GPU or PSU Problem?

samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
So my system has been booting when loading up any intensive game with the Asus Anti Surge warning.

Specs are 4790K / Maxmimum VII Ranger / GTX 970 / CS650M Gold Certified / 16Gigs of Ram

I just ran 3d Mark Fire Strike and in afterburner the charts looked alarming for the GPU, can anyone possibly tell me if this is typical or if this might point to a PSU / GPU fault? About 2 minutes in my monitors turned one grey and one red, popping up saying input not detected. I'm completely lost as up until now I was positive I had a faulty PSU.

Two screenshots of Afterburner on the link below as I can't get the attachment to recognise the JPEGS.

https://imgur.com/a/HJIhs

Thanks for any help, I am desperately at a loss of what to even think.
 
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Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
What's alarming about that MSI afterburner readout?

You posted 2 screenshots. The 2nd screenshot shows GPU power %, temp, usage, and fan speed.

Power - 104% - (it's quite common for GPUs to go over 100% power. If they have the headroom to go above 100% they will boost themselves above it to get frequencies as high as possible.
69 degrees is an excellent temperature for a GTX 970 under benchmarking load.
99% GPU usage means max GPU usage, which is what you'd expect from firestrike
69% fan speed is fine.

The 1st screenshot shows what is limiting your GPU's performance - temp, power, or voltage. Expressed as either Yes or No (1 or 0).

This is fine because something will always limit your GPU's performance, or else it would boost infinitely. :) Temp as the reason would be bad because that's thermal throttling, but temp is 0 (No) throughout.

Power Limit means the GPU is using its max power and can't go higher. Voltage means it can't up the voltage to try to up the frequency any more, which is fine too. Power/Voltage are normal reasons for your GPU's performance to be limited, and mean that short of increasing the power / voltage limits it is working as hard as it can.

None of that is to say that your GPU isn't faulty, but nothing in the 2 screenshots you posted seem to indicate your GPU is anything other than normal.

If you know anyone who has a PC that can fit a GTX 970 you could always test your card in their system. The Asus anti surge message makes me think PSU more than GPU, assuming it's not just Asus anti surge being weird.
 
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samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Sorry, I'm not very good with the technical stuff as you can probably tell, still learning as I go. Thanks for letting me know your points, that is really helpful and I won't need to ask about those specifics in the future! I think what alarmed me was the voltage and OV charts sudddenly shoot up, given the circumstances, but now I know what the numbers mean. Going to order a new PSU and start from there.

Edit.
Regarding as us anti surge, I turned that off and had the same results, so yeah from what I've researched and your helpful input it was appear to be the PSU that has just gone out of warranty that is the problem.
 
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samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Thanks for that. I cleaned out my PC yesterday (why not) and took a look inside the back end of the Psu. There's a small brown sort of drip stain, about the size of a five pence piece. Possible that something inside has leaked?
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
samcol said:
Thanks for that. I cleaned out my PC yesterday (why not) and took a look inside the back end of the Psu. There's a small brown sort of drip stain, about the size of a five pence piece. Possible that something inside has leaked?
Click to expand...

That’s not good. I’d get that swapped out immediately.
 
samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Installed the new PSU, ran a stress test and had the same error. Re-Run without any peripherals at the off chance and both of my two monitors shut off. 970 dying? It's hitting 71c running 3D mark at 50% fan speed so I am at a loss...
 
samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Update:

Re-installed an old Driver and rather than cutting out with a power surge after ten seconds it completed the Test with a 98.1% pass rating. Hoping that'd the end of that. Looks like NVidias newest driver didn't agree with my system. In hindsight should've checked it before buying a new part but GPU seemed normal and a power surge was the warning flagging up. Took a closer look at the last PSU and there is definitely something that has leaked / burnt inside it, so glad I bought the new PSU.

In case anyone has a similar issue I'll update this either if something else goes wrong or in a couple of days after intense testing.
 
samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Spoke to soon, issue is still present. Anyone know any idea on how to test whether it is my graphics card with / without it in the system ie. onboard graphics - would i run a fairly easy stress test using onboard?? Unfortunately this is my only PC so I don't have the luxury of being able to swap out parts to test and no friends with one.

What I can't get my head around is GPU passed FireStrike stress test at 98.1% on the second time around after reverting drivers, but just loaded up a game to test and had the ole' asus anti surge warning; turned it off and lost signal to both monitors.
 
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samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Run Furmark, Firestrike, Prime95, resat / taken out RAM. Still getting the problem. The PC will simply not run anything at any capacity other than webpages. This is getting old.
 
samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Nope,, i tried that and instead of getting the anti surge boot I got a two tone monitor colour.
 
samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
I just decided to try running fortnight on integrated graphics. It's still running and hasn't booted yet. Sign the gpu is dead?
 
samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Gave the card to an IT friend and he had exactly the same issues, so problem found - a dying GPU. What's strange to me is how the readings all measured fine, it even passed stress tests and there were no artefacts or anything, it would just cut out when playing a game for 1 minute.
 
J

jerpers

Master
Which model GPU do you have? Are the fans spinning on it at all? You could try removing the cooler and repasting since it may well be dying anyway.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Going by the temps they posted (~70 degrees under load for a GTX 970) I'm not sure thermals were the issue. Wonder if it's still under warranty?

If it's not, then certainly there's nothing to lose and repasting a GPU is always a good thing to have experience of.

If it is dead, out of warranty, and unfixable, note the ebay listings do have a category for defective parts where you can legitimately sell dead components etc, so you might always be able to get a bit of cash back on it towards your replacement.
 
samcol

samcol

Bronze Level Poster
Hi Both,

Fans were as normal and card was not under warranty, so I have ordered a 1070 as a replacement. If it comes and I get the same issue with the computer I'm not even sure where to look next, as like I said, a colleague replicated my problems on a different PC with the 970.

Edit: I'll take a look at the Ebay listings. Might be able to salvage something back in some way, and if not... it's a fancy paperweight.
 
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