MSI GTX-970 Gaming 4G Query

VinceGan

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Hi,

I've been using the above card for almost a year now. Initially everything was ok except for occasional TDRs but in the past few months, I've been encountering random system restarts only when I'm gaming. Prime95, memtest86 and OCCT turns out fine after 2hr runs. I am not overclocking my system and the system runs fine when I am not playing games, even video encoding is fine. After upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 7, the problem became worse. Instead of just random freezing or TDR, my system shuts down and then starts up on its own only during gaming. The first games I noticed exhibiting this issue was Killing Floor 2 and Skyforge on nvidia driver 355.60. The problems with those games were resolved in driver version 355.98 but with the recently released Might and Magic Heroes VII the problem became way too frequent.

While I can attribute game crashing to badly optimized drivers or games, I cannot understand why will it shutdown my entire system as if my PSU is dying. Just to be sure, I took out my older Zotac GTX 760 to test. While the games do exhibit stuttering at times, it doesn't power off my system randomly. I am suspecting a faulty graphics card but the symptoms only manifest when running buggy games and I do not have a separate system to test. BTW, it is not a BSOD. I've already set the system to not automatically restart and there were no crash dumps generated. My main specs:

Windows 10 Home (Fresh installation after upgrade)
i7 2600k on Gigabyte Z77x-UD3H cooled by Corsair H80i
2x8GB Corsair Vengeance LP
Corsair HX750 PSU
Samsung Evo Pro 850 250GB

Oh, FYI, GPU-Z temps readings for GPU were at 67-68 degrees celsius and my CPU doesn't exceed 75 at full load. Can I RMA the card? I don't live near AMK and I don't drive so I don't really want to make multiple trips.
 

clon22

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Hi there,

Just to understand the symptoms faced :
Occasional hanging only in games, TDR? and system shutting down?
-What is TDR btw? Driver recovery?
-When it shuts down, does it auto restarts? (If you can borrow a spare PSU from a friend to test would be good.)

In that case, we would suggest leaving the card here for testing to see if we can mimic the problem.
If it does not exhibits any issue, sending back for rma straight away will not help as the factory will just return the card.
Do note that we do not have the games that you mentioned to test but we will try to stress load it as best as we can. :)
(Pls inform our guys of the specific problem when you are here too.)
 

VinceGan

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Hi there,

Just to understand the symptoms faced :
Occasional hanging only in games, TDR? and system shutting down?
-What is TDR btw? Driver recovery?
-When it shuts down, does it auto restarts? (If you can borrow a spare PSU from a friend to test would be good.)

In that case, we would suggest leaving the card here for testing to see if we can mimic the problem.
If it does not exhibits any issue, sending back for rma straight away will not help as the factory will just return the card.
Do note that we do not have the games that you mentioned to test but we will try to stress load it as best as we can. :)
(Pls inform our guys of the specific problem when you are here too.)

TDR is Timeout Detection Recovery. Driver fails to respond within the timeout so Windows will perform recovery. In this case the system is still running though it may freeze and display black screen for a certain amount of time.

In my case it shuts down and auto restarts. I do have a spare PSU but it is more difficult to strip everything out. That is why I tested with an older GPU that is supposed to draw more power than the GTX-970.

Do you have a working GTX-970 you can t-loan to me while you test my card? It'll be easier to isolate the issue rather than stripping my entire system out.
 

VinceGan

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Nope.
Sorry, we do not have spare 970s for T-loan.

Ok. I'll check out with another PSU after my school term in 2 weeks time. But going by what you say, if you are unable to replicate the problem on your test bench that means there's nothing that your side can do right?
 

clon22

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Hi Vince,

Sure, please bring it down after your semester.
If it is caused by a faulty card, judging by the no. of symptoms you are facing,
one or another should show up on our side so don't worry so much.
We will help check for you. :)
 

VinceGan

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Hi Vince,

Sure, please bring it down after your semester.
If it is caused by a faulty card, judging by the no. of symptoms you are facing,
one or another should show up on our side so don't worry so much.
We will help check for you. :)

Ok, let me focus on graduating first hahaha. It's almost time for me to do a system overhaul anyway so I am considering what are my available options. I'll probably get a new casing and PSU first as the rivets are coming off my current casing. My cables are routed in tight space with quite a bit of cable ties so I am very reluctant to mess with it now.

Funny that it doesn't crash on Unigine Heaven benchmark, Furmark, OCCT but I just confirmed yesterday that it restarts in 3DMark Demo standard tests.

Anyway, I'll let you know again. Thanks!
 

VinceGan

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Couldn't resist. Got a new PSU and stripped off all my cable routing. Able to complete 3Dmark demo benchmarks now. Even Heroes VII which is horribly optimized at the moment just crashes to desktop rather than restarting the entire system. Going to RMA my 4 yo Corsair HX750 instead. Thanks again!
 

clon22

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Oh, apologies missed your reply.
Thanks for the update.
Let me know if there are still any problems if it still persists after that. :)
 
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