Issues (?) with GTX 970

[SpacePumpkin]

Hi all,

 

I've owned an MSI GTX 970 for a good two years now, and I think it's probably the most unstable card I've ever owned. I first noticed an issue with it when I upgraded to Windows 8.1 from 7 (I hated Win8 so delayed it as long as possible - until the Rift required it), the HDMI port would only work during BIOS screens and stop working as soon as it hits windows. At the time I did some extensive testing with a variety of different NVidia drivers across 7/8.1 and 10 but could never get it to work (just no signal as soon as windows loads). I've learnt to put up with this and just not use HDMI (which may have been a mistake - probably should have RMA'd for this). 

 

The second issue I got when installing a new Windows 10 (I don't use 7/8.1 now) was that plugging my third screen (thru DSUB to DisplayPort adapter) caused the drivers to crash and Windows would flick between the desktop and a solid grey colour every few seconds. My theory is that Windows attempts to download and install a display driver automatically that conflicts with something (as not even installing the NVidia drivers after this helps). To get fresh installs to work, I install and disconnect from the internet until I've installed the NVidia drivers myself, then it works without any problems. 

 

My third issue was that I tried upgrading to Ryzen the weekend they shipped and the card was really unstable with it. Games would crash (passmark wouldn't even finish tests) and the card made audible whining noises under load. I originally posted on reddit for help on this (Post) but I ended up RMA'ing the entire upgrade and using my old hardware in a budget case (which is what I'm on now). My theory is the motherboard was faulty and wasn't communicating properly with the graphics card. However, if the card turns out to be rogue then maybe that was why my ryzen upgrade was deemed a failure. For clarity's sake, on my normal system, I don't get any whining and games work fine (DX:MD is playable on high preset) 

 

Not that money should matter here, but I am a student with very limited funds (I'd been saving for ages for the upgrade) and so I don't have the time or money to just buy new parts to test what the faulty component is. The first two probems listed above are just small minor things that I can live with, but I thought it was worth mentioning in case there's something bigger wrong with the card. I plan to retry the ryzen upgrade in a few months after my exams and deadlines are past (3rd year uni student - woo!) so it would be nice to know if I should just scrap the gfx card and get another in the upgrade. 

 

Any ideas on what I should do? pretty sure my RMA has expired for the card now so its either fix myself or buy a new one. I'd love to know what's wrong with it

 

Thanks!

[TheRandomness]

Run the card through a few benchmarks. Also, the whining is just coil whine, and that's basically normal. 

[GuruMeditationError]

I'd say scrap it (personally I'd have RMA'd it at that first issue, but then these days I expect to have to return everything I buy, especially dealing with eBay and Amazon sellers (at least 30% of everything I buy from private sellers is bait'n'switch or faulty (generally people using me to defraud eBay's money back guarantee scheme) it's just become part of my expectation and routine for buying stuff online and one I've had to adopt because I'm an ethical and honest seller and can't afford to loose on both ends, but...I digress).

...but yeah...run it through some benchmarks and see how it holds up; you might be able to find a build it'll suit that could serve as a backup P.C., or someone here might be able to help you troubleshoot what's up with it.

 

Also, if you're folding on the graphics card, that could be a cause of the whine...I had terrible terrible trouble with my 970 when it arrived and it turned out it was the capacitors hitting their resonant frequency and ringing like tuning-forks when I was running a folding@home client...(not saying that's definitely what it is but, if it is and if it's just doing that for you as a result of the general day to day load you're putting on it (outside of stuff like running distributed computing clients) then you could try powering it on different rails or just maybe over or underclocking it very slightly to try and get the load to change...

...but to be honest, personally, I'd cut my losses with that card, it sounds like it's just not working out for you...you might be able to sell it to an enthusiast that relishes a challenge but apart from that, maybe hang onto it to stick in a back up p.c., if you can find a build that it'll work with.

[SpacePumpkin]

Thanks for the replies. I've run passmark and furmark on the current system (where massmark will run no problems). I do wanna add though, the whining noise is not noticeable in the old configuration. Running the mandel test you could hear a repetitive high pitch "shoom" noise in the Ryzen build, this one is unnoticeable. I've attached a passmark comparison from when I did manage to get a complete reading with passmark on the ryzen build.

 

I'm edging towards just buying a new one, and keeping this one as a backup PC. Hopefully Vega will be out by the time I re-attempt (and for a reasonable price). In some respects I wish this card had just died completely but I'm glad I can still do the work I need to in the mean time