Life of a GTX 470

[shady28]

I have disaster happening with my GTX 470, you can read all about it here and feel free to help if you think you can.

1. Is there some foolproof way to know if the card is in fact dead? Could it be dead in 4 years with regular use?
2. Guys here were great in recommending this card when I got it a few years ago. I'd love opinions for a new card. My needs in order...
- Full HD (1080p) video editing with Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere (no special effects, splice and edit with sound)
- Full HD video watching
- Exporting DVI or HDMI to my TV (can't currently use HDMI out on the GTX470 because my case blocks the port)
- Gaming. I don't need to be able to run Assassin's Creed Unity on HIGHEST graphics, but I'd like to play in 1080p without problems at a good quality.

Thanks guys. This community always rocks.

Do you have access to a known working Nvidia GPU?

If you do, you can swap it in and see if the issue goes away.

If it does go a way, you have 2 possibilities :
1 - You have a PSU problem, and the card you swapped in draws less power so isn't triggering the issue.
2 - The 470 is bad.

If it does work it (mostly) rules out a host of issues including driver or OS corruption, bad CPU, bad mainboard, etc etc.

 

[tinpanalley]

Do you have access to a known working Nvidia GPU?

I don't. This one that's causing problems is the only one I have.

 

[shady28]

I don't. This one that's causing problems is the only one I have.

Have a 2nd computer with a PCI-e slot by any chance, that you can plug the 470 into?

 

[tinpanalley]

Have a 2nd computer with a PCI-e slot by any chance, that you can plug the 470 into?

Sadly, no.

 

[tinpanalley]

Some questions if anyone can help out...
1. A card that takes more power vs one that takes less power. Why do both exist? Are there benefits to the card that takes more power? I can't imagine why you'd want that on purpose? I'm missing something obviously.
2. What are the specs I'm looking at on a card to determine things related to editing power? These cards all talk a lot about their gaming abilities but not about other applications.
3. Every chipset or GPU seems to be made by several different manufacturers at a wide range of price points. Why exactly is there so much variation and does it matter which one you get?

 

[shady28]

Some questions if anyone can help out...
1. A card that takes more power vs one that takes less power. Why do both exist? Are there benefits to the card that takes more power? I can't imagine why you'd want that on purpose? I'm missing something obviously.
2. What are the specs I'm looking at on a card to determine things related to editing power? These cards all talk a lot about their gaming abilities but not about other applications.
3. Every chipset or GPU seems to be made by several different manufacturers at a wide range of price points. Why exactly is there so much variation and does it matter which one you get?

More performance within the same generation of video cards generally takes more power. So if you want max performance, you generally have to go with more power hungry cards which also emit more heat.

Newer cards give a lot more performance / watt.

You can see good examples of this on AT under the 'Bench' link, select GPU 2014 and pull up a GTX 750 Ti and compare to a GTX 560 Ti. The 750 Ti beats the 560Ti in all but a few benchmarks, but in the power draw measurements the 560 Ti pulls about 120W more than the 750 Ti under load.

750 Ti is the most power efficient card around right now, it is not the fastest for the $ though. It competes in price against the R7 265 and the R9 270 from AMD. So you have performance / watt vs performance / $$.

I think you will find a 750 Ti and anything faster will be noticeably faster than the 470 you have.

That said, there may be nothing wrong with your 470.

If you have no other PCs to test with, the only thing I can think of is to eliminate the OS / drivers. If you have a 2nd hard drive with nothing on it, or whose data can be moved somewhere, you can try to do a fresh Win 7 install to it. If that works, it means that game you installed before the issue occurred fragged something in the OS and/or drivers.

 

[tinpanalley]

750 Ti is the most power efficient card around right now, it is not the fastest for the $ though. It competes in price against the R7 265 and the R9 270 from AMD. So you have performance / watt vs performance / $$....you can try to do a fresh Win 7 install

Firstly, thanks for the amazing breakdown. That makes alot of sense. I'll have to look at those three cards in order of quality because according to Amazon France they're all in my price range.
As far as a fresh Windows install that sounds like a good idea too because I have plenty of blank HDDs to use. I wish there was some definitive way to know whether there was anything wrong with the card. You can check out the thread where I was troubleshooting it to see if it sparks any ideas about what to try. I feel like I've tried everything.

 

[shady28]

Firstly, thanks for the amazing breakdown. That makes alot of sense. I'll have to look at those three cards in order of quality because according to Amazon France they're all in my price range.
As far as a fresh Windows install that sounds like a good idea too because I have plenty of blank HDDs to use. I wish there was some definitive way to know whether there was anything wrong with the card. You can check out the thread where I was troubleshooting it to see if it sparks any ideas about what to try. I feel like I've tried everything.

I looked at the thread earlier, I've had / seen similar issues before.

When a piece of hardware fails often the thing that gets reported is a "driver" failure. This can be because the hardware is not doing what it is supposed to do, so the software faults out.

Of course, it could also be a corrupt file, incorrect settings in the registry, etc etc.

I just think it's easier to do a quick re-install of Win 7 on a clean HDD. Download some kind of video benchmark if you get through the install without a BSOD. If it works and the BSOD goes away and isn't coming back, then buying a new video card won't fix the problem This is the best outcome.

If it still BSODs, all that it will mean is that you have a hardware issue. The most likely suspect is your video card, and 2nd choice would be the power supply.

I would hate to rec a new video card only to find that it has nothing to do with the problem

 

[tinpanalley]

I just think it's easier to do a quick re-install of Win 7 on a clean HDD.

Ok, how exactly does this work? I run the Windows installer but I install it to this new HDD and then when the computer reboots it will reboot from that drive instead? Won't that cause any problems with my current C drive because the internal components and registry entries are already tied to my current Windows installation which could cause a problem when I go back to my current C drive?

Download some kind of video benchmark if you get through the install without a BSOD.

Can you recommend one? I wouldn't know where to look.

2nd choice would be the power supply...

But then any other internal component could have had problems as well and everything else is running perfectly.

Thanks!

 

[shady28]

Ok, how exactly does this work? I run the Windows installer but I install it to this new HDD and then when the computer reboots it will reboot from that drive instead? Won't that cause any problems with my current C drive because the internal components and registry entries are already tied to my current Windows installation which could cause a problem when I go back to my current C drive?
Can you recommend one? I wouldn't know where to look.
But then any other internal component could have had problems as well and everything else is running perfectly.

Thanks!

I would just remove the current C:\ drive and replace it with one of your other drives, then install from scratch. That way no chance of overwriting your data during the re-install. It probably won't take more than 1hr to install and then you'll know if it's a software/config issue or hardware.

You can download 3dMark basic edition here :

http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark11

Or basic edition of Heaven benchmark :

https://unigine.com/products/heaven/download/


If it fails to be stable after a clean install then yes, you still have an issue of 'what piece of hardware failed'. The Video card and PSU are most likely culprits because the driver that is failing is an nvidia driver.

 

[ArisVer]

For your new test installation, DISCONNECT ALL other disks and keep the one you are installing to. Otherwise you might screw the MBR of your original disk.

 

[MrK6]

I posted in your other thread too, but it would be very odd for changing software to cause a complete hardware failure (not impossible given the limited info, but rare). Try some of the suggestions I posted there.

 

[tinpanalley]

UNRELATED...
I want to get the attention of a mod that can move the posts from #32 onwards to the thread where I'm getting help with my current GPU. I just don't want the two doing the same thing, makes it all confusing. If anyone can help out, thanks.

 

[tinpanalley]

But your system works perfectly on the onboard gpu if you remove the 470?
edit: nevermind, you have a z68 board without display outs...

ACtually, mine does have VGA display outs.

 

[tinpanalley]

Deleted.. This doesn't belong in this thread, I'll begin another one.

 

[tinpanalley]

Ok, just picked up the Sapphire R9 280. I'll be installing it later today. Thanks for all the help and input, everyone. Really made choosing this card much easier and less daunting. And I learned more along the way.