motherboard - Computer force restarts when graphics card is installed

07
2014-07
  • hanipman

    Specs: Intel Core i7 4770k with Corsair H100i Asrock Z87-ITX Corsair Vengeance 8GB x2 Rosewill HIVE 650W EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Runs to monitor through HDMI cable from GPU

    I've been troubleshooting a few problems recently, this is my most recent one. My power supply is the only one thats new, but everything else is only a few months old. I've ran the system with everything but the graphics card, so I'm pretty sure the problem lies somewhere there, but I have no idea how to go about it.

    Just yesterday, I had the entire system working for a while. Everything was initially in a water cooling system and after taking it all down, the only thing that didn't have any kind of cooling was the GPU so I just had a room fan blowing on it. I managed to run it, so I ran a benchmark to see if the GPU still performed well while monitoring temps. It raised quickly to 80 degrees, probably cause the water block was still on it, and ended up restarting the whole computer. I didn't try it again.

    Today, I took out the GPU, removed the water block, and then reinstalled it.

    The symptoms I've seen so far after I've installed the graphics card:

    When turned on, computer boots up and starts loading windows, only to forcefully restart, and boot up again where I am greeted with the option to go in safe mode.

    When I do go into safe mode, I have a limited time to do anything as the screen goes black without warning.

    The same thing happens in the bios, except much quicker.

    The CMOS battery seems to work fine, as the date and time in bios remains correct. I have no other computer to test my GPU. I have two power supplies, one listed above, the other a Rosewill 750W.

    So, is my graphics card dead? I still have warranty on it, but I'd at least like to try to find a fix.

    • Answers
  • David Schwartz

    The GPU's cooling system cools many components, not just the GPU. Without a proper cooling setup, the GPU itself can monitor its own temperature and throttle, but other components (RAM, VRM) can't. Likely other components on the graphics card fried by running without proper cooling. But the only way to know for sure is to reinstall proper cooling and test.

    If you try to put the original cooler back on, make sure you do it exactly right. It likely has to make proper thermal contact with more components than just the GPU.


    • Related Question

    gpu - Graphics card failure, anything I could try
  • Ben Everard

    My gaming PC has decided to die, it's not the first time but usually a quick ATX reset brings it back to life. Today it didn't.

    I disconnect all unessasary devices so I've only got the case button / LED cables, GPU, CPU, RAM and power connected, the computer still didn't turn on.

    I've not got a speaker on my motherboard so found a spare one I have for testing and when the machine starts up I get one long beep and two short beeps from my Award BIOS, which apparently means a video card error. I change it with the GPU from another machine and all works well.

    Q: So I have a faulty graphics card (an nVidia 8800GT OC), is there anything I can try to resurect it?

    Edit

    So I tried the answer sblair provided, and bugger me it's only gone and worked! I pre-heated my oven at 200*C for about 5 minutes, put the graphics card in for about 5 minutes before cranking it up to 230*C for the remaining 5 minutes.

    I didn't notice any plastics warping, bending, softening etc, however the 8 or so RAM chips did appear to sweat a bit, but this could be the residue from the thermal pads that I removed before.

    I couldn't be bothered to put the fan back on just to test it, so I slapped the card back in it's PCI-e bay and this time got the normal, single BIOS beep... WOOHOO!!!

    I did put the card on a bit of thick cardboard, didn't want to ruin any of my favourite pizza trays. I decided to use cardboard without a design on it, as this was surely only going to melt / burn.

    So there we have it, oven + broken gpu = happy ILMV + hours more fun on COD:MF2

    EDIT

    So I managed this cycle three times before the GPU finally died, still squeezed a few months out of it but the thing finally surcomed to the power of my oven :P, still pretty happy though


    • Related Answers
  • sblair

    If you are feeling adventurous, you could try putting it in the oven. I believe the theory is that micro-fractures in the soldering (which might be the cause of the failure) can be eliminated by re-melting the solder. Your mileage may vary...