No more Entropia for Wistrels (for a while at least)

Well I had a weird thing go on the other day when in Entropia. My screen went blank all of a sudden and my gfx card got mega loud. I shut down and restarted and all ok.

I just checked back in today to look at the update. Had same thing happen. Tried again (this time running GPU-Z) and realised my Gfx card is jumping from 60C to over 100C... Houston we have a problem.

I presume there is some sort of safety cut out coming in here hence the sudden killing of Gfx output and the roar of the fan (makes me wonder why it doesn't go that fast BEFORE it shuts off the card...). I don't know if this is Entropia or ventilation or something with the card or what.

Options are going to be spend time investigating or swap out the card for my old Crytek one.

I can't see either happening with any massive priority so may not be in much (i.e. few mins at a time) or at all for a while.

Till next time Gadget... next time.

Wistrel

PS for info Gfx is 680gtx

 

Thanks McCormick. This looks like a good "to do" list when I get to it. Some initial answers though:

Driver: Needs updating for sure
GFE: No I don't have it installed
Dirt/Dust: Likely
Overclocked: No
Thermal sensor: Good point! I'll bear it in mind (although the PC case was resembling a radiator so I suspect not)
BIOS: Never personally. I can ask my friend (who gave it to me) and look into doing one
Exact Card: I'd need to check
After Burner: No not heard of it - I can look it up
Screwdriver: Last resort but I can imagine there may be some de-gunging perhaps first.

I should also add in, thanks to the joy of SSDs my PC is (fine generally) but also appallingly looked after (ok, not that bad but it has recovered from a few near fatal OS accidents where, ideally I'd have reinstalled - but I couldn't be arsed once I got it working again) and well overdue some sort of clean Win7 install. It isn't very patched either (due to an a disagreement it had with windows update and a disagreement *I* had with certain MS patches).

My PC is like a car that works great but is going rusty. You know it is gradually tearing itself to bits but it still drives around fine and - y'know life is too short.

 

Update:

Driver: Now on 378.78
GFE: Still don't have it installed :)
Dirt/Dust: ok.... put it this way, there was virtually nowhere for the air to go
Overclocked: Still No
Thermal sensor: I think it is ok given new readings/ old readings and what not
BIOS: 80.04.09.00.01 (P2002-0000) - is this current?
Exact Card: Palit Geforce 680gtx 2048gb DDR5 - SN: NE5X68001042-P2002F
After Burner: Not installed it yet. Palit have something called ThunderMaster, should I install?
Screwdriver: I researched how to take the cover off the card, this was enough to see and clean the mess inside.

Post clean (cleaned a few other bits too):

Gfx Idling at: 33C (down around 20C)
CPU Idling at: 32C (down around 10C)

While I had my head down under the desk, I discovered the exhaust fan was the wrong way round (it was blowing in not out >_>*) and re purposed the fan I took out of a power supply I binned recently, as an intake fan (the correct way round).

I'm hoping this will have sorted the problem....

Wistrel

 

Ahhh interesting - strange, I couldn't navigate to that (only got there via your link). Anyhooo tried it, it said no need to update or not supported. Entirely possible my friend already tried it before he gave me the card. He did say he had issues with it but he'd put it down to running it in a Shuttle...

I guess I'll try entropia

 

So Entropia was fine - temp went up to mid to high 70s which I've read is normal. I have seen the occasional driver crash still when the computer isn't doing much (maybe a web browser open, maybe with a video loaded). I was getting this before all the "hard crashing" happened too but maybe more frequently. I was sort of hoping with the heat sorted it would go away.

I should explain that by driver crash I mean nothing more than I get a pop up bottom right saying it crashed, maybe the screen went dark for a moment too. It comes back fine, so not like the 100C+ shutdowns. When it has happened since the temp fix I have checked the temp and it is mid 30s.

Any thoughts on if I could diagnose what causes it? I appreciate it really could be anything especially with this install being so old and behind on patching. I guess I could hit the windows event log... if anyone has experience of such diagnostics though feel free to share a story.

 

That day needs to start. Clean your computer day.... I propose 20th of March since it is the first day of spring. Spring clean and all that!

Spring Equinox 2017 in Northern Hemisphere will be at 10:28 on
Monday
,
20 March
All times are in United Kingdom Time.

 

McCormick WINDOWS 8.... why would anyone do this! :O

But yeh you and I sound similar... I think my installation may date back to 2009.... that might be the date on the DVD files though... not sure. Regardless I know it is in a bit of a mess. Still the driver crash didn't happen for some days now so think like some of the other problems, I'll ignore them until they become an actual problem....

As the saying goes... if it aint broke, don't fix it

Wistrel

edit: nah it can't be that old... I think the mobo was replaced more recently than that which would certainly have called for a reinstall.