Intermittent flicker evidence of graphics card damage?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by Chris22963, Oct 3, 2015.

  1. Chris22963

    Chris22963 Guest

    Messages:
    4
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    GTX 780 3GB
    Apologies in advance for a rather long question...

    So I have this EVGA GTX780, which was working fine on my trusty old Sandy Bridge PC - I'd had it for a month or so after buying it second hand. Then unbeknownst to be, the rubber retaining bands that held the CPU fan on to my Dark Rock cooler, which had obviously been perished for a long time, finally failed. The CPU fan fell on to the back of the 780, and made a hell of a clattering racket for about 3 seconds before I could get to the power switch.

    I couldn't see any obvious signs of damage to the 780, wired the CPU fan back on, and fired up the PC, holding my breath....

    It all seemed fine. All my three monitors worked fine in Windows, and when I ran a FurMark, the temperature increased to a max of 80 degC as it had before, the fans on the 780 sounded perfectly normal. Playing Elite was also normal. I thought I'd got away with it. I also updated the driver since GE Force Experience had been telling me there was a new one.

    But then.... every few minutes all three monitors would flicker briefly and then return to normal. Sometimes it wouldn't happen for a while, and sometimes it would happen several times a minute. Completely random, it seemed, no pattern that I could see.

    After a while I could stand the intermittent flicker no longer and replaced the 780 with an older 660 Ti that I have. Result - no more flickering. Booo, I thought, probably the card is damaged after all :cry:

    The plot thickened when I finished my new Skylake build... I thought I'd try the 780 in the new machine.

    Result - still no flickering. It was absolutely fine for a week... until now. The flickering is back. Card still performing perfectly other than all three monitors flickering briefly once every minute or few.

    So here's the question - is this occasional flicker a sign of damage? The card now misbehaves in two computers, but it's still very strange - could the card still be working so well apart from this if the impact from the whirling fan had cut through something?

    Reluctant to splash out on a new card if there's a possibility I'm missing a completely different cause of the problem...

    Would be grateful for any ideas... :thumbup:
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2015
  2. xeph

    xeph Guest

    Messages:
    370
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    MSI GTX 970 1480/7200
    well if it wasnt flickering like mad before the fan fell on it, it does sound like it could of been damaged.
     
  3. Chris22963

    Chris22963 Guest

    Messages:
    4
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    GTX 780 3GB
    Yes I get that - it does seem to be the obvious answer. But like I say, it's working fine apart from the intermittent flicker, and it can go quite a while without flickering at all.

    For instance last night I discovered how to use the nVIDIA control panel to span Elite: Dangerous across all three monitors :eyebrows:, played for about an hour and a half (at about 50% GPU load mostly) without it flickering once.

    And come to think of it, it's now flickering a lot less than it was when I was still using the i7-2600K.

    I'm just wondering if there could be another cause of intermittent flicker - like a spike in the PSU output for one of the monitors perhaps.

    I'll try and clear some of the crap off my desk and video the monitors for a while, maybe showing what it looks like will make someone go "ah that sort of flicker... yes that's usually caused by...."

    I live in hope :)
     
  4. Seketh

    Seketh Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    1,899
    Likes Received:
    6
    GPU:
    RX 580 8GB
    Have you tried a different cable/output? It's a bit of wishful thinking, but I had a flickering issue on my 760 which was solved by simply reversing the HDMI cable. Weird, I know, but it worked.

    You could also try disassembling the card cooler, cleaning it, replacing the thermal paste and making sure everything is properly attached. Won't hurt at this point, I guess.
     

  5. stereoman

    stereoman Master Guru

    Messages:
    883
    Likes Received:
    179
    GPU:
    Palit RTX 3080 GPRO
    I had a nasty situation a few years back where an AIO watercooler malfunctioned, leaking coolant all over everything including my geforce 670, slightly different to your situation but once I got everything out and dried I replaced the card and everything seemed fine but after a few hours the card would start flickering, in the end I had to remove the fan and heatsink thoroughly cleaned the card with alcohol stuff, cd cleaner fluid, I then replace the thermal compound and I even bought some thermal pads for the ram, anyway after re assembling eveything the card worked fine, no issues for years in fact it ended up being the best overclocker in my sli setup, so yeah maybe try replacing the thermal compound, you never know might fix it.
     

Share This Page