Before you start flaming me, i don't have much money for this current pc and i don't really care about playing newer, more demanding games so my specs are pretty *** (the 980ti should still be able to run most games pretty well, it almost matches with a 3050 in performance on userbenchmark but i doubt it's true). Welcome to my 2012 build. This is my first janky beginner custom built PC and i'm definitely gonna buy a much better one in the future but it's nice to practice on this and learn a bunch before using more valuable components.
Specs:
- 700w 80 plus bronze PSU ( i also have a spare cheap 500w psu with no pcie cables (a ticking time bomb))
- i5 2400 (i also have a spare i3 2100)
- EVGA GTX 980ti
- 16GB 1333mhz unbranded DDR3 RAM (4 x 4gb)
- Intel DQ67OW motherboard (good luck finding a manual for this mofo)
- 1TB HDD
- 128GB SSD
- AeroCool CS106 case
I bought my 980ti from ebay, and i doubt it came faulty because it came in a 3080ti box and i'm guessing the dude bought an upgrade and sold his baby 980ti for some beginner like me to use in his first build. Maaayybbe it came faulty but i really doubt it, and you will too after reading the next bit. The card requires 600w minimum, which i didn't know before buying, so when i got it, i also bought an adapter with it so that i could connect the power as the 500w psu didn't have pcie cables. I already had an existing adapter (this is adapter hell, rookie mistake to not just buy a better psu with the necessary cables, which i did), meaning the connection went like this: x2 MOLEX from PSU connected into an adapter for x1 6pin PCIe, connected into an adapter which splits that into x2 6+2pin PCIe which i connected into my card. This is extremely dangerous and i am sure this is why the card is faulty. Especially with a 500w psu which is less that the minimum required for the card, combined with the shitty adapter connection... Anyways, excited me boots up the pc and doesn't bother testing the card but just opens up a fairly demanding game and it crashes. PC shuts down. But a restart fixed it. Next i run a stress test which immediately shuts down too. It makes a static sound under high load (coil whine i think). So i figure i just have to use it at low loads until i get a better psu. Streaming on discord and playing geometry dash was enough to shut it down again, although this time a restart didn't fix it. it seemed like the pc was still on, just no output from the card. Restarting gave no output past the pre-windows loading screens which don't require gpu to display. I take the 980ti out and let it rest for an hour (completely cooled down) before testing again to see if it's fully fried, and to my disappointment it didn't work. I do some research and realise how stupid i was. I wait a couple days before testing it one last time to make sure, because i was gonna sell it. Boom it works. I take it out to not risk anything again, and buy a better 700w psu with the necessary cables for power. I put it together, run a stress test (using msi afterburner and kombustor, also had GPU-Z open), and it works at 1280x720 resolution pretty much fully okay. Until i try to fullscreen the window and it completely shuts down again. I figure i should just wait a day again as that worked last time and it did. I run a stress test at 1920x1080p just to see if it can take it and maybe resizing the window was just a software bug that put the gpu under way too much load at once, and it runs well at full resolution but i decide not to risk letting it run for a while as it started making some bad static noise, the more load it was put under. I undervolt the card using MSI afterburner (i don't think i did it properly, i just moved the core clock and memory clock sliders all the way down) just to be safe and make it more stable, and i go about my days trying out a bunch of games carefully to see which ones run and most games do fine, minecraft for example runs flawlessly until i put some demanding shaders on and it starts making that static noise again. Recording in OBS using Nvidia NVENC also performed flawlessly in less demanding games. For a couple of days i was just using it under lower load as i was scared of doing more damage but today i tried a stress test again without undervolting, and it ran for about a minute or two (it didn't make any noise! or definitely less than last time), before shutting down completely again. So now i'm thinking maybe my cpu is shutting down the pc because of overheating (it has an old dry coat of thermal paste, i need to renew that), which could very well be the issue as the cpu might be bottlenecking the gpu because the 980ti is just so much more powerful compared to the i5 2400 which can't really take it and overheats. But if the cpu shut down the pc then it wouldn't explain why the gpu gave no output after a restart. I know it's not the cpu causing no output because it runs completely fine on intergrated graphics if i just plug my display into the motherboard. Maybe there's some link between it and the cpu overheating is causing some kind of problem in the gpu which gets 'faded out' over time meaning it can work again after a couple of hours. The gpu temps usually never go over 85 deg celsius and idle at about 30. The cpu temps can get as high as 85 but i haven't seen it go over.
My next step will be running the stress test again with the card undervolted and see how it does compared to last time. Then finding a better cpu which won't limit the 980ti (i think the best LGA1155 cpu i can buy for this is the i7 3770 or 3770K, but i might go for a lower priced i5 3570K), and getting some thermal paste in place. Or if the undervolted stress test runs fine then i'll save my money and wait to buy newer components.
Thanks for reading all of this and i hope you can point me in the right direction. I will update tomorrow on the undervolted stress test.
Specs:
- 700w 80 plus bronze PSU ( i also have a spare cheap 500w psu with no pcie cables (a ticking time bomb))
- i5 2400 (i also have a spare i3 2100)
- EVGA GTX 980ti
- 16GB 1333mhz unbranded DDR3 RAM (4 x 4gb)
- Intel DQ67OW motherboard (good luck finding a manual for this mofo)
- 1TB HDD
- 128GB SSD
- AeroCool CS106 case
I bought my 980ti from ebay, and i doubt it came faulty because it came in a 3080ti box and i'm guessing the dude bought an upgrade and sold his baby 980ti for some beginner like me to use in his first build. Maaayybbe it came faulty but i really doubt it, and you will too after reading the next bit. The card requires 600w minimum, which i didn't know before buying, so when i got it, i also bought an adapter with it so that i could connect the power as the 500w psu didn't have pcie cables. I already had an existing adapter (this is adapter hell, rookie mistake to not just buy a better psu with the necessary cables, which i did), meaning the connection went like this: x2 MOLEX from PSU connected into an adapter for x1 6pin PCIe, connected into an adapter which splits that into x2 6+2pin PCIe which i connected into my card. This is extremely dangerous and i am sure this is why the card is faulty. Especially with a 500w psu which is less that the minimum required for the card, combined with the shitty adapter connection... Anyways, excited me boots up the pc and doesn't bother testing the card but just opens up a fairly demanding game and it crashes. PC shuts down. But a restart fixed it. Next i run a stress test which immediately shuts down too. It makes a static sound under high load (coil whine i think). So i figure i just have to use it at low loads until i get a better psu. Streaming on discord and playing geometry dash was enough to shut it down again, although this time a restart didn't fix it. it seemed like the pc was still on, just no output from the card. Restarting gave no output past the pre-windows loading screens which don't require gpu to display. I take the 980ti out and let it rest for an hour (completely cooled down) before testing again to see if it's fully fried, and to my disappointment it didn't work. I do some research and realise how stupid i was. I wait a couple days before testing it one last time to make sure, because i was gonna sell it. Boom it works. I take it out to not risk anything again, and buy a better 700w psu with the necessary cables for power. I put it together, run a stress test (using msi afterburner and kombustor, also had GPU-Z open), and it works at 1280x720 resolution pretty much fully okay. Until i try to fullscreen the window and it completely shuts down again. I figure i should just wait a day again as that worked last time and it did. I run a stress test at 1920x1080p just to see if it can take it and maybe resizing the window was just a software bug that put the gpu under way too much load at once, and it runs well at full resolution but i decide not to risk letting it run for a while as it started making some bad static noise, the more load it was put under. I undervolt the card using MSI afterburner (i don't think i did it properly, i just moved the core clock and memory clock sliders all the way down) just to be safe and make it more stable, and i go about my days trying out a bunch of games carefully to see which ones run and most games do fine, minecraft for example runs flawlessly until i put some demanding shaders on and it starts making that static noise again. Recording in OBS using Nvidia NVENC also performed flawlessly in less demanding games. For a couple of days i was just using it under lower load as i was scared of doing more damage but today i tried a stress test again without undervolting, and it ran for about a minute or two (it didn't make any noise! or definitely less than last time), before shutting down completely again. So now i'm thinking maybe my cpu is shutting down the pc because of overheating (it has an old dry coat of thermal paste, i need to renew that), which could very well be the issue as the cpu might be bottlenecking the gpu because the 980ti is just so much more powerful compared to the i5 2400 which can't really take it and overheats. But if the cpu shut down the pc then it wouldn't explain why the gpu gave no output after a restart. I know it's not the cpu causing no output because it runs completely fine on intergrated graphics if i just plug my display into the motherboard. Maybe there's some link between it and the cpu overheating is causing some kind of problem in the gpu which gets 'faded out' over time meaning it can work again after a couple of hours. The gpu temps usually never go over 85 deg celsius and idle at about 30. The cpu temps can get as high as 85 but i haven't seen it go over.
My next step will be running the stress test again with the card undervolted and see how it does compared to last time. Then finding a better cpu which won't limit the 980ti (i think the best LGA1155 cpu i can buy for this is the i7 3770 or 3770K, but i might go for a lower priced i5 3570K), and getting some thermal paste in place. Or if the undervolted stress test runs fine then i'll save my money and wait to buy newer components.
Thanks for reading all of this and i hope you can point me in the right direction. I will update tomorrow on the undervolted stress test.
