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GTX 280 died and came back to life....! (explanation required)

Associate
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13 Nov 2007
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Hi all, so had a bit of a scare over the weekend. Loaded up BFBC2 and logged in etc., connected to a Server and just after choosing my kit and selecting 'Enter Game' my monitor turned itself off and the LED started to blink (e.g. the way it does when a GFX card is not connected).

Panicked and tried restarting the machine only to hear a very loud beep on bootup (and POST). Checked the error code for my mobo (Foxconn Bloodrage GTI). The code was 'FF' and a quick Google later I discovered this had to do with the GFX card not being detected. I had a closer look and noticed that my GFX card's fan was not spinning.

At this point I though there were 3 possibles:

1. The PSU rail/cable supplying juice to the card had crapped out. But this didn't seem plausible as I would have thought it would all go rather than just the one component.

2. Mobo was fried/PCI-E slot was not working. A worse scenario, and the only way to test would be to take the machine apart.

3. GFX card was dead. This was what I thought had happened. But I needed another GFX card to test. A quick wonder around town revealed nothing worth buying for a quick test. So came home all glum and still a bit worried.

By this point I had opened the case up and checked the connections, even hoovered the tiny amount of dust in there away. Swithced PSU off and on once. Tried to boot it again and it did not work again :( Switched PSU off and on one more time, and tried to boot....

...and it worked!

Ofc I was over the moon about it, but can anyone explain wtf just happened? I still have a little feeling of dread that something is not quite right. Short of buying a multi-meter to test the power, don't know what else could be done to diagnose/resolve this problem if it happens again.

Can anyone shed some light?
 
Soldato
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Could have become loose in the PCI-E slot....if it doesn't give you any more problems over the next few days I wouldn't worry. Keep an eye on temps just in case the fan stops spinning...you aren't using that buggy set of drivers that had fan issues are you?
 
Associate
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A friend of mine had this problem every now and then it would happen and it was because he was using molex to 6/8pin adapters which is fine but he was using 2 off the same rail.

Do you by any chance have the same as above?
 
Associate
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TYVM all for the responses.

Could have become loose in the PCI-E slot....if it doesn't give you any more problems over the next few days I wouldn't worry. Keep an eye on temps just in case the fan stops spinning...you aren't using that buggy set of drivers that had fan issues are you?

It did occur to me that the drivers could hav done it, but I am using the latest set, and when I did load up BFBC2 I had not done any other GPU-intensive tasks during the session.

When I checked the card in the PCI-E slot, it seemed very firm. So I don't think its the slot.

Will definitely monitor temps for the next few days...

A friend of mine had this problem every now and then it would happen and it was because he was using molex to 6/8pin adapters which is fine but he was using 2 off the same rail.

Do you by any chance have the same as above?

Woah! This may be the very issue - I will have to check...however, this is the first time it has happened in over a year? PSU is a 650W Antec Truepower Trio.

So it started working After you unplugged the PSU and then plugged it back in? Possible PSU Fault

Possible...I suppose if it is that the PSU should die shortly?
 
Last edited:
Associate
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PSU's deteriorate over time it may be that its had just enough power for the year or so but has deteriorated to a point where its now on edge all the time whether it can power the card or not on a single rail.
 
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Well had another freak occurrence. PC just randomly shut down and then rebooted. Seems to be normal at the moment and temps on the CPU and GPU are fine....I am definitely starting to suspect the PSU.

Does it sound like the kind of thing a PSU is responsible for?
 
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19 Sep 2005
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I had a corsair 620 watt (good psu and should be more than capable to power that card) in my machine and after a few months I had a similar problem. Screen would go blank, the LED on the back of the card turned red but the pc was still working in the background.

Swapped the PSU and no problems since.
 
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I had a corsair 620 watt (good psu and should be more than capable to power that card) in my machine and after a few months I had a similar problem. Screen would go blank, the LED on the back of the card turned red but the pc was still working in the background.

Swapped the PSU and no problems since.

Decided to post an update for the sake of completion. After my previous post in this thread, I opened my case and rejigged some cables to make sure I was not overloading a single rail. The machine worked fine for a couple of weeks, until this last weekend (8th/9th) when it went on the fritz again. This time, as the poster above describes, the LCD switched off at random (and then more frequently after start-up) while the PC was running in the background.

I finally replaced the PSU with a Corsair HX850 and have so far not had the issue. Still burning it it but it definitely seems to be fixed :)
 
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Quick update -

In August I bought a second GTX 280 (Asus stock) and all was well right until last month, when my BFG GTX 280 OC Pink-Screened on me. I was gutted, and eventually had to remove the card and use the Asus as my primary, with the intention of trying to bake the GTX or just give up and upgrade.

Today I decided to take the Pink-Screening GTX 280 and add it as my secondary card in SLI configuration. So far so good, all benches check out and looks like my SLI rig is resurrected (for now). Will wait and see how this turns out!
 
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