Dodgy Graphics Card Seating

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cycladianpirate

Active member
My graphics card has become a little....difficult. It's an Nvidia GTX 760 which is almost five years old.

Essentially, I lose video completely from time to time. Whereupon I open the case up, take it out and reseat it and it works fine....until the next time.

For my needs, I'm perfectly happy with the performance (when it works) - I'm not a hardcore gamer, video editor or anything like that.

Having said that, I would happily buy a new one save that it occurs to me that the problem may not be with the card itself but rather the PCIE socket on the motherboard - in which case buying a new card would be a waste of money and I would do better biting the bullet and buying another desktop.

Is there any way to check what the problem actually is?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 
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cycladianpirate

Active member
Wow! You, sir, are a star - you also helped me out earlier with a laptop buying dilemma. I thank you again.

The full spec is:

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87M-PLUS: m-ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6.0, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 760 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve



Hardly a "beast" of a machine, but it does me just fine. The motherboard is tiny - and only has one slot for the graphics card, I'm afraid.

Like I said, I'm happy to fork out a few quid for a new card, but the whole machine is knocking on for five years old and I'd rather not throw good money after bad.
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
It might also be simply overheating. Removing and reseating it allows it to cool. What temperatures do you see from your GPU?
 
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cycladianpirate

Active member
Oussebon said:
It looks like it has a 2nd PCIe x16 slot. It also supports quad crossfire, which means it can have 2 video cards at once. So the lower, black PCIe slot should support the GPU, yes?
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z87MPLUS/overview/

And no worries, glad the laptop stuff was useful :)
Click to expand...

Is that PCIe or just PCI? In any event, I shall certainly give it a try the next time the problem occurs. It hasn't packed up since I last posted so don't want to tempt fate!!

As you imply, though, if it doesn't work in the second slot, then it stands to reason that it's the card and not the board.

Thanks.
 
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cycladianpirate

Active member
ubuysa said:
It might also be simply overheating. Removing and reseating it allows it to cool. What temperatures do you see from your GPU?
Click to expand...

I downloaded and used HW Monitor (it was the first thing that showed up on a google search). I subjected the machine to what I guess is the maximum load I've ever given it (playing Skyrim on Ultra settings) and got a max temp of 75 Celsius.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
That's well within the tolerance for the card.

You can use something like Unigine Valley or 3dMark Firestrike benchmarks (both free) to test the GPU under max load if you want.

The dark brown slot is PCIe 2.0 x16. There is very little gaming performance difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 so the performance should be the same in either.
 
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cycladianpirate

Active member
Oussebon said:
That's well within the tolerance for the card.

You can use something like Unigine Valley or 3dMark Firestrike benchmarks (both free) to test the GPU under max load if you want.

The dark brown slot is PCIe 2.0 x16. There is very little gaming performance difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 so the performance should be the same in either.
Click to expand...


Thanks. Next time it goes I'll definitely try the other slot. As for testing under max load, I wouldn't be so cruel as to subject an old geezer like my machine to such a thing :)
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
It should handle it fine. The components are designed for it. If it doesn't e.g. it overheats or crashes, it's not because it's old, it's because there is a problem :)
 
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