Signs of imminent doom? Graphics card noisy, frequent crashes.

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My ATI 4870 has been acting up lately. During games it has started to go quite noisy, with occasional artefacts on both screens during daily freezes, or outright crashes. I have de-dusted it only recently, but it only brought a temporary improvement.

I have a hunch that after three years of intensive use its cooler eventually has had it. It is running smoothly, but always on high speed. I think that dust has built up inside my card and I cannot remove that without removing the cooler from the card, which I am hesitant to do. On the other hand, my warranty is over anyway - but I would be loathe to enter into such an experiment without some orientation about what to do if I, heaven forbid, destroy my card in the process.

I don't want to expend a lot of money, so is there a cheap and more modern equivalent to what I currently have, that would not be a step back performance wise? Is there passively cooled GPU that has similar performance? I'd probably prefer NVIDIA after that ATI - I was happy with the performance but not that happy with the drivers.

 

I think you'd have a hard time finding something that wasn't an upgrade from what you have now.

Anyway, Tom's puts out monthly GPU guides that might help you, broken down by price ranges (although the low end seems to be dominated by Radeon cards). Here is December's

 

I have no idea what new GPU would be best for you, but your symptoms certainly match what I had shortly before my video card gave up the ghost.

 

It sounds like the bearing of the fan on your graphics card is worn down. If it the fan makes more noise than it usually would anyway. In that case, the fan may occasionally stop, which will decrease your cooling performance, obviously, and so may cause your card to overheat. This would explain the artifacts and crashes.

The cheapest option is to replace the fan, if this is actually the cause of the problem. Actually, thinking on it, it may depend on how the fan is mounted on the cooler if it's actually possible to replace with a standard fan. Otherwise you'd have to replace the cooler entirely, and that would probably not be worth the effort and money compared to the expense of buying a new one.

Otherwise you could get a new graphics card. The ATi HD 5770 is already a bit dated, but shouldn't perform much worse than your current card and is good value for money. Apparently the HD 6770 is just a rebranded 5770. It sort of depends on your budget, though.

 

Well, on a whim I did dissemble the graphics card, and it turned out that the cooling fins right after the fan were clogged with about three millimetres of massed dust that had built up there. That certainly explained the crashes and the frenzied noise. I cleaned out the dust, added new cooling paste betwen heatsink and GPU chip and reassembled. So far so good.

Now, I went on to put it into the case and to my great dismay, nothing happened. Not even the fans power up. On m P5Q-E MoBo the on-board reset and power switches flicker when the board is connected to the power supply. I found some people reporting on similar problems on forums, but the reports are as ambiguous as the sympoms.

When I try the minimum config with just the MoBo and PSU I get nothing, not even the beeps. I am now facing the difficulty of having to figure out whether it is the MoBo or the PSU that's broken, or the GPU. Since nothing is happening already with the GPU off the system I suppose it's not that, but frankly, I'm at a loss. Help!

 

Checking the Volt lines from the PSU is a relatively easy way to check if it's still doing something. And I really hope he disconnected his PSU before removing the graphics card, otherwise I think I already know what went wrong. Also it's always a good idea to touch some grounded metal (radiator usually works if you have central heating), so you're not electrically charged when you touch your components.

You can try putting the PSU in another PC to check if you don't have a Voltmeter. I believe if you connect the green wire from the 24 pins connector of the PSU to any black wire (in that same 24 pin connector) to enable the PSU, you can test the PSU without the motherboard. I have some dutch links that explain this, but that's probably not much use to you.
A good PSU should have stable Volt lines within these margins:
+5V: ~4% (+4,8V ~ +5,2V)
-5V: ~10% (-4,5V ~ -5,5V)
+12V: ~5% (+11,4V ~ +12,6V)
-12V: ~10% (-10,8V ~ -13,2V)
+3,3V: ~4% (+3,15V ~ +3,45V)
For most modern PCs, the +12V line is the most highly loaded one (and thus the most important), for more budget processors and older processor, the +5V line is more important.

If the problem isn't the PSU, you can try to remove the memory from the motherboard and then try to boot it. If the motherboard (and PSU) is ok, it should beep that there isn't any memory anywhere. If it doesn't, it's likely your motherboard has died somehow.

 

I recall I have another PSU at home, and I'll see if I get the beeps when I connected to my RAM- and GPU-less MoBo. If I don't it is the MoBo, not the PSU.

My hunch is that it is the MoBo, and that would suck big time. (a) I would have a hard time finding something adequate (mostly server boards or microATX boards around nowadays) and (b) if I do, I likely won't be able to continue using my excellent low latency DDR2 RAM. (c) If I go for a crap MoBo my computer will probably be less capable. (d) functionally, there is no reason to get rid of my powerful Intel Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450. It would do for another two years.

If I go for a new core I'll open a whole new can of worms, and costs ...

---------- Added 20 hours, 56 minutes and 18 seconds later... ----------

I'm going to test the MoBo with my other PSU tonight or tomorrow morning, and I have, as an immediate remedy to my computer-less-ness, eventually bought that Asus 1015B EeePC with the E-450 AMD Fusion chipset. For one I long wanted to have one, and second, one can't nowadays repair a computer without having another computer. I wanted to wait buying it, but alas, if can't be helped, and fortunately, by cash flow allows for it right now.

 

Yeah, it can be pretty annoying if you have to buy a new PC in a hurry without having the option to check online what is the best option. It actually took me over 3 months before I had picked all the components I wanted for my current desktop.

And if you do have to get a new motherboard, it kind of sucks that Intel doesn't have a lot of backward compatibility so you'll probably have to upgrade the whole lot. On the plus side, memory is dirt cheap right now. Just bought 4x 4 GB two weeks ago for less than what 2x 2 GB 1.5 years ago cost me. HDDs are quite expensive nowadays due to the floodings in Thailand, but you probably don't need new ones right away anyway.

 

I had something similar, and suspected the GPU. It was the PSU.

What do the warning leds on the GPU tell you? My 4870 told me core power failure so I replaced it with an 6850 that needed less power. It resulted in a stable system until the PSU got the last kick.

for your next card think about a heatsink that is not covered like the MSI cylclones.

 

I had my components checked and the PSU and the GPU run all right according to the shop. So it is my mainboard.

I got my new one shipped yesterday and I have started building up my new system. The bad part is that it is downgrade from my original MoBo (to begin with: half the number of SATA ports etc ... at least it can hold all my RAM). There just aren't any decent 775 socket MoBos left out there

Anyway, cheaper than upgrading now. When I'm half a year in my new job I'll get myself a new system I think.

 

After being sick, working, busy with X-Mas preparations I have capitulated.

When I was sick I was sick, and really occupied with being sick, and in the envenings after work, and also on my free days, I was tired and also in no mood to really get into testing and fixing, and I am thoroughly sick of the bloody mess of hardware, screws and cables on my desk that has built up over, the horror, is it two weeks? Enough!

Tomorrow I will give the computer and all the assorted hardware to a trustworthy shop to have them repair it and give it back to me intact.

---------- Added 18 hours, 10 minutes and 56 seconds later... ----------

It is done, the problem is out of my hands and off my desk. It will now re-manifest itself in my wallet.

 

I am a bit disappointed in you.

 

No more than I am, but keep in mind: Since my comp broke on Dec 12th I have been either sick or working and, most annoyingly, I have been unable to use it for playing or whatever else. I'm just tired of investing more and more limited time into what has become an intractable problem. You just don't go and fix your comp after a 12 hour day. To my frustration, the last attempt at a fix ended in, well, nothing. I have already brought my components, MoBo, GPU and PSU, to shops for testing. Shall I do it again? I can as well deliver the entire thing and ask them to just fix it and make it work again. Benefits outweigh the satisfaction of having fixed it myself; they certainly greatly outweigh the effects of failing while trying to:

I have freed my desk from it so I can use it for other things again instead.
I can now vacuum clean the room without fear of ingesting screws or parts.
I can walk in my room without havint to take care not to step on parts.
Most importantly, I have freed my mind of that.
If I am lucky I'll have it back and running before the new year.

Also, I revitalise my relationship with my trusted computer shop that I bought my first own (meaning both own and not pre-owned) computer from about two decades ago.

 

If it is trill there it is a good shop.

I did it once also. Turned out that the shop could not fix it and just changed all parts except the brand new motherboard.

One windows update later and all problems were gone. It took two weeks of arguing, buying new parts, and searching on the web. I had enough parts to build a second one.

 

Good shop.

I got word today that, for starters, my PSU had failed (so I'm in for 100 € for a replacement alone, not taking into account working hours). If I am lucky (paradoxically) I have wasted the money for the other MoBo and can continue using my far better old one, and don't even need to set up a new system.

The other shop tested it, found it was working flawlessly, and charged me 20 €. Either they didn't test it at all, or they did test it, but didn't have it operate on-load. They haven't heard last of me.

 

The big one is back, with a new, crappy MoBo and a new PSU, but at least it's working. Turned out the MoBo and the PSU were broken. Cost me way too much money.

All my data on C: and all my game installations are lost since the OS won't boot with the new MoBo. Re-installing Windows 7 right now ...