Hardware failure, need help

popsock · 31 Aug 2016 at 15:45

Hi everyone, my PC is 3 years old and has started locking up whenever I play a modern 3D game. I have a Geforce 770 and don't have any system issues other than when I stress the card. Older 3D games (Left 4 Dead 2) play fine, for hours with no problems, but anything modern, including running the Heaven benchmark just make the system lock up, forcing a restart. It happens within a second or two of the 3D game kicking in, so I don't think it's a temperature problem as such.

I underclocked the card as much as I could and it helped a bit, but didn't fix the problem really.

Is it that the 770 is just old? Or could it be a power related problem?

I really appreciate your help. Cheers

popsock · 31 Aug 2016 at 16:29

Hi, yes drivers are all up to date, did that yesterday, made no difference. I've cleaned every spec of dust from all components in there. Thanks

popsock · 31 Aug 2016 at 18:59

L4D2 hardly makes it break a sweat it seems 20-40% GPU, and it stays a cool 36 C. Heaven makes it hit 100% and the temp of the card is up around 80 C, with the fans doing overtime.

As the Voltage on GPU Z Is a consistent 1.2v all the time that any 3D app is running, I'm guessing the card is damaged, rather than the PSU. If it was the PSU the voltage would fluctuate no?

popsock · 31 Aug 2016 at 19:11

I just ran a modern game at 1200x800 low quality at it made the card hit 75% GPU load but ran fine. I changed it to high quality, and it hit 99% GPU and locked up.

Only a few weeks ago I was running this game at 1920 at high quality with no issues at all. Something's gone very wrong.

popsock · 31 Aug 2016 at 23:05

"CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE"

It's been fine for about 3 years, but something's changed clearly. I have had success in fixing this by reducing Power Limit % by the maximum amount in MSI Afterburner. So far so good, it's back to running really well. Clearly I haven't cured the problem, but seem to have gotten around it.