GPU problem I think

[Rakk]

Hi guys,

So I got my new PC about a month ago, when I got it, on initial boot up, it didn't - I got one long beep folowed by 3 short beeps and not boot - some googling later this series of beeps means it can't find the GPU, so after some fiddling and reseating the GPU it worked fine, so I thought all was well.

I normally have said machine on every day - for more time over the weekends, last Saturday morning I shut it down (it seemed happy) and on the Sunday when I tried to boot it up (after I got back home having gone out to a friends the previous morning), it seemingly couldn't find the 2nd monitor (or 3rd when I plugged it in) also I couldn't find the NVidia control panel, so I decided, ok, reboot it, at which point I got that 1 long beep, 3 short beep error code again , so I took the GPU out and reseated it (thinking maybe that first time maybe I hadn't connected it properly or something) and then it happily worked. So I hoped this was the end of it.

However this morning the same thing happened again , it shut down happily late last night - why it is always on Sunday .....

So, anyone got any ideas why this would be happening - dodgy GPU? Dodgy motherboard? Dodgy something else? Or just something entirely different? I can't believe its drivers as the error beeps are the motherboard errors codes before Windows even starts trying to start.
Could it be the OC? Though why that would cause it to not find the GPU I do not know.

Specs
Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE (GREEN)
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-6600K Quad Core (3.50GHz @ upto 4.60GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® Z170 PRO GAMING: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB Kit)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1070 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
Hard Disks
480GB SanDisk Ultra II <-- I added this
2GB WB Black <-- I added this
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE <-- this was the one that I bought the machine with
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i V2 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
OS
Win 10 Professional <-- not from PCS

Whilst it so far seems to have been fixed by reseating the GPU twice, I don't really want to have to do it continually - it's not supposed to work like that!

I have not tried reseating it again today - my parents are visiting so I don't really want to be spending time fighting with a GPU at the mo.

 

[Oussebon]

When you say you've reseated it twice, have you tried the GPU in another PCI-E slot?

 

[Rakk]

When you say you've reseated it twice, have you tried the GPU in another PCI-E slot?

No, I just put it back in the same slot, I didn't think about trying another cos I thought maybe I'd just not reseated it properly - thinking about it though I think to do that I'd have to re-route the power cable as I don't think it'd reach down to the second PCI-E slot.

 

[Oussebon]

Well if you plug it into another PCI-E slot and it works flawlessly for weeks, I guess it would point to a bad PCI-E slot. It's not very likely to be that, but it's probably one of the easier things to check.
Undoing PCS's cable management doesn't sound much fun. Perhaps just plug in a second VGA/PCI-E (however they label it) cable to the PSU and use that.

 

[Rakk]

Well if you plug it into another PCI-E slot and it works flawlessly for weeks, I guess it would point to a bad PCI-E slot. It's not very likely to be that, but it's probably one of the easier things to check.

Yeah, may try that, though difficult to tell with intermittent problems though , first time it lasted 3 weeks, this last time 1 week.
Will prolly give PCS a call in the morning, see if they have any cunning plans

 

[ubuysa]

Given that it's intermittent, and with quite long times between failures, I'd have thought it more likely to be the graphics card. I'd expect a PCIe slot problem to me more obvious. Worth a try though.

I think you probably need to call Ghostbusters. No, sorry, I meant PCS of course. :wacko:

 

[Rakk]

Well, I called PCS this morning, and after mentioning what had happened they're sending me a new GPU (it'll be here on Wednesday cos I'm busy on Tuesday), so hopefully that should fix the problem

 

[Rakk]

As a quick update, I have now installed the replacement GPU and all is well so far (it took 3 weeks after my initial fiddle with the power cable to get it properly powered for the problem to reappear - the power cable fits into the new GPU a lot easier).
It's a Zotac card this time (the old one was Palit - no idea if one is better than the other but as long as it works I don't care) - the Palit card took up 3 slots, it was huge ....

I only had one problem with the reinstall, there must have been a small stone on the floor where I laid the PC down, my nice new black case now has a nice 2 inch white scratch on it now, doh!

 

[ubuysa]

Did you write the bit about the stone in tiny text hoping we'd not see it? Big mistake. Huge.

Glad the main problem is sorted.