Graphics Card Suddenly Overheating

[Boricha]

EVGA GTX 770 driver 355.60
Windows 10

I had an issue a couple weeks ago when I had Windows 7 and driver 353.62 was causing terrible crashing, but since then I have switched to Windows 10 and driver 355.60.

Had the computer for about a year now and it's never overheated before. Just started last night. Using Open Hardware Monitor, the GPU sits at 35C idle and web browsing, 70C idle in the middle of nowhere in WoW, and as soon as I do something or go somewhere populated it rapidly climbs until crashing.

I see people posting problems about specific games with this driver, but nothing about overheating.
None of the fans are failing.
Minimal dust inside the case.
Heatsink seems to be turning.

Any suggestions?

[BicycleMafioso]

Heatsink seems to be turning.

I'm going to need you to rephrase that, because that can't be what you mean - if it is, that is likely the source of your problem.

Did you install the driver after/in Win 10?
Do you have a manual fan profile set, and if not, have you tried ramping the fan to 85-100% and redoing everything?
Does the noise ramp up a lot?
What kind of cooler do you have on your GPU? eVGA has a few "older type reference" in their custom line of coolers, and they are even more inadequate than nVidias newer type, but their dual fan-solution is pretty OK.

[Deleted]

If the GPU over heats, the performance throttles, if something hardware is crashing like this then most likely its the CPU over heating and most cases that cause this is dust build up in your CPU cooler ( every single friend who reported ingame crashes has always been this ).

Run prime 95 and see if that causes you to crash after a few seconds in, if it does, get something to clean out your heatsink.

- - - Updated - - -

I should add also, doesnt matter if the fan seems to be spinning or the case it self doesn't have a lot of dust in, the heatsink can be clogged inside.

[Boricha]

Sorry, just mean that wheel on the bottom of the card is turning - http://www.evga.com/articles/00748/images/hero/2770.png

Installed the driver after getting Windows 10

I don't have a manual profile. I'll try increasing them, but that can't be the solution to my issue since this just started last night.

Noise doesn't ramp up too much, but the air blowing out of the vent directly against the card increases dramatically. AFTER the card fails, the fans go crazy and noise definitely ramps up.

I don't really know what type of cooler I have, if I have one. I can give you the exact specs of the PC from my old purchase receipt, if that helps (and as I've said, I've since upgraded to windows 10):

Processor 1 x Intel® Core™ i7-4770K Processor (4x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache) - Intel® Core™ i7-4770K
Processor Cooling 1 x Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1150] - Standard 120mm Fan
Memory 1 x 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand **FREE Upgrade to DDR3-1866 ADATA XPG V2**
Video Card 1 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 - 2GB -EVGA Superclocked - Single Card
Motherboard 1 x ASUS B85-PLUS -- 2x PCIe x16, 4x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s, 2x USB 3.0
Power Supply 1 x 750 Watt - Corsair RM750 - 80 PLUS Gold, Full Modular
Primary Hard Drive 1 x 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive
Data Hard Drive -
Optical Drive 1 x 24x Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black
2nd Optical Drive -
Media Card Reader / Writer -
Meter Display -
Sound Card 1 x 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card 1 x Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
USB Expansion Card -
Operating System 1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit
2nd Monitor -
Speaker System -
Webcam -
Advanced Build Options 1 x Tuniq TX-2 High Performance Thermal Compound - The best interface between your CPU and the heatsinks

[Shinzou]

There may be dust in the heatsink if the card is as old as I think it is. The 'wheel' that you see turning is an intake that is pushing air into the heatsink. The hot air would be coming out the holes in the back near the ports. Put your hand back there and see if warm/hot air is coming out, and how hard. If there is little to no air coming out then it likely means a blockage in the heatsink and you will need to blow it out with a can of air.

Also ambient temperature within the case is important. The CPU may be getting warm as well, but they usually run cooler than a video card. If the air within the case is too warm then the video card is just pushing warm/hot air through the heatsink which isn't very helpful.

[Noah37]

Wrap the computer in a blanket and run FurMark. No, seriously the only thing I can think of is dismantle it, make sure all the fans are running, pull all the parts out, dust it all out, make sure everything is plugged in and again make sure all the fans and components seem to be running. If that doesn't work then the GPU may be going bad. I one time had to have a company do some work on my PC a few years back, they sent it back without the CPU fan plugged in and I didn't even think to check. I woke up with the computer beeping and it was shut off. When I moved it to the side the carpet underneath it was melted.

[Boricha]

There may be dust in the heatsink if the card is as old as I think it is. The 'wheel' that you see turning is an intake that is pushing air into the heatsink. The hot air would be coming out the holes in the back near the ports. Put your hand back there and see if warm/hot air is coming out, and how hard. If there is little to no air coming out then it likely means a blockage in the heatsink and you will need to blow it out with a can of air.

Also ambient temperature within the case is important. The CPU may be getting warm as well, but they usually run cooler than a video card. If the air within the case is too warm then the video card is just pushing warm/hot air through the heatsink which isn't very helpful.

Yes, there is a very hot and steady stream of hot air pouring out of holes in the back near the ports.

All of my CPU cores are sitting at 34-38C.

[BicycleMafioso]

Yeah, that's the "older type reference" design I talked about.

Noise doesn't ramp up too much, but the air blowing out of the vent directly against the card increases dramatically. AFTER the card fails, the fans go crazy and noise definitely ramps up.

That sounds like driver crashing to me.
How far have you seen the temperature rise to?

I don't have a manual profile. I'll try increasing them, but that can't be the solution to my issue since this just started last night.

Sure. But if moving more air keeps it from crashing, it keeps it from crashing, right?

[Boricha]

Alright, increasing the GPU fan from 34% (default) to 85% has stopped me from crashing. I'm sitting at 50C standing around in a moderately populated Stormshield (Sargeras-US).

Before it was at 70-75C in Stormshield. Upon entering ashran and my screen filling with 20-40 players casting spells it jumped instantly to 90C and would crash a couple minutes later around 100C.

By crash, I mean black screening and a terrifyingly loud fan noise screaming through the vents.

- - - Updated - - -

My uncle is coming home later with a can of compressed air and we are going to try to blow any dust out of the heatsink, but like I said a bit earlier the flow of air is fine from the holes just underneath the ports on the back of the computer.

[Osmeric]

You might also need to reseat the heatsink, if the thermally conductive goo between it and the chip has come undone.

[Boricha]

UPDATE:

Alright, I used a can of air to clean out the graphics card. Start up idle temp was 29C. Logged into WoW in my Garrison, it shot to 65C almost instantly and then my computer restarted itself and froze on bootup. I turned it off and back on, now it is back to the way it was before - 30C idle on desktop, 70C idle in WoW, 85C+ in Ashran. After a few minutes in Ashran it reaches around 100-103C, black screens and the GPU fan automatically sets itself to 100%. The screen never recovers and the fan never slows despite cold air flowing out of the gpu vents.

I can more or less fix the issue by turning my fans up to ~85%. This brings my idle temps in WoW down to 55C and my highest temps around 85C with no crashing.

Time to RMA the card?

[jstarbuck]

UPDATE:

Alright, I used a can of air to clean out the graphics card. Start up idle temp was 29C. Logged into WoW in my Garrison, it shot to 65C almost instantly and then my computer restarted itself and froze on bootup. I turned it off and back on, now it is back to the way it was before - 30C idle on desktop, 70C idle in WoW, 85C+ in Ashran. After a few minutes in Ashran it reaches around 100-103C, black screens and the GPU fan automatically sets itself to 100%. The screen never recovers and the fan never slows despite cold air flowing out of the gpu vents.

I can more or less fix the issue by turning my fans up to ~85%. This brings my idle temps in WoW down to 55C and my highest temps around 85C with no crashing.

Time to RMA the card?

I have the same issue as the above. My system has never overheated before. I have watercooling and 5 120mm fans. When the system is doing anything other than play wow the vid card stays at around 33c. As soon as I load up the wow launcher(before getting into wow) the temp jumps up to 60c and after loading wow it jumps up to 83c. I think it my be related to the newest drivers from nvidia but will have to wait and see.

[Navox]

I would recommend backreving the drivers to 353.60. I ran into the heat issue with my pc and found a solution to be the drivers.

Working on Hellfire Assault. My framerate tanked down to the point where the game was unplayable. 1fps, frame by frame action.

I am using Windows 10 and an Nvidia GTX 770 card. Rebooted my machine and sat in the garrison and noticed that my frame rate was at a steady 60fps. I didn't think anything of it till I went and checked my vsync settings. Vsync was disabled and I was still getting 60fps.

I rolled the driver back to 353.62. Logged back into game and my frame rate went back to normal.

191fps sitting in my garrison.

[Akainakali]

There was an issue a while back, where the lack of detail in some areas could cause the frame rate to go insanely high and cause the GPU to overheat, which would cause it to throttle and turn things into a slide show.

It can't hurt things to set a maximum frame rate and see if that helps. Really any frame rates higher than your monitor's maximum refresh rate is wasted regardless.