The world goes black, do I need a new graphics card?

[Deleted]

Ahoi!

First off, I do have a problem with my PC and I am pretty clueless as to what's causing it, how to fix it, or what i would have to buy, were i be needing new hardware. So I really do appreciate you guys' help and I'll be trying to be as precise as possible with any information you might need.


The problem is, that my PC lately just shut down, whilst I was playing games, screens went black and at most one second later the PC went off.

This happend four times already, now. The first two consecutive times were about a week ago, I was walking through Warspear(WoW) on a 11k+ population realm. The last two times were today in two back-to-back HotS games.
After the incident last week I cleaned the inside of my PC the best I could, hoping it would help, which I thought it did.

I was telling this to a friend and his best guess was, that it is my graphics card causing the problem by possibly getting to hot.
When there is no game running, as far as i could observe the temperature is at about 70-75°C (activity at 0%, fan speed at 60%), at 80-90°C (activity at ~100%, fan speed at ~100%) if there is. I've looked through some forums and those numbers seem to still be ok. Both times my PC shut down by itself temperature was at 105°C+. Besides those games I had Skype, Spotify(off), the BNet App and a browser running.

I've had different problems with my PC in the past, like I guess one bluescreen per year, which for none of them I know the reason for.
Since a couple of months ago every now and then something new came up.
When I've been gone all day and it's cold inside, when I start my PC, it sometimes makes a beep and the message "CPU Fan fail" (or something similar) appears.
When the PC has been on for a while and I need to restart it, it (more often than not) takes a couple of minutes at the "scan-drive-screen" (where my two DVD drives are listed).
And last it (seldom) fails to load Windows.
All of those problems could simply be fixed by just restarting the PC, so I didn't put that much thought into them, supposed it was because the system was getting older.


I will try to make a list of everything that my PC contains, hoping it won't miss anything of importance:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500k, 4x3.30ghz
Motherboard: Asus p8h67 rev 3.0
RAM(16GB): 16384 mb ddr3 pc1600 corsair vengeance black dimm kit - cmz16gx3m4x1600c9
Graphics Card: AMD Sapphire Radeon hd6950, 2gb gddr - 11188-05-20g
Power Supply: 630w be quiet! pure power cm l8-cm-630w
SSD: 128g samsung ssd 830 series pc upgrade kit, sata 6gb/ s - mz-7pc128d
HDD: 320.0gb seagate s-ataii 16mb cache
Monitors: LG W2353 and LG E2251 (1920x1080)
System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Case: Thermaltake Swing Black
3 fans, one in front, one at the back and a smaller one at the side

Most of these parts I bought 4 years ago, but the case, the HDD, the DVD drives and maybe a fan or 2 are about 9 years old.

Core Temp says that three cores are at about 41°C, one at 34°C.

My graphic and texture settings in WoW are on high with shadows on low and view distance on fair and Anti-Aliasing on CMAA.
In HotS everything is set on Ultra, Antialias Off.


When i tried to put in the DxDiag output data it said I was "not allowed to post any kinds of links, images or videos until [I] post[ed] a few times."
So this will have to do it for now. If it's still needed I will try to figure out, what in there counts as a link and edit it, to post it later.


If there is any useful information missing, please ask (had to write the whole thing twice, sadly)!

Thanks everyone for reading this and any help you might have to offer!
Looking forward to hear from you guys, take care!

PS: If it should be new hardware I need, as for the games I play, they're mostly limited to Blizzard games, lots of WoW, HotS and SC2. The last two times I bought new parts for my PC, I spend about 800-1000 Euro, so I'd like new parts to last for the next couple of years, but they don't have to be the absolute best and most expensive that there are.

[Lathais]

That is very hot for an idle speed and getting dangerous at load it sounds like. It is almost certainly your graphics card overheating and shutting off the PC to prevent damage to itself. The rest of your rig is fine, so just replacing that should fix your problem. You could try taking it apart and re-applying thermal paste to see if that lowers temps first if you want or just replace it.

[BicycleMafioso]

Yes, your graphics card is overheating.
How many monitors do you have connected to it? If >1, try to go down to just one.

My guess is that the thermal compound has run out, OR, that you have a large dust-buildup in your graphics card. Another reason could be that a temperature monitor on the card broke so that it estimates the value incorrectly, but it is more unlikely.
I would disassemble (if you trust yourself with that, or ask someone else) and check for dust and thermal compound, wipe it off (alcohol) and apply new.
Make sure you document the process so you can keep track of what went where and how to reverse it - your memory is not that good if it's the first time you are attempting such a thing.

[Deleted]

Thank you for your answers!
Had another person tell me to better disassemble mine and clean it, before buying a new one, so I will try and do this tomorrow with a little help.

[Deleted]

Hello again!

I did what you suggested and cleaned my graphics card really good.
Watched a couple of videos, on how to wipe the old thermal paste off and apply new one.

The only difference I notice now, is that the temperature is falling quicker after it's getting really hot, but it still rises to 105°+.

So, would you happen to have any suggestions for a new one? :>

[Nellah]

Has it always done this? May want to check that your case fans are all running and exhausting heat properly.

How long does it take to reach its cutoff temperature? If it's happening after less than five minutes, the video card isn't cooling itself properly, and you may need to replace the heat sink/fan combo. If it's a longer duration, and if it's a gradual steady climb to 105C, your case ventilation is no longer functioning. I suspect the former, based on your processor remaining cool.

When my 6950's fan stopped due to dust intake, I picked this up for it, and it's working quieter and cooler. Really easy install, too, and the price is right. Only issue is it takes up three slots instead of two, but as long as you don't have anything installed directly under the GPU you'll be fine.