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Help on 2nd failed GPU in 3 days

Robzere31

Robzere31

Robzere31

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Joined
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Can anyone offer any advice as to what else I can check before I admit defeat & bin my second GPU in 3 days.

Summary:
fitted a Kraken G10 & H55 AIO to my MSI 290. When I tried to boot up there was no signal.
My original thoughts were i'd overtightened the cooler & damaged the core.

Brought a second hand 290, tested the card first to ensure all was well (it was), so removed the reference cooler & installed the Kraken.
Booted up & ran fine. Done a little desktop work 2-3 hours, GPU idle temps around 30-32c.
Then tried to run a couple of benchmark tests to see how the card was under load.
First run crashed after a couple of mins with a black screen & load temps of 48c

Rebooted machine & tried again, this time benchmark crashed & since then I have had no signal from GPU.

Things I've checked.

Reseated GPU several times
Checked cooler fitting.
Checked all cables, including new cables from PSU to GPU
Checked DVI cable, swopped & checked with HDMI cable
Swopped PCI-e slot

Machine works fine with onboard so I'm guessing the card is dead.
But what I can't work out is why, temps were good (sub 50c)

Any suggestions would be appreciated as I'm at a bit of a loss.
 
No i didn't manage to get temps for VRMs, however the card felt cool to touch after the second crash, cooler than when the original card was running on air.

The Kraken has a 92mm fan blowing over card as well so I would have thought temps would be ok
as I've not read of anyone having major problems with temps, certianly not after only a few mins of running at load.

I've been building PC's for over 25 years so like to think I know enough not to kill two GPU's so quickly,
& installing a bracket & cooler isn't rocket science so can't see how I would get it wrong twice.
 
Last edited:
Honestly don't know what to say.
It does point to a dodgy installation if the cards worked fine at stock, yet they obviously didn't overheat with the Kraken and like you say, it's not exactly a complicated thing to set up...
 
Someone on EVGA forums killed 2 cards and was on his 3rd card before he admitted fitting a aftermarket cooler to it and it ended up it was lack of VRM cooling and they died pretty quick.

I thought that brackets fan cooled the VRM but did you stick sink on them?
 
Yep the bracket has a 92mm fan on it to cool the VRM's. I haven't attached any heatsinks to them.
Looking at the NZXT website, they seem to think the fan is more than enough to keep the card cool.
 
I would have gpuz in the background to see what the max vrm temps are, the core temps seem ok so dont know what else to look for as the 290's can get a bit toasty
 
Andygully said:
I have the kraken on my top 7950 no vrm heatsink's installed and its all been fine for a month.
Click to expand...

Just out of interest, was it a reference 7950? I had a non reference 7950 and was surprised it didn't have heat sinks on the vrms, just airflow from the fans.
 
Robzere31 said:
I haven't attached any heatsinks to them
Click to expand...

Put heat sinks on them. They run hot even WITH heat sinks, quite why NZXT thinks trying to cool with the surface area of the VRM itself is enough I have no idea. Even the OEM Reference coolers actively cool VRMs with direct heat sink attachment yet NZXT thinks a fan pointing in thier general direction is fine?
 
I run a gpu only loop. I was in the same boat as you a couple of years ago. Broke a 580 and just felt like giving up on the whole w/c game because it was such a headache. I sympathise.
 
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