Is my 7811-Fx finished as gaming rig?

Hello everyone. I bought a 7811 a couple years ago and it has been a great gaming rig. Until one day while gaming it froze (picture freeze with sound loop) previously this had only happened once or twice during crysis+slightly oc'd vidcard+ afternoon heat. Although never really freezing this gpu always ran hot for me: hardcore gaming over 90c (under 100c)

Anyway it started happening on softcore gaming as well (dota wc3). So I decided to dissesemble and apply new thermal paste on gpu. I found a semi thick wooly piece of dust covering heatsink exhaust vent.

Since then Temps are down for softcore gaming. But its still freezing (albiet much less) for hardcore (3d) gaming. Making me have to reduce setting and resolution. But sometimes still, the gpu crosses some threshold and then temps just climb until lock-up. The only similar thing ive seen is a desktop vid card with a burnt capacitor, during 3d temps would reach 120c and keep rising until lockup) I saw no burnt capasitors during my dissessembly.

Is this what happens to video cards when they get old?

 

Set the gpu back to stock clocks and let us know if it still does it.

 

Gaming Laptops, unlike desktops, are designed to run at almost 100% capacity. They have to do this to keep size weight and power consumption to a minimum. The flip side to this though is then lowered expected life at full capacity.

Now this could be one of several components causing the issue. First and foremost, and found early on, is the original power brick. They barely generate enough clean power and all are suspect in their quality. The longer you have exposed a system though to a brick supplying questionable power the more damage it can create. Albeit the damage is minimal ANY damage is critical in these. So to some point I credit using a 180w Targus for my systems long life and rock solid performance.

Now if you have a brick that gets anywhere above 120F (comfortable enough to hold tightly for extended periods) something needs to be done. The same goes if it emits sounds or other questionable behaviour. I know others do not follow this beliefe but trust in the fact it is very true.

Every extended lockup and loop can cause damage that can accumulate over time. When this happens the internal cooling stop sensing where the chips are at and it can then just ramp up on temps etc. The other problem is if you are running to the point you experience these you may be running so close to the hardwares limit that you are running the chips to where they are leaking severly hastening electronic degradation even under optimal conditions.

You have already done the cleanup and cooling options so your chioces are minimal now. freebies is to redo the os and start drivers etc from new and as mentioned go to all stock clocks. That may help, you could also spend money try a new brick, memory and cpu. Not that these will do it for you but they may. If you plan to uprgade the cpu get a better brick to power it first.

Personally I would hesitate before throwing money at the issue! Especially since you state you have had it since the early days to some extent. If you were to throw money at it it should have been back then but that does not mean it could have been fixed at that time either.

 

I'm glad I applied thermal paste to my GPU whenever temps would go over 80, right now I recently applied some icd7 to my gpu and cpu and my 9800m gts temps max at 56 degrees under overclocked stressed gaming. My overclocked GPU gets hotter at 3.5ghz and maxes out at about 83. Performs wonderfully though, check out my latest Dragon Age 2 video and see for yourself.

 

This was my first laptop and i have learned much from it. With proper care I know this laptop would have been gaming a least a couple more years. The biggest mistake was waiting so long to dissessemble (the dust was suffocating my vid card). I will try to put a fan on the power brick and see if that helps as it does get quite hot, otherwise i guess its time for a new setup. Hard lesson
Btw i only used to oc for a gaming session(never anymore). Always put clocks back when done.

Thanks all.
Good to see your still gaming on andros

 

It is not the heat of the power brick; it is the fact the brick is loaded to get that hot to begin with. A normal ATX PSU has fans but the caps, transformers and other electronics are of a much higher grade. This means they are meant to handle much higher stress.

If you know someone with a good brick, try it out and see if it helps. The thing is OC under no stress, non gaming, hurts very little to none at all. It will not hurt at all if powermizer is enabled as it auto declocks the GPU, memory and shaders. if powermizer is disabled overclock hurts little as the components are under little stress keeping temps and leakage at bay. It is overclocking and hard gaming that is the killer.

As in Andros system, if you keep temps low you slow down degradation of the components by leakage. Allowing them to heat up excessively then speeds up electronic degradation exponentially. This is the primary reason overclockers, as hobbyists, will go through some fairly extreme measures to get their systems back to within normal temperatures or better.