I think my GPU may be in trouble

For the past two days, while playing FFXI (not a very demanding game), there have been a few instances where the game will stop responding and freeze on the current frame for 2-10 seconds. (It's not network lag.) When this happens, I can alt+tab to other applications, but not back into FFXI. At other times, the screen's gone black completely (although music from iTunes eventually started playing again, then stopped again), and I've had to hard shutdown. Am I correct in assuming that this probably points to an overheating GPU, and, if so, what should I do? I've been playing this game for years and years and only just yesterday started having this problem. I'm at school right now, and the only screwdriver I have with me is too big to open the case, but I'm going to try to get a smaller one ASAP and see if there's a lot of dust in there. Other than that, I'm not really sure how to proceed. Am I just screwed?

 

A few simple steps to follow for initial troubleshooting:

1)Check your temps (idle and load)
2)Clean the system from dust (vents, fans, etc)
3)Reapply thermal material (paste and pads)
4)Update/re-install drivers.

I don't think the GPU is gone, but some overheating and/or driver problem might be present.

 

Running HWMonitor in the background will record your max temps.

 

Thanks, I'll look into it. Around how high is normal?

 

Depends on your system, about 80 is acceptable I guess.

 

Load: CPU up to 75-80C, GPU - 80-85C. The lower the better.

 

OK..running some games now to see how high it gets. (I also did a driver reinstall a few hours ago, and it didn't seem to help.) If it turns out my temps aren't abnormally high, do you have any ideas as to what else it could possibly be? Thanks a lot for the help.

EDIT: confirmed driver issue. I was able to trigger the problem while playing Oblivion, but the system didn't crash entirely. I got a windows notification saying the video driver had crashed and recovered. I guess the issue is why should this be happening after I've used this driver for over a year, and just reinstalled it today?...

 

Also, check if you have the latest BIOS and chipset driver
BTW, what are your load temps?

 

Thats generally what happens with a semi unstable overclock.

 

I find a lot of people don't test out the GPU thoroughly enough. Long testing with ATiTool or OCCT is a must for long term use. Just because it isn't crashing, doesn't mean it isn't spitting out errors.

 

Well, I've confirmed it's a driver issue, but I still can't fix it. I've tried re-installing my preferred version several times to no avail. Usually I just install newer versions over old installations, but this time I figured I would do a clean install with driver sweeper etc. I started by uninstalling the drivers through the device manager, but unfortunately driver sweeper would always stop responding after I told it to clean the nvidia display drivers. I did the best I could, but re-installing didn't seem to fix anything.

I would happily just upgrade to the newest nvidia drivers and try my luck with those, but I have a separate (and unrelated) problem there; every 3 seconds or so (it's a regular interval), the rendering hitches for a moment, regardless of my framerate. This, like the other problem, persists across all 3d applications. It was an annoying problem, and it was the reason I kept using my old drivers, so now I don't know what to do. (Also, I haven't tested the newer versions very thoroughly; for all I know, they'd have the same crashing problem too.) This problem seems to occur with version 197.16 and newer (and possibly slightly older; that's the oldest version I have which causes this problem.)

 

^^ Try the following:
1) Uninstall the driver in the device manager (check the box to remove the driver software as well)
2) Reboot to Safe Mode and and run CCleaner
3) Reboot and let Windows install generic VGA driver
4) Reboot again and install the new driver

 

In between my last post and yours, I updated to the latest driver version. It has a "clean install" feature which uninstalls the old drivers before installing the new ones, so I used that. Unfortunately, it not only had the stuttering problem I described above, but also the same crashing issue as well. Is it possible this is a hardware issue after all? (It's definitely not overheating, though...)

EDIT: system crashed during AVI playback. I'm getting rather worried

 

Since the problem is getting worse, also considering the symptoms, it likely is somewhere in the hardware.

 

I'd try a few more things, just in case:
1)Update/re-flash the BIOS
2)Grab another HDD and make a clean OS install
3)Install the latest drivers (chipset and video first)

There could be many reasons for stuttering including bad HDD/file table shifts/etc.
Don't give up just yet

 

Most likely your card going bad as all the 8800 cards do eventually. You can try baking it for a temporary fix. Plenty of threads with details around just search for it.

 

Does this same problem apply to the 9800m cards too as mine was suffering similar symptoms to those described in this thread and has now completely died. :/

 

Yes this applies to the 9800 as well. Baking the card works well for some people. If you decide to get a new card try to get a 200 series card or ati card otherwise it will just happen again.

 

Ok update: the system is now starting up, but with zero display. I can log in to windows, and get into the BIOS, but I have no display in any situation.

I take it this is a confirmation of hardware issue...

 

yah I would say that's a pretty good confirmation. Bake it and sell it or replace it and wait for it to happen again. Looks like sager won't be speeking up any time soon like other manufacturers.

 

Maybe give the bake method a try.

 

whoops dbl post delete pls

 

I'm afraid to ask, but around how much would Sager charge for an out of warranty GPU replacement...?

 

to much is the answer, assuming they have anymore. I believe about 800ish is the going rate. You might have noticed there are some people using a fx 3700m to fix their laptops, niffcreature might still have one he could sell you. Requires the latest bios to make sure it works, but peformance wise its around a gtx 280m. You can find them online as well, but the thing is they come from HP, but the price is around 200$.

fyi if you go this route, do not buy the lenovo fx 3700m it is not compatible.