Gfx card about to kick it?

[RizZy]

So over the last few days I've had a few crashes, mainly while playing World of Warships - so I thought the game might be borked, but I've just had one happen while just on the web.

It's usually a full system lock with the display going to black & white vertical stripes.

My best guess is it's my gfx card dying, would this be just about right?

& if so what's good these days for a replacement? I'm not bothered what make, I'm not a fanboi of either Ati or NVidia, I just want my best bang for buck. an Ati HD 7950 is whats in here at the mo for comparison.

cheers,

Riz.

[BrotherTobious]

Check out tomshardware guide it gives you the best bang for buck and also other information.

Sent from my Nexus 5

[maz]

is there another system you could try it in just to make sure?

As brothertobious said tomshardware do a good guide. However the next gen of cards coming out next year are going to be a bigger leap than usual (with going from 28nm to 14/16nm and hbm2) so could get something similar to what you have now at a fairly cheap price and then wait for release of new cards if your bothered about that.

[RizZy]

Yea I could try it out in my dads I guess, he's got my old box.

I've had a clear out of old drivers & reinstalled the newest, had a few goes on WoWs & so far it's behaved, probably just trying to lull me into a false sense of it being fixed only to explode when I least expect it.

[Gorion]

Depends on your budget.  An R9 380 from OCUK costs around 150 pounds.  R9 390 and 970 GTX are both around the 250 pound price points.

Worthwhile noting that under DX12 AMD have an advantage.  This might change in the future when nvidia tackles their drivers.

[RizZy]

Happy to throw around £250 at a new card if it's needed.

It's a bit hard to figure out what's up with it as there doesn't seem to be any pattern or thing that causes a crash, the crash report codes suggest it's something going on with the gfx card - had a crash on desktop, 30 seconds into a game & then last night played for about 1.5 hours with no issues. So wait & see I guess.

Might actually help if I knew what was in there too, thought it was a 7950, turns out it's a 7970 - probably uses the same drivers right?

[Gorion]

Generally its the same driver for an entire series.

Try doing a clean install.  The full procedure including going into safemode and clearing everything.

Use this, it's the new iteration of driver sweeper.

Can you also post the error being thrown at the BSOD?

[RizZy]

no such BSoD error really, just full screen hang & then pc crash, I found the error jobbies yesterday but in the 24 hours since I've forgot where & what to look for, so bear with me on that :doh:

[RizZy]

Right, back again with this, since my last post nothing had really happened - I took the card out, blew out all the crap, uninstalled & reinstalled fresh drivers, installed the lastest bios & everything "had" been working fine, outa nowhere the whole lot has just started locking up again to the point that the pc wouldn't even boot - took the card out, stuck it on onboard gfx & here I am.

Anything else left to do? try it in the other slot & if that doesn't work it's dead?

Edit - just stuck the card back in - using the other slot doesn't seem to be an option - it's either have the hdds plugged in or the gfx card, not both. Windows booted ok, ran FurMark, crashed after about 1 - 2 secs.

[Gorion]

Not being able to use the second pcie slot is strange. Is there a bios update for your mobo which fixes the issues?

Or any events in event viewer?

[Tutonic]

Have you tried monitoring the GPU temperature? How high is it going before things go pear shaped?

I would also check that your 12V rails are supplying it with enough power.

Really, you need to test the card in another system to see if the fault travels with it. The business with your PCI ports brings the question of a motherboard failure into play, though the GPU is the more likely culprit.

[RizZy]

Not being able to use the second pcie slot is strange. Is there a bios update for your mobo which fixes the issues?

Or any events in event viewer?

I may have described the issue with the 2nd pci slot a bit poorly, it's not that it doesn't work, it's more the size of the card & the positioning of the connections for the hdds getting in each others way.

3 x's critical events on the viewer all just say "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly." & I figured that bit out on my own, thanks event viewer!

Edit - got it into the other pci slot after removing all but the essential hdds, nothing, swapped over power cables, nothing - there is power to it I can see the fans spinning, stuck it back in the original slot & nothing.

I'll try & get round the folks house & try it in my old box I guess.

[RizZy]

So, made it down to the folks house, tried it out in my old box & still no life, time to get the credit card out I guess!

[OldBloke]

Woohoo! A visit from the upgrade fairy

[RizZy]

The bank balance isn't gonna like me much, stuck my car in a ditch a week ago, gfx card dead & I go on holiday in a few days.