8800GTS 640MB (G80) went apesh!t on me

[Kromis]

Note: I have already RMAed it in to EVGA

For some reason, after I installed a new hard drive, the temps on my card went up 10ºC. Instead of idling at around 56º-58º, it would usually idle now at 68º-70º (more often 70º)

So whenever I tried to play Crysis or Gears of War (maxed out settings) for long periods of time (like say...15-20 minutes), the screen would turn black but I would still hear the sounds in the background. After a while, the sound would start stuttering and whammo, the computer would "shut down". My fans would still be running but there's no activity on the screen.

On an interesting note, after all this, I wasn't able to overclock anymore. For some reason, whenever I attempted to overclock to my normal achievable clock speed (3.2 GHz on my E4300), my display would become black again. If I do a cold boot or reset it, still the same thing. Black. I had to take out a RAM stick and put it back in in order to get things started up again.

So...could anybody explain why these things happened? And is there any correlation between my two problems that happened to occur at around the same times?

 

[Keysplayr]

Define: Installed new hard drive.

New drive with fresh OS on it? Or a secondary drive for storage?
Are you using the same drivers for your GTS as you were before the new drive?
Are you using any 3rd party overclocking/fan control utilities?
What was your o/c on the GTS? And for how long?
Make and model of your power supply.

Lets start there.

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Define: Installed new hard drive.

New drive with fresh OS on it? Or a secondary drive for storage?
Are you using the same drivers for your GTS as you were before the new drive?
Are you using any 3rd party overclocking/fan control utilities?
What was your o/c on the GTS? And for how long?
Make and model of your power supply.

Lets start there.

It was a secondary drive for storage. No OS. Completely new. Seagate 750GB SATA.
Yes, I am using the same drivers for my GTS. Nothing had changed there.
Only program I use to overclock is nTune.
The O/C on my GTS used to be 645/850 but extensive playtime at that speed led to a bit heat and some slowdowns. So I never had it OCed all the time. I left it stock most of the time.
I have a Corsair HX520 power supply. Should be plenty.

Before installing my new hard drive, I was at a happy 3.2 GHz on my E4300 with my card at ~58ºC. And yeah, all hell broke loose afterwards.

Random question but could static do such a thing?

 

[JWMiddleton]

Originally posted by: Kromis

It was a secondary drive for storage. No OS. Completely new. Seagate 750GB SATA.
Yes, I am using the same drivers for my GTS. Nothing had changed there.
Only program I use to overclock is nTune.
The O/C on my GTS used to be 645/850 but extensive playtime at that speed led to a bit heat and some slowdowns. So I never had it OCed all the time. I left it stock most of the time.

Before installing my new hard drive, I was at a happy 3.2 GHz on my E4300 with my card at ~58ºC. And yeah, all hell broke loose afterwards.

Random question but could static do such a thing?

I've installed HDs that got really HOT. No numbers for you, but with the latest one I could not hold for more than a few seconds. I added a HD cooler and things were back to normal. So, I'd suggest that you look at case cooling.

I'd say static is not an issue as I don't think it would cause this kind of problem. If you zapped a part it would die.

 

[v8envy]

Wonder if you put enough pressure on the heatsink to separate it from the GPU while wrestling the HD into place. I know I've accidentally put far more pressure on my graphics card PCB than I'd have liked doing various other upgrades over the years.

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Wonder if you put enough pressure on the heatsink to separate it from the GPU while wrestling the HD into place. I know I've accidentally put far more pressure on my graphics card PCB than I'd have liked doing various other upgrades over the years.

Interesting though. Very interesting thought indeed. But I have a P180 so I didn't need to apply any major pressure to the video card as it uses a removable hard drive cage system. I just had trouble managing the cables.

 

[nitromullet]

Definitely weird stuff. Odd conclusion you reached with this though... You install a new HD, your temps shoot through the roof, you can't OC your cpu anymore, PC starts crashing, and you RMA a video card that has worked fine until now?

Did you try uninstalling the HD first to see if your system went back to normal?
Try a different video card?
Maybe you knocked a fan cable loose during the install?

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Definitely weird stuff. Odd conclusion you reached with this though... You install a new HD, your temps shoot through the roof, you can't OC your cpu anymore, PC starts crashing, and you RMA a video card that has worked fine until now?

Did you try uninstalling the HD first to see if your system went back to normal?
Try a different video card?
Maybe you knocked a fan cable loose during the install?

Nope, I did not try to uninstall the new hard drive. I am currently using a Radeon 3450 at the moment.

I'm pretty sure I didn't knock a fan cable loose.