Is my GTX 1080 dying?

[BcrdRqs]

So hi there, I have the following situation (sorry for the long explanation):

 

I bought my MSI NVIDIA GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G in late August 2016 and until last week I was more then happy and never had any issues. (Other then the factory overclock, the card is not additionally overclocked)

 

But last week while playing Vermintide 2 I noticed the first issues in form of what seemed to be lags at first. The game would slow down (almost like slow-motion but not freezing) and after a few seconds the game speed would increase significantly (probably to compensate the lost time?). This occurred only for me and while playing with friends they mentioned that my in-game movement is very strange when this is happening but for them the in-game time is not affected and they do not have any issues. 

 

After ruling out the possibility of internet/connectivity issues, I dug deeper into the matter with MSI Afterburner and discovered that these "hiccups" coincide with a massive drop in GPU and CPU- usage (see Spoiler). Additionally I realized that my GPU temperature is unfamiliar high and reaching it's temperature limit of 83C. So my conclusion was that the card probably must be thermal throttling (Last week was extremely hot and the room temp went up to 32C and higher). In an attempt to temporarily circumvent the issue, I increased the Temp Limit in Afterburner to it's maximum of 92C and at first that seemed to have resolved the problem. 

 

But this week, even though the room temperature went down to ~25C again, the same issued arose but now at the elevated Temp Limit of 92C. Since that did not solve the problem, I did set the Limit again to it's default value and instead tried to decrease the in-game graphics settings from extreme to high. Even though the GPU usage did not reach 100% with the new setting, the temperature reached the max of 83C and the hiccups occurred.

 

At this point I suspect that something is either wrong, dying or already dead and I'm looking for help to further specify if the card has an real issue and what might be the exact case. (Since the card is not completely 2 years old, German warranty might save me if i can confirm the card really has an issue). Or otherwise seek for confirmation if the card displays completely normal behavior.

 

Other things I checked so far:

- I reran the 3DMark Fire Strike Extrem benchmark and discovered that compared to my last run in December (10028 points), I got lower scores (9868 and 9917 points). I have not changed any settings of my PC since then.

- I conducted a ~12 min FurMark stress test (see Spoiler).

- About an hour ago I tried to log the Afterburner data for another Vermintide 2 run, but did not have any "hiccups" for this run. What is kinda noteworthy, is that the Core Clock steadily throttled to 1683 MHz at the end of the run (see Spoiler)

 

If anyone could provide some insight to the issue and maybe help determining what is happening, that would really help me out.

 

Thank you very much in advance

 

 

Afterburner Screenshots are in the Spoiler section:

Spoiler

"Hiccups" while playing Vermintide 2:

 

 

12 Minutes of FurMark and returning back to Idle with Fan-less operation:

 

Latest and more detailed Vermintide 2 run:

 

 

 

[ChernobilChuck]

It seems your GPU is thermal throttling, if it reaches it's temp limit than the hiccups occur it means it drops the core clock to reduce the temperature of the card, i would check afterburner to see on what % the fans are running, maybe set it to higher. Also it's quite rare but it happened to me, maybe check your card if the fans are even running, i had similar issues when one of my fans died on the GPU, 

[BcrdRqs]

Fans are definitely running under load. As for the % speed, according to afterburner and the attached pictures of the first post they go up to about 82%. At idle state the card also goes into zero fan mode without showing problems in this direction.

 

The occurring throttling is without any question. The main question is whether the occurring amount of throttling is "normal" for this kind of card or if the card should throttle at all, especially since I did not recognize any kind of issues in the past 2 years. It's just too lang ago since I checked the GPU temps the last time to remember exactly, but I have the vague memory that the card never reached it's max temp under load before.

[Beowulff83]

Make sure your gpu heatsink is cleaned out with canned air.  Also you could try removing heat sink and re-applying thermal past and check again.

[AugOwnz]

Either dust or more likely, the thermal paste has gone to hell.

[BcrdRqs]

Today I replaced the thermal paste with Noctua NT-H1 and checked for dust but there wasn't anything noteworthy, since the case has a dust filter. 

Sadly this did not affect the problem, but what I realized was directly after starting the pc the temperatures were rising more slowly.

I opened the side panel of my case to allow for a better airflow and the card seems to stabilize at 80C without any throttling.

But 80C for an open case still seems way to high from what I would have expected. 

I also rechecked some reviews for the card and most of them mention load temps in the low 70s. 

 

[glenalz81]

19 minutes ago, BcrdRqs said:

Today I replaced the thermal paste with Noctua NT-H1 and checked for dust but there wasn't anything noteworthy, since the case has a dust filter. 

Sadly this did not affect the problem, but what I realized was directly after starting the pc the temperatures were rising more slowly.

I opened the side panel of my case to allow for a better airflow and the card seems to stabilize at 80C without any throttling.

But 80C for an open case still seems way to high from what I would have expected. 

I also rechecked some reviews for the card and most of them mention load temps in the low 70s. 

 

Can you post a picture of your system?

[Princess Luna]

16 hours ago, BcrdRqs said:

- I conducted a ~12 min FurMark stress test

Probably why it's dying lol

[DOGEY]

Hi, My answers may not be really helpful. But i will try my best to see what's the problem. First it can be dust. Just like my pc before 2 days the tmp got up with 10°C. And i go to the pc store in my town and i got a compressed air. After that i cleaned my pc and the tmp dropped with 10°C (From 60 to something like 52~56). So try to clean your pc. Second Thermal paste is dying or the fans on your graphics card or the fans on your box are dying. If you have pc box with glass you will be able to see what's going in your pc. Your fans may struggle a bit and workbut cause problems? idk. For the thermal paste try to get one for graphics card Link here for Amazon: https://amzn.to/2vDL5T0 i think cpu thermal paste works too? But to know that open your graphics card guide here if you need it:https://bit.ly/2MgXvdK If nothing works get your card to a store to replace it or repair it.(EDIT): I see your post that you replace literaly everything that my cause the problems. Even you check your dust fillers. Maybe just like you said the tmp for the card is normally in the low 70s. Or buy more fans for your case./Get water cooling for your card. I know that you have good cooling but maybe the water cooling with lower the tmp.

[DOGEY]

Just try to replace the card if you see more problems lately.

[Mick Naughty]

Msi card, need a real cooler. 

[BcrdRqs]

On 8/13/2018 at 6:54 PM, glenalz81 said:

Can you post a picture of your system?

Here is a picture of the system:

Case is a Fractal Define C TG

 

Spoiler

 

I think I somewhat have a temporarily solution approach by limiting the Power Limit to 65%. With this, the GPU throttles to about 1730 MHz which funnily enough is the advertised boost clock of the 1080 at nvidia.com and the temperature max is about 79C which is somewhat acceptable but still quite high.

[J.b091]

I had a bit similar situation but without lags/hicups. I had GTX 780ti reference version (will never buy any reference card ever!) & it was very hot. In games it was reaching 92 degrees or so & when it was happening fps was dropping down, because it was dropping the core clock to reduce the temperature of the card. I disassembled card & changed thermal paste, but it didn't help. Best what I did, set fans at 100%, which was helping a bit, but it had horrible big sound like a jet. Later finally I managed to sell that card with very low price because of heat issues and bought new GPU - GTX 1070 of Gibabyte brand with 3 fans on it. This one. And mate, it's so silent and so cool you can't even compare to that horrible jet like reference creature I had before. My opinion is to always buy GPU with 3 fans, as more fans, more easily they cool video card and thus remain silent as well. Plus, personally I don't like MSI brand (have their motherboard and it came with almost broken part), neither like their 2 fans video cards, my friend also had issue with his msi GTX 760, with fan coiling or something... My advice would be to sell that card and get new one with 3 fans like Gigabyte or Asus version.

[Mick Naughty]

9 minutes ago, J.b091 said:

GTX 780ti reference version (

Sounds like a case/airflow problem. 

I have the same card and can sit in the 50’s if I wanted to. Also reference doesn’t determine the cooling style. 

 

Op’s issues is I being a poor designed cooler that was never meant for a 1080. Along with using a front rad thus limiting airflow even more. 

[J.b091]

15 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

Sounds like a case/airflow problem. 

I have the same card and can sit in the 50’s if I wanted to. Also reference doesn’t determine the cooling style. 

 

Op’s issues is I being a poor designed cooler that was never meant for a 1080. Along with using a front rad thus limiting airflow even more. 

No. Case has excellent airflow and all other parts also had good temperature.

And yes, reference determines cooling style. Compare 1 cooler of reference card which takes out heat outside and to 3 fans which blow cool air directly on the radiator. Definitely non reference cards are much cooler comparing to their reference versions because of their cooling style and increased amount of fans.

[Mick Naughty]

11 minutes ago, J.b091 said:

No. Case has excellent airflow and all other parts also had good temperature.

And yes, reference determines cooling style. Compare 1 cooler of reference card which takes out heat outside and to 3 fans which blow cool air directly on the radiator. Definitely non reference cards are much cooler comparing to their reference versions because of their cooling style and increased amount of fans.

You do realize they make reference boards with open air coolers. They don’t cool better in every scenario. I guarantee a reference blower would put perform an Msi open air cooler in that case. Same if you have multiple cards. Same with limited airflow and/or space. 

 

Isnt apples to apples unless you make YouTube videos and do horrible comparisons on an open test bench. 

[glenalz81]

13 minutes ago, J.b091 said:

And yes, reference determines cooling style.

I always thought reference refers to the PCB, kinda still do but then there's info like this from MNPCTech,

 

[J.b091]

7 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

You do realize they make reference boards with open air coolers. They don’t cool better in every scenario. I guarantee a reference blower would put perform an Msi open air cooler in that case. Same if you have multiple cards. Same with limited airflow and/or space. 

 

Isnt apples to apples unless you make YouTube videos and do horrible comparisons on an open test bench. 

You do realize I was talking about reference model of GTX 780ti which blows out heat from card and has inferior system of cooling comparing to 3 fans cooling system that  cools radiator better? There's no way reference 1 fan cooler will cool video card better than non reference with 3 fans.

[Mick Naughty]

Just now, J.b091 said:

You do realize I was talking about reference model of GTX 780ti which blows out heat from card and has inferior system of cooling comparing to 3 fans cooling system that  cools radiator better? There's no way reference 1 fan cooler will cool video card better than non reference with 3 fans.

You wonna put money on it? There are plenty of scenarios in which it would. I have the same card and mine never got out of the 70’s. Same when they have open air coolers on them. 

[Mick Naughty]

4 minutes ago, glenalz81 said:

I always thought reference refers to the PCB, kinda still do but then there's info like this from MNPCTech,

 

That’s the issue. There are non reference blower style cards too. So going off what they say, it would be better than reference, which isn’t the case. 

[J.b091]

4 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

You wonna put money on it? There are plenty of scenarios in which it would. I have the same card and mine never got out of the 70’s. Same when they have open air coolers on them. 

So what? what you want to say with that? I recommended op to sell his card and get new one and with 3 fans, which is more efficient with cooling than your 1 fan version. My GTX 1070 never reaches even 70 in heavy gaming.

[Mick Naughty]

1 minute ago, J.b091 said:

So what? what you want to say with that? I recommended op to sell his card and get new one and with 3 fans, which is more efficient with cooling than your 1 fan version. My GTX 1070 never reaches even 70 in heavy gaming.

Maybe you aren’t understanding that it’s an airflow issue along with a crappy design. An evga card with two fans will cool just a fine. Just because it has 3 doesn’t mean it’s the best. Put a strix in there and it will still be hot and louder having smaller fans. Which is the issue having more. Also can’t compare a weaker card it comparison to heat output.

[J.b091]

3 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

Maybe you aren’t understanding that it’s an airflow issue along with a crappy design. An evga card with two fans will cool just a fine. Just because it has 3 doesn’t mean it’s the best. Put a strix in there and it will still be hot and louder having smaller fans. Which is the issue having more. Also can’t compare a weaker card it comparison to heat output.

I understand very well. Maybe it's you who doesn't understand. I didn't say that all 2 fans cards are crappy, yes they will perform fine, but comparing to 3 fans versions, they will perform worse with cooling. Say whatever you want, I'm done arguing with you. Plz don't quote me anymore.

 

to OP: If you will change GPU and get new one, get Asus Strix or Gigabyte version with 3 fans. That's my recommendation. Good luck.

[Mick Naughty]

Lol hard to explain this to such when the concepts aren't understood.

 

Same clock speed, same fan speeds. But a pair of blower cards.

 

Guess what, the temps are lower, how does that work? 

 

The agreement is over because im right. I already hard a 3 fan cooler and a two fan and blowers. I know what works in situations. 

 

Some people just don't know what they are talking about, so op if you want some real options for a fix just ask.

[BcrdRqs]

39 minutes ago, J.b091 said:

to OP: If you will change GPU and get new one, get Asus Strix or Gigabyte version with 3 fans. That's my recommendation. Good luck.

My current plan for the next GPU would be an AIO Model with it's rad at the exhaust of the case. That at least in my theory should keep the card as cool as possible and avoid high temperatures inside the case in general since the hot air will get immediately blown out of the case.