New Card

Quick Mustard · 24 Jul 2013 at 09:12

Hey guys,

I believe my GPU is on its way out as the PC will crash when playing games randomly, crash when using it normally, crash and make the sound repeat the same bit over and over and then come back to life.

I wiped it at the weekend, cleaned all of the PC from dust and made sure it was nice and clean, tested the HDD's and memtested the RAM but its still happening so...

What GPU can I get thats going to be better than my current Gigabyte 560Ti?

I'm willing to spend up to £200 but no more.

dmferrett · 24 Jul 2013 at 09:19

Two likely candidates are the GTX760 and HD7950 (This card £225 though but worth the extra £25 because you get 3 free games) IMO.

ubersonic · 24 Jul 2013 at 09:25

If you get the HD7950 from the mega deal section its £230 but comes with games that can be sold for at least £50.

Quick Mustard · 24 Jul 2013 at 09:28

Would both of those options be better than the 660ti's I've been looking at?

I'm hoping it is the GPU, if its nots and I buy a new one then I'm screwed!

tribz · 24 Jul 2013 at 09:51

Is your PC overclocked? If so, try removing the overclock and see if it still crashes.

The 760 and the 7950 are great cards.

whyscotty · 24 Jul 2013 at 09:53

Has the warranty ran out on your 560Ti?

Quick Mustard · 24 Jul 2013 at 10:15

PC's not overclocked at all.

I think the warranty, Its a little over 2 years old now.

I dont mind buying a new part, but if its not the GPU and I've spent that money on one then its going to be annoying.

Is there any other tests I can run on my PC to identify which part is failing?

The crashes are random at times.
The screen will lock up for about 20 seconds then give me access to the PC again.
The mouse cursor will then decide what cursor it wants to be, be it the hand, the expand / minimise one etc

If I try to run a game after its done a crash, it will lock the PC up with a black screen and I'll have to manually shut it down with the button and boot it back up.

Khazzer · 24 Jul 2013 at 10:27

You could examine te event logs to see if there are any errors raised at the times of the problems.

whyscotty · 24 Jul 2013 at 10:34

You could use something like WhoCrashed to narrow it down

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/whocrashed_free_home_edition.html

I'd also check with whoever you bought your gpu from,

to see if it's still under warranty

Quick Mustard · 24 Jul 2013 at 10:58

I'll give them ago, the events log is confusing at times so I may end up posting in here for help!

I bought my card from here so I'll look into that.

If I do have to buy a new card tho, are the 760 and the 7950 better than the 660Ti've I've been looking at?

arc@css · 24 Jul 2013 at 11:24

Quick Mustard said:
If I do have to buy a new card tho, are the 760 and the 7950 better than the 660Ti've I've been looking at?

Yes.

What cpu do you have?

Quick Mustard · 24 Jul 2013 at 12:14

arc@css said:
Yes.

What cpu do you have?

Currently using an i5 2500k, not overclocked at all.

dmferrett · 24 Jul 2013 at 12:28

Quick Mustard said:
Would both of those options be better than the 660ti's I've been looking at?

I'm hoping it is the GPU, if its nots and I buy a new one then I'm screwed!

The GTX 760 and HD7950 are significantly better in terms of FPS and would potentially allow higher game settings to be used in challenging games.....

If you buy mail order you have a legal 7 day right to cancel and return your purchase...........

arc@css · 24 Jul 2013 at 12:30

14 days with OcUK.

Hyburnate · 24 Jul 2013 at 12:32

Tried updated/backdating the drivers

los · 24 Jul 2013 at 12:48

dmferrett said:
The GTX 760 and HD7950 are significantly better in terms of FPS and would potentially allow higher game settings to be used in challenging games.....

If you buy mail order you have a legal 7 day right to cancel and return your purchase...........

Is this from when you receive it or when you order it? (Sorry for the thread hijack

)

Oh and I'm thinking HIS iceq 7950 or msi twin frozr 7950

Quick Mustard · 24 Jul 2013 at 12:52

Hyburnate said:
Tried updated/backdating the drivers

I've tried it with some that were released this year. I'll try it with the last set that were released last year.

Will an i5 2500k hinder me with a newer card or should I look to overclock it?

arc@css · 24 Jul 2013 at 13:16

Quick Mustard said:
Will an i5 2500k hinder me with a newer card or should I look to overclock it?

I've got an i5 3570K currently running at only 3.6 (3.4 being stock), and although I have seen a slight drop in fps in one or two titles, it's not severe bottlenecking by any stretch at all. Not even close. I can up it to around 4.2 (only have the stock cooler atm), but I just don't need to right now, hence the drop in clock speed. I'd imagine at stock, you'll still easily get a good enough gaming experience from your 2500K in many a title. Check the gpu usuage in something MSI Afterburner to see what sort of percentage you're getting. At least if you need to push the cpu harder in something like a cpu dependent title, you know you can.

Quick Mustard · 24 Jul 2013 at 14:06

arc@css said:
I've got an i5 3570K currently running at only 3.6 (3.4 being stock), and although I have seen a slight drop in fps in one or two titles, it's not severe bottlenecking by any stretch at all. Not even close. I can up it to around 4.2 (only have the stock cooler atm), but I just don't need to right now, hence the drop in clock speed. I'd imagine at stock, you'll still easily get a good enough gaming experience from your 2500K in many a title. Check the gpu usuage in something MSI Afterburner to see what sort of percentage you're getting. At least if you need to push the cpu harder in something like a cpu dependent title, you know you can.

The GPU tends to be at 100% when I use MSI Afterburner on titles liek Bioshock: Infinite and Tomb Raider.

Quick Mustard · 25 Jul 2013 at 09:04

So, bit of an update.

I installed some Nvidia drivers that were released in May which I know I had no problem with.
For a while it was fine, I was able to play Tomb Raider for nearly an hour and a half.

I rebooted to allow for my Razer drivers to be installed and within 5 minutes of rebooting, when I was on youtube, the whole PC froze for what felt like 10 seconds and then came back to me.

I tried to load Tomb Raider up after that but was presented with a black screen, at which point I had to hard reset the PC with the button to get it to turn off and back on again.

I ran the Who Crashed before all of this and it showed two crashes on the latest Nvidia drivers back on Sunday.

Any ideas on what it could be?

I'm very close to pulling the trigger on a GTX760 and a new case but I dont want to if its something I can fix myself.

When I formatted at the weekend I did the same thing I usually do and I've never had this problem before.

Memtest86 came back ok after 4 hours, I do intend to do it for the recommended 7.
Samsungs HDD test came back ok.
I dont quite know how to test the CPU on its own.