GPU Issue

So about a week ago i started having monitors black out on me, i am running a 4 monitor setup. The monitors usually black out in the order they are setup in in the Nvidia control panel, so 4 > 3 > 2 then 1

So i started investigating, using monitoring software and such, also i have uninstalled and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, to no avail

So when monitoring the system, i have noticed that my card runs at around 85 deg when playing high quality games, this temperature is soon reached, and the fan in the card starts to spin faster as expected, its fine for a little while, but soon the monitors start dropping out. the fan is only reaching around 54% when the black outs start. once i close the game down the screens recover. i have tried to increase the fan manually, but this doesn't help either.

I am running a GTX 1080 Ti, i have only had the machine around 4-5 months.

any help would be great, or has anyone else experienced this?

What are your full specs?

Its a PC Specialist Vanquish Infiltrator II

Intel Core i7-7700k Quad Core 4.20GHz,
16GB DDR4,
2TB HDD,
240GB SSD,
NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti 11GB

GoblinRio said:

Its a PC Specialist Vanquish Infiltrator II

Intel Core i7-7700k Quad Core 4.20GHz,
16GB DDR4,
2TB HDD,
240GB SSD,
NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti 11GB

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How have your you got the monitors connected? All into their own ports on the graphics card?

Yes all four ports in use.

Also i only have a Corsair TX650M PSU if this helps?

Someone at work mentioned i might wanna upgrade that with a four monitor setup?

Although this wouldn't explain why its been fine for the first 4-5 months i have had the PC.

GoblinRio said:

Yes all four ports in use.

Also i only have a Corsair TX650M PSU if this helps?

Someone at work mentioned i might wanna upgrade that with a four monitor setup?

Although this wouldn't explain why its been fine for the first 4-5 months i have had the PC.

Click to expand...

PSU would be fine for a 1080ti build.

Apparently the 1080ti has throttling limits around 91c and thermal shutdown at 105c so I don’t think temps are the issue.

When you uninstalled graphics driver did you use ddu?

I did not,

So i guess i should strip the drivers off again, with ddu, and then reinstall?

GoblinRio said:

I did not,

So i guess i should strip the drivers off again, with ddu, and then reinstall?

Click to expand...

Its probably worth it to make sure. A normal uninstall won’t clear out any old configuration files. Plus whenever updating Nvidia drivers, be sure to select a clean installation rather than installing on top of the old as that can prevent issues also.

Righto,

I will do that tonight when i get home from work,

One thing i did noticed when the first monitor is about to start dropping out there is sometimes a little horizontal static lines flash across the screen, not sure if this helps at all.

GoblinRio said:

Righto,

I will do that tonight when i get home from work,

One thing i did noticed when the first monitor is about to start dropping out there is sometimes a little horizontal static lines flash across the screen, not sure if this helps at all.

Click to expand...

That would definitely point to graphics card rather than power I would say. It’s possible there’s an issue with the card, but let’s start off with drivers.

GoblinRio said:

Righto,

I will do that tonight when i get home from work,

One thing i did noticed when the first monitor is about to start dropping out there is sometimes a little horizontal static lines flash across the screen, not sure if this helps at all.

SpyderTracks said:

That would definitely point to graphics card rather than power I would say. It’s possible there’s an issue with the card, but let’s start off with drivers.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Using DDU to clear out old driver code and then clean installing the latest driver is the right next step. However, I do notice that you said this 'started about a week ago', so I'm forced to ask what happened a week ago? Did you install any Windows updates? Did you upgrade Windows to the latest version (1803) and if so did you let Windows update do that? Have you changed/upgraded any other drivers apart from the NVIDIA driver? Have you installed any new hardware (even external)? Have you installed any new software?

Whenever someone says 'this started x days/weeks/months ago' it's often helpful to establish what changed at that point, hardware does fail and software has bugs but it's very common to find the root cause of issues like this are because something (often apparently unrelated) was changed by the user. It could even be something external to the PC itself, some new electrical gadget in the house for example that's putting noise on the mains and upsetting the monitors. I once solved a wifi issue that turned out to be a faulty light switch, the arcing inside the switch was interfering with the wifi radio signals. It is sometimes helpful to think outside the box...

Update.

So removed all graphics drivers with DDU, then proceeded to install the latest Nvidia drivers (same drivers as before running DDU)

So pretty much within 2 minutes of running a game, i hit 85 degrees (normal) and the first monitor started to drop, then within another minute they all started flashing, I did notice that since the reinstal of the drivers that my fan speed at 85/86 degree was much faster then before, like 500 RPM extra? so around 2900. was 2400 before driver change.

I then proceeded to unplug two monitors from the card, and wow the heat coming out of the back of the card was crazy, the cables were really hot, like uncomfortably hot to touch, the PC settled down and ran fin with just two monitors running,
after 20 mins or so i plugged them both back in, and this time one of them wouldn't even come on, it was enabled in the settings and my mouse pointer would go into the screen, but nothing, so i disabled that screen in the settings, but even with 3 monitors one of the screen was still dropping out,

I am now sat with 4 screen on again, but just in the desktop, no games running and @ 37 degrees, and yes all 4 monitors are working again.

ubuysa: Thank you for getting involved in the discussion, really appreciate the input, that goes for you to SpyderTracks, please you are finding time for me.

As for has anything changed in the last week or so, nope nothing, only things that have been updated are my Blizzard games. and my Eve client. these are literally the only games i play. Eve Online. hence the four screens

So one week has passed, everything now seems stable on any games when only running two monitors.

Monitors are all still plugged in, but two are disabled in the Nvidia control panel

How old is the system? is it still under warranty? I think I'd be calling PCS now.