GPU Advice - GTX 780 dying?

[Ducky89]

Hi all,

Running an MSI Twin frozr 780, purchased second hand about 1 year ago. FX8350, 8gb RAM. HDMI -> HP24es.

I recently had a break from using my PC (most of Jan, holidays etc.) and started using it again in early Feb. The machine was working perfectly in late December.

During early Feb I started noticing some weird texture issues in Blizzard games (Overwatch, HOTS) which would sometimes make the screen black out, but could usually be rectified by alt+tabbing or restarting.

Shortly after this, it progressed to the stage where most Blizzard games were buggy and no matter how many times I restarted it wouldn't work. I updated my drivers to 390.77, following a removal of the old drivers using DDU. The problems continued. I assumed it was something to do with Blizzard games and tried switching to Steam and ran a couple of games of PUBG (a more graphically intensive game, which should - in my head - show any problems more quickly?). PUBG ran fine, for approx. 1 week I played a couple of hours every night with no issues.

Recently, PUBG started flashing black occasionally and some of the textures have starting doing weird things (re. the Blizz games). I rolled back the drivers to an older version (following a google search for stable drivers), removed 390.77 using DDU, booted to safe mode etc. etc.

Now, the problem has progressed even more... Windows boots fine, but I'm having green spots/lines all over any black parts of the display (including the wallpaper), the lines/dots move with whatever is happening on the screen so it can't be a monitor issue. Dxdiag displays no graphics card under the display tab, and there's a yellow '!' in device manager next to my 780. MSI Afterburner still gives me temps etc. and these have never been above 60oC under load (usually 30ish if just idling).

Any advice? I'm guessing my 780 is just done for, but would like to be informed otherwise before I buy a new GPU (Great timing with all the miners, eh?).

If the advice is 'Get a new card' - which one? I wasn't expecting to upgrade, so anything that will run PUBG/HOTS is fine. 1050Ti? 470?

Cheers for your help.

Joe.

 

[ChocoViennese]

As a first go at diagnosing the issue, if you have access to another system with a discrete GPU that works, try swapping them around (i.e. the 780 in that machine and the working GPU in the system with the problems). If the 780 still gets problems in the other system, theres a good chance its the card. Anything more detailed about why its faulty is beyond my knowledge im afraid.

 

[britain4]

I managed to find 2 cheapish 780Tis in the midst of this mining craze, probably about the best value cards out there ATM (save for maybe a 970 if you can get one for a sensible price) - useless for mining as they use too much power. A 470 or 1050Ti would probably perform similarly to your GTX780 if you didn’t want to buy used.

As said above, only way to be certain is to try the card in a different system but you could rule most things out by trying it in another PCIE slot/reseating the card and all cables... can’t think of many things other than the GPU that would cause this.

Stating the obvious but are you 100% sure the card’s not overclocked? If Afterburner was applying a bad overclock at boot it could mess things up pretty badly

As an absolute LAST resort if you’re 100% sure it’s the card itself you could try the “baking” fix to hopefully see you through until card prices start to drop (maybe)

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Check if the cooler is borked in some way,or if it needs a clean out. Maybe the card is overheating??

 

[britain4]

Yes definitely check the cooler but if Afterburner is reporting max temps of 60 I doubt an overheating issue

 

[Ducky89]

Thanks for the advice guys - took the card out last night, had a look over it - it seems in pretty good nick, and couldn't see anything obvious wrong.

I put an old 560ti in the same PCI-E slot, fired 'er up and everything ran perfectly once the drivers were installed.

Think the 780 is definitely to blame, not sure whether to try the oven trick or not... Maybe I'll give it a blast out with some compressed air and run it again, but as I said, I couldn't see anything immediately wrong.

 

[Geck0]

Sounds like one or more of the memory chips are failing.