Need help with video card

[flipxxx]

Hello everyone, a couple of months ago i bought an asus radeon 7970 gfx card from a friend. Started playing games a couple of a weeks ago and noticed it will blue screen and give the failed to recover from display driver timeout and that made me think i have the wrong display drivers? I did try to update through asus website and looked for myself but can not seem to pinpoint it. If anyone has any ideas would be much appreciated.

[David M]

Get your graphics card drivers from the GPU manufacturers website. In this case from AMD. It may not be a driver problem but the first thing you want to do regardless is to make sure you have the latest drivers. Also make sure your OS is up to date.

Delete your old driver first before installing your new driver and do not let Microsoft install their graphics drivers.
AMD Graphics Drivers & Software ? Download the latest drivers for your graphics products

What is the brand and model of your power supply? Dirty voltage or under voltage can also cause graphics card problems.

Run a stress test on your graphics card while monitoring all three voltages, especially your 12 volt rail.

http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

http://www.filehippo.com/download_speedfan/ Use the chart to record the voltages during the stress test.

[Jbc223456]

I would also like say that you might want to make sure you don't have more than one set of graphics drivers. If you upgraded your GPU to the 7970, did you first uninstall the graphics drivers for your old card?

I'm not sure if it would cause a blue screen, but it's a possibility.

[flipxxx]

what exactly am i looking for with this furmark test? the 12v rail is running at 11.79v to 11.88v, i guess how exactly do i use that speed fan or whatever to check this? i did uninstall drivers and i found an nvidia display driver that i deleted.

[flipxxx]

also i had to kick the gpu fan on to 85% load when running that stress test at max because that thing heated up to 81c in no time flat. Also i think one of the leads/temp wires has gone on the fritz because temp 1 is 42ish temp2 is 101-110 temp 3 HDO and GPU are all at 44 while core is at 36-40ish C, or maybe something is about to implode on this?

[David M]

11.79 volts is ok. 81C for a GPU is pretty normal. They run hotter than CPU's. Your Catalyst software should be bumping the fan speed up on its own as the GPU temperature rises. You can run your cards fan at 100% manually just to see if it is capable of dissipating enough heat during the stress test. You blew the card out with compressed air to make sure it is dust free right? You want to blow all the dust out of your case before doing any of this to eliminate that possibility.

Did you get a crash during the stress test?

The value with Furmark is that it puts a big load on your graphics card.

Open up Speedfan and click on the Charts tab. Then under Analyze select Voltages. Then select 3.3, 5 and 12. Do the stress test and then go back to the charts and see what voltages were recorded during the stress test.

Or better yet, if you have a digital multimeter, use that to measure your 12 volt rail during the stress test. The 3.3 and 5 volt rail are usually not the problem with a card that is under voltaged since the vast majority of the power to run a card comes from the 12 volt rail.

[glc]

Please answer David's question:

What is the brand and model of your power supply?

Admin note: Please watch your language.

[flipxxx]

Sorry about the language, its a cooler master RS-700, and i noticed something else with that test. Ran that furmark and world of warcraft at the same time and it didnt crash or heat over 65c with the fan at 75%, but the second i tried to play heroes of newerth with nothing else going it just boots down without blue screening

[David M]

Did you blow out your case?

Is there a patch available for your game that boots down?

I don't know about your PSU although I know it is not ranked up there with the best PSU's. I don't see anything to make me suspect your PSU although that still could be the problem. Did you look at your voltages over the entire stress test?

[flipxxx]

now that you say something UPS did drop and screw up my case bad enough that i have to hotwire it to start up and shutdown since the button doesnt work anymore. also i let that run all night and its fine didnt crash at all. I think im gonna buy a new case to transfer everything over to and probably reformat as i noticed i have games from steams christmas sale so it has been longer than i thought since i formatted.

[glc]

Why didn't you file a damage claim when you received the case?

[flipxxx]

I tried, problem was my mother shipped it to me so she had to fight them for it and she got tired of dealing with them because they refused to pay it. Although it was wrapped in bubble wrap and had the box full of packing peanuts they somehow managed to rip the front part of the case off and bent the back left strut on it.

[David M]

Was it this guy who did the damage?

YouTube

[flipxxx]

wouldnt surprise me, think i am just going to go with a new case mobo hdd and cpu since reformatting made it worse somehow. So i dont know im really out of options other than a short in the case or a small fracture on the mobo that doesnt affect it until it starts heating up or... this old Hitachi is finally done.

[glc]

Whats the specs on the system? Are you saying the *whole computer* was damaged, or just an empty case?

[flipxxx]

eh it was not just the case as she shipped the mobo and hd in it still, and if i recall correctly this hard drive is quite old so it needs to be replaced anyways plus i wanna upgrade my cpu as i got a hyper 212 cpu cooler just sitting here.