Graphics card overheating causing PC to reboot

[MrNessalk]

Lately while playing games I've noticed my graphics card (zotac gtx 970) constantly slowly climb to about 80c and then my PC shuts off. I've never had a problem with this for the 3 years I've had my system so I have a feeling its the thermal paste on my GPU however I can't be sure yet. I've updated all my drivers, removed all dust from my system and even reinstalled windows but nothings helped, in fact I think it's only gotten worse

[Crunchy Dragon]

Try replacing the thermal compound

[Godlygamer23]

It's a little strange that it would shut off at 80C. The GPU can hit 98C.

[MrNessalk]

I reapplied thermal paste which helped a bit. I also manually cranked up the fans just to see what would happen (for some reason they were only on at 48% speed) and that helped significantly. However during similar scenarios my computer still rebooted even though gpu temp was about 52c

 

[Godlygamer23]

10 hours ago, MrNessalk said:

I reapplied thermal paste which helped a bit. I also manually cranked up the fans just to see what would happen (for some reason they were only on at 48% speed) and that helped significantly. However during similar scenarios my computer still rebooted even though gpu temp was about 52c

The GPU temperature is not the cause. Is your card overclocked?