GTX 970 intermittently overheating!

marisa

Member
Hi folks!

I've been having some problems with my Zotac GTX 970 recently and they only seem to be getting more frequent. I wondered if anyone's had similar experiences or could help me narrow down the problem?

There have been a couple of occasions where I've been doing nothing graphics-intensive but my GPU suddenly plays up. I'd just be browsing the internet, but then my Windows desktop theme (toolbars, etc) seems to get reset to Basic, and my GPU's temperature and speed suddenly start ramping up. It reaches nearly 80°C in maybe half a minute, with no sign of going back down, and sounds so stressed that I just rush to turn the PC off. Then it's usually fine again the next time I start the PC.

This happened last night (again while just browsing), so I gave the card a dust this morning, but now something similar seems to be affecting my games. Within a few moments of gameplay starting, GPU temp jumps up massively and won't stop increasing until I quit. It's not necessarily new games either, but some games from 2007-8. The only difference from above is that my desktop theme doesn't get changed, and temps go back to normal without having to turn the PC off.

Does anyone have any ideas? I haven't contact PCS yet because I'm hoping it's an easy fix, but I don't really know where to start diagnosing!

Thanks,
Marisa
 

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
I think Windows may be trying to perform the Performance Index benchmarks, I had the same issue. You may need to leave it to run and open up Task Manager to see if there are any processes that have high CPU usage at the time and post them here.
 

marisa

Member
Thanks for the quick replies! The 80°C was out of nowhere at first but now it's whenever I play a game, whether it's a big new one or something old that shouldn't be intensive at all. I hadn't thought about Windows benchmarking but the sound/heat and suddenness of it was similar. I'll try new drivers first and see what happens. Cheers guys!
 

marisa

Member
I did a clean install of the latest Nvidia drivers and unfortunately still have the same problems! I've been using COD 4: Modern Warfare as a test since that seems to provoke it the worst, even though the game's 9 years old. The heat and noise starts as soon as I'm in-game. It doesn't sound quite like a buzzing or whirring, more like a tinny whine that changes tone according to what I'm looking at (e.g. it fluctuates if I wiggle the camera around). Whenever I minimise the game, the noise stops. I don't know if that's relevant, but it seems like a different behaviour compared to how the problem began (the benchmarking-type noise).

I also ran the Windows Experience performance index, but the only process that showed high CPU usage was WinSAT.exe (the system assessment tool), so I'm assuming that's all as it should be?
 

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tom_gr7

Life Serving
whats your full system spec mate?

from looking at the picture, the gpu fan speed is very very slow compared to the high temps. You could create a fan profile to increase the fan speed (and noise)
 

marisa

Member
Hi Tom, thanks! I only use Zotac's Firestorm and I'm not sure if it's the best option, but it seems to do the job? I've not tried a custom fan profile yet because I'd rather keep things quiet (GPU can get a bit warm but I didn't notice anything massively problematic until now), but I can definitely give it a go in future. My specs are:

Case
AeroCool DS Cube Red Edition Window Mini-ITX
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690 (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H81I-PLUS: Mini-ITX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - DVI, HDMI, mDP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk
Western Digital WD10EZEX 1TB SATA lll - Blue
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW & SOFTWARE
Power Supply
EVGA SUPERNOVA 550 GS
Processor Cooling
Corsair H55 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
AOC 21.5" WIDESCREEN LED TFT - 1920 x 1080, 5MS, D-Sub, DVI-D
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Promotional Item
FREE RAINBOW SIX OR ASSASSINS CREED with select GTX 9 Series GPUs!
Quantity
1
 

tom_gr7

Life Serving
hi mate, nice balanced spec mate. gg

Certainly get a fan profile setup. You might want it running quietly, but if the GPU is running hot and quiet in the long term it's not ideal. A cooler and slighlty noiser system.
 
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