Is my PC dying?

[Dan2312]

Hi guys,

Ive had my i7920 since the day the Nehalem architecture was released, ive used it on a daily basis and replaced GPUS as needed upgraded memory and changed PSU's, ive always kept it spotless from dust inside the case aswell.

I'm starting to think that my motherboard is on its way out, because ive owned a NVidia 1080GTX for 2 years and it very recently went faulty so ive managed to RMA it under warranty, I had a black screen 30 secs after loading to windows desktop and a fan fully spooling up at the same time on the gpu. I tested it on another comp and it proven faulty.

so today I was just playing car mechanic sim, on my old Nvidia 970, (whilst my 1080 is away) and it just happened again, but just once and not repeatedly like the 1080 did.

Now I'm worried that the motherboard could be damaging the GPU's? maybe through power surge? I don't know, but bearing in mind my pc is around 10 years old.
Do PC's eventually die? even though well cared for?

Ive kept this processor this long because ive never had any real need to upgrade it because it still manages modern games really well when configured with a good GPU, if its on its way out then I'm looking at an i5 8600k.

 

[BadFrog]

Are your drivers up to date for the GPU? How old is the PSU?

 

[bpgt64]

PCIe lines might be an issue. How does your time spent on the PC breakdown? imo intel is still the best help a man can get if money isn't an issue. But AMD's 2700X looks very very promising. I would wait for the 2700X to drop, see Wizzard's review and decide then.

 

[Hood]

Yes, motherboards eventually show their age - capacitors don't last forever, slots/connectors get tarnished/oxidized, etc. I used to collect old boards on my wall, from old systems that were given to me because they would no longer boot. After swapping out PSU, RAM, video card, drives, CMOS battery, and sometimes even CPU, with known good parts, and still no monitor output, I would declare the motherboard dead. Most were from the Pentium 4 era or older. Your X58 board is about the same age now (10 years), so it could be on it's way out. But try swapping in everything you can with known good parts, and clean all connectors and slots as best you can with electrical contact cleaner, such as WD 40 specialist contact cleaner. Sometime you get lucky and fix it - at least half of my old systems were brought back to life, one way or another. The dozen or so dead boards on my workshop wall served as reminders to keep trying every possibility before giving up...

 

[jboydgolfer]

May be time to put that girl out to pasture..... I know it's not easy, I had to do it myself not too many years back ,but all good things must come to an upgrade....now lets have a moment of silence please to honor her contribution ,and dedication.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

youre not the only one with a system that death is slowly creeping up on.....

 

[eidairaman1]

Could be the psu itself.

 

[Dan2312]

The PSU is only 3 years old and ive been watching for fluctuations on the pc health status in bios.

Just said to the wife when my 1080 comes back it ain't going back into this system, I'm not risking it getting damaged.

PCIe lines might be an issue. How does your time spent on the PC breakdown? imo intel is still the best help a man can get if money isn't an issue. But AMD's 2700X looks very very promising. I would wait for the 2700X to drop, see Wizzard's review and decide then.

I spend around 5 -8 hours a day on the comp, depends with the kids etc, mostly for gaming.

Ive never heard of the AMD 2700x, ill have a look in a moment.

Just had a look, it does look promising, but the question is how much life is left in my comp, will it last until amd releases the ryzen?
It just played up again, I just restarted windows 10 and the pc switched off and reset all my overclocks, so I just reduced it from 3.8 to 2.9 Ghz,

Aslong as I can play PCars 2, Hearts if iron 4 in 4k fast and smooth then I'm happy.

 

[trog100]

i have a nice 7700K chip and asus motherboard i am about to put on ebay when i get round to it.. he he..

trog

 

[eidairaman1]

The PSU is only 3 years old and ive been watching for fluctuations on the pc health status in bios.

Just said to the wife when my 1080 comes back it ain't going back into this system, I'm not risking it getting damaged.



I spend around 5 -8 hours a day on the comp, depends with the kids etc, mostly for gaming.

Ive never heard of the AMD 2700x, ill have a look in a moment.

Just had a look, it does look promising, but the question is how much life is left in my comp, will it last until amd releases the ryzen?
It just played up again, I just restarted windows 10 and the pc switched off and reset all my overclocks, so I just reduced it from 3.8 to 2.9 Ghz,

Aslong as I can play PCars 2, Hearts if iron 4 in 4k fast and smooth then I'm happy.

Age doesnt matter in electronics, dirty power exposure, certain batches could be weaker than others too. Always a possibility.

 

[moproblems99]

Age doesnt matter in electronics, dirty power exposure, certain batches could be weaker than others too. Always a possibility.

Indirectly it does as with age comes use. With use comes wear. With wear comes failure. Although, consider heat as wear in electronics and heating and cooling cycles do have an effect.

To the OP, it would be hard to say if your computer is dying but at its age it is certainly a real possibility. At the same time, a foreign body could have found its way in to the slot and shorted some pins together. Although the likely hood of that happening twice is relatively small. If it were me, I would be saving for some new components.

 

[hat]

Unfortunately it would be hard to find another x58 board. 10 years seems too short of a life for a computer. Can you test the memory in another system? Check and make sure the drive is good? Got a spare power supply to try?

 

[Vayra86]

Hi guys,

Ive had my i7920 since the day the Nehalem architecture was released, ive used it on a daily basis and replaced GPUS as needed upgraded memory and changed PSU's, ive always kept it spotless from dust inside the case aswell.

I'm starting to think that my motherboard is on its way out, because ive owned a NVidia 1080GTX for 2 years and it very recently went faulty so ive managed to RMA it under warranty, I had a black screen 30 secs after loading to windows desktop and a fan fully spooling up at the same time on the gpu. I tested it on another comp and it proven faulty.

so today I was just playing car mechanic sim, on my old Nvidia 970, (whilst my 1080 is away) and it just happened again, but just once and not repeatedly like the 1080 did.

Now I'm worried that the motherboard could be damaging the GPU's? maybe through power surge? I don't know, but bearing in mind my pc is around 10 years old.
Do PC's eventually die? even though well cared for?

Ive kept this processor this long because ive never had any real need to upgrade it because it still manages modern games really well when configured with a good GPU, if its on its way out then I'm looking at an i5 8600k.

Some strange logic in your opening post. A 1080 that 'just went faulty' but the problem persists with a different GPU.

I think you're lucky they accepted your RMA on that part, but there is a good chance you just returned a perfectly fine GPU and get a refurbished one to replace it with...

My 2c is you have leaking and/or bad caps either on the board or in the PSU, and you should visually check these parts for any bulged caps/leakage. FWIW, if you find them, don't keep investing in this rig. It has expired.

Another thing: stop assuming, start determining You 'think' a 3 year old PSU can't go bad, you 'thought' the 1080 was failing...

 

[eidairaman1]

Some strange logic in your opening post. A 1080 that 'just went faulty' but the problem persists with a different GPU.

I think you're lucky they accepted your RMA on that part, but there is a good chance you just returned a perfectly fine GPU and get a refurbished one to replace it with...

My 2c is you have leaking and/or bad caps either on the board or in the PSU, and you should visually check these parts for any bulged caps/leakage. FWIW, if you find them, don't keep investing in this rig. It has expired.

Another thing: stop assuming, start determining You 'think' a 3 year old PSU can't go bad, you 'thought' the 1080 was failing...

Hmm what can I say,

They come here asking for help, when they are given advice they think they know more than the people trying to help them, it's pure stupidity and arrogance on their part.

You are the second person here to state the PSU. It's never ever out of the question when parts are being killed. A PSU directly hooks up to the 1080.

Personally I'd say scrap both and start fresh at this point then test the psu on a cheap motherboard.

 

[Dan2312]

Some strange logic in your opening post. A 1080 that 'just went faulty' but the problem persists with a different GPU.

I think you're lucky they accepted your RMA on that part, but there is a good chance you just returned a perfectly fine GPU and get a refurbished one to replace it with...

My 2c is you have leaking and/or bad caps either on the board or in the PSU, and you should visually check these parts for any bulged caps/leakage. FWIW, if you find them, don't keep investing in this rig. It has expired.

Another thing: stop assuming, start determining You 'think' a 3 year old PSU can't go bad, you 'thought' the 1080 was failing...

I read on the net that EVGA released a bad batch of early generation of 1080's most broken within 6 months and Evga acknowledged this problem, they all had the same problem as me. considering I don't play games as long as some peeps perhaps mine taken longer to break,

Im not investing anymore in this rig, its at its peak now anyway, best setup for games that is.

 

[cucker tarlson]

I agree with Vayra, this is probably the caps on mobo or psu, with my guess being the psu. Age has nothing to do with it, if it goes bad after 3 years it's gonna damage your components as well. I had two 290s dying from a bad psu, even though it seemed to work fine.

 

[eidairaman1]

I read on the net that EVGA released a bad batch of early generation of 1080's most broken within 6 months and Evga acknowledged this problem, they all had the same problem as me. considering I don't play games as long as some peeps perhaps mine taken longer to break,

Im not investing anymore in this rig, its at its peak now anyway, best setup for games that is.

Ok so its a known issue at evga, go ask them there.

 

[Vayra86]

I read on the net that EVGA released a bad batch of early generation of 1080's most broken within 6 months and Evga acknowledged this problem, they all had the same problem as me. considering I don't play games as long as some peeps perhaps mine taken longer to break,

Im not investing anymore in this rig, its at its peak now anyway, best setup for games that is.

I know all about the bad VRAM temps on EVGA"s GTX 1080 FTW yes, I returned a similar card shortly after purchase when I learned about it myself. Did you have an FTW? Because it is an isolated issue to that specific cooler and most cards with that problem died a lot faster. Your symptoms sound a bit different. VRAM issues don't manifest 'once in a while', they crap out and that's all she wrote.

Devil's in the details

 

[EarthDog]

VRM you meant I believe.

 

[Vayra86]

VRM you meant I believe.

The VRM went hot yes, and the GDDR5x next to that VRM section would exceed max safe temps > dead cards. Main cause is lack of contact/pads on the VRM, heat gets caught in there. It also happens on the 1070, but the lower TDP keeps it in the safe ranges there.

Wasn't a typo

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/678970-evga-responds-to-hot-vrm-area-on-gtx-10-series/

Temps exceed 95C. People who applied overclocks did have VRAM problems as well.

 

[EarthDog]

Odd. Never heard the memory chips dieing... but there was much ado (about nothing) RE: their VRMs dieing. I mean sure, iCX came out, and it isn't a leap to think that was because of the VRM 'issues'... there was a video somewhere showing something about 200 cards of EVGAs had failures on them which was the culprit (a part). I'll see if I can dig it up for clarity.




EDIT: So now its overclocking that did it..... ok.

Did EVGA even respond about VRAM? Their response was all about the VRMs and they are running in spec, etc... I don't recall them ever acknowledging a VRAM issue because of this. In fact, I was there at EVGA, along with several other sites, and talked about the issue when they invited us out to Brea for the 1080 iCX release. They never said a word about RAM to us.