankly appalling.

You don't need to repaste, that will achieve nothing.

Your card isn't overheating, the fan controller is broken/faulty and it defaults to 100% fan speed, which if you think about it makes sense.

I've seen this happen to graphics cards before. Functionality wise your card will be fine, and probably go for years to come. Unfortunately you'll either have to put up with the noise, or try and ghetto mod a replacement fan on top.

This is good to know, thanks.

Nate75 · 28 Dec 2023 at 19:10

Philmassive said:
Thanks for the advice guys. While repasting could be done, im a bit marsbar fingered so I reckon I would make a right mess of it.

Ive been keeping an eye on ebay just to see what's going and for how much. Would going for the likes of a 3060 cause any sort of bottleneck? With it being far newer than my pc? Or is that not a thing?

I'd post your specs up.

I changed from an AMD 480 to a 6700 which caused me "jittering" issues in games.

Ended up building a new machine to accomodate the 6700 in the end.

Far more knowledgable people in this forum (hence I had the issue to start with!) than me if you do go the upgrade route...

Dave2150 · 28 Dec 2023 at 19:56

Philmassive said:
I've been running a 970 for about 6 years now, kinda faded away from pc gaming and whenever i think about upgrading it, life always seems to throw something in the way.

Anyway, seems the card is developing a fault. The fans are now revving at 4000rpm constantly, even though card temp is 28 degrees on desktop. Took the card out gave it a thorough clean and drivers redone etc, no change.

Has anyone any advice? Is my card gonna blow? There's no artefacts or anything on screen, it's just noisy as heck. I tried to use afterburner but that both bewildered me and didn't do anything?

If i need a new card, what do you recommend around the £200 mark? Doesn't need to be amazing, my gaming needs are quite light, i think maybe PUBG would be the hardest pusher that I would try to play. Although it would be nice to maybe try and get back in touch with gaming.

Thanks for any help.

I'd try the card in a different PC. If not possible, download a fresh copy of Windows 11 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2156295) or windows 10 (if your PC doesn't support Windows 11) and see if the problem persists.

sx_turbo · 28 Dec 2023 at 20:12

If the card is a 970 I'd presume the CPU is if similar vintage?

What PCI express slot have you got?

Intel GPU is a good budget option but if you've an old motherboard without resize bar it's no good.

Really for £200 only option is the rx6600 which will be a nice improvement to what you've got. Alternatively you need the hunt for a used card, but used 3060's are still well over budget, used 1650 supers are still around £150 so personally I don't recommend used cards due to risk factor compared to new equivalents, I'd rather a new 6600 than a used 3060

Philmassive · 28 Dec 2023 at 23:42

I built the comp in late 2016, heres some specs-

Cpu i7-6700k
Motherboard Asus z170 gaming
32gb ram
750w psu

The graphics card was actually a donation from a workmate who had got himself a 1080 at the time.

I dont have access to any other pcs that would be suitable for testing im afraid. I will be doing a full format and reinstall soon as im still running windows 7 (yes, THAT out of touch) and steam no longer works on it.

Ive been thinking of maybe just going for a 1660 or even a 2060 for the right price as it would be perhaps more compatible with my systems age?

sx_turbo · 29 Dec 2023 at 00:16

The rx6600 works fine with it, doesn't seem to shabby according to this video

https://youtu.be/kwffdn-TvYY?si=Yfl788YkA_paCqF0

D-Ranged · 29 Dec 2023 at 01:44

Aretak said:
Sounds like the fan controller on the card has failed. You could always take the shroud and fans off it and strap a couple of regular fans to the heatsink with zip ties, then control them via the motherboard. Although it's probably about time to upgrade a 970 at this point anyway. There are some solid used options in the £200 range that'd more than double your performance, like a 2070 Super or a 6600 XT. Or a 3060, which is a little slower but gives you more VRAM security.

I would say it's definitely this. If the sensor is picking up the temperature correctly, and it is moving up and down with use, then re-pasting it won't make any difference.