PC randomly started crashing last night whenever gaming, little green dots everywhere

[Sassanid]

Hey all,

So I have a semi decent PC rig that’s been serving me great for the last couple of years, 10700K, 1080ti, 32gb DDR4, M.2 HD, etc.

Last night, randomly while gaming my PC froze up and I noticed my display was covered in small green dots everywhere. Before if my GPU crashed due to overclocking, it would just freeze up and crash my PC, restart, but never like this where I see green dots everywhere.

Long story short, since last night, I can’t play any game, the computer freezes up and crashes almost immediately. I’ve had to re-write this post 3 times now because even when I’m just in my browser, the PC freezes up, so now it’s happening even when not gaming.

I’ve done some minimal googling and I’m seeing numerous posts that it could be a sign of a dying GPU, which is odd because my 1080ti is water cooled and not even overclocked.

I’m already searching around weighing up my options for a new GPU, even though it’s not the best time and I’m trying to save cash these days but I don’t have much choice if this keeps happening. I’ve also reapplied CPU coolant twice now just in-case but it’s not helping.

Any ideas?

[Sassanid]

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

Well if it were me I'd plug my monitor into the the IGP on the 10700k. Does the problem still occur? This would be my first test.

I would also reinstall the GeForce drivers while plugged into the IGP. And try the 1080 ti again. This would be my second test.

If you still have an issue, perhaps the cooling system failed, maybe it needs to be re-pasted. Perhaps the card itself has failed. The 1080 ti is five years old, who knows how long you've been using yours and how long it's been overclocked, and how aggressive that overclock was. You do, but you have't provided that information.

Components wear out and fail eventually. And some lucky person is bound to see that early rather than late. So that's going to be the thing to rule out.

I'd also see about testing the PSU. If the PSU is failing and providing inconsistent power that would cause all sorts of stability issues.

Thank you, I'll try the above steps and report back

[MancSoulja]

Yeah, sounds like VRAM corruption from overlocking, but you could have permanently damaged your VRAM.

If the green dots are still present, take a screenshot, if you can see the dots on the screenshot your GPU is at fault, it the screenshot looks fine, it's either your display or cable.

[Ocsabat]

Look inside the case and make sure nothing is clogged with dust and causing overheating. While you're in there, reseat the graphics board and system memory.

[Muppet among Puppets]

By the look it points to the grafic card.

I would not overclock them.

[Sassanid]

Thanks for feedback and tips.

I took out the 1080ti + AIO and fans, dusted everything, re-applied some arctic silver 5 CPU coolant again for like the 3rd time in 2 days just to make sure that's not the issue, then reinstalled everything. Now I can at least browse and stay online without random crashes, but as soon as I try playing any game, same story, PC hard freezes, dots on the screen and I have to reboot the PC.

I also tried using the onboard IGP of my CPU in the bios but for some reason it makes no difference and still boots in to windows using the 1080ti.

I've been using the 1080ti for around 4 years now, with minimal to no overclocking. I have a replacement GPU on the way, should be here on Friday. Just in case I can't find a solution to this problem.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Fret:

I also tried using the onboard IGP of my CPU in the bios but for some reason it makes no difference and still boots in to windows using the 1080ti.

The monitor must be connected to motherboard grafic slot.

[Sassanid]

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

Originally posted by Fret:

I also tried using the onboard IGP of my CPU in the bios but for some reason it makes no difference and still boots in to windows using the 1080ti.

The monitor must be connected to motherboard grafic slot.

Thanks for that, I never noticed until now. After switching to the onboard input, I tried a few games, and while everything was super slow running at 10fps, there were no crashes or freezing up. So I think it indeed might be my 1080ti on its death bed.

[Sassanid]

Originally posted by UberFiend:

GPU is dying.

Yes sadly that what it looks like.

[Sassanid]

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

Yeah, that seemed likely. If you've already repasted the card a few times it's probably not a cooling issue. Kinda seems like bad luck, drew the short GPU stick. It happens, not often in my experience, but someone's number is always going to be up for that sort of misfortune.

You you might try undervolting/underclocking it. Not ideal, but if the 1080 ti will run stable at 80-90% of stock performance (or close to vanilla 1080 performance) that could carry you for a while if you're not in the market to buy a new GPU right this second.

And I figure it's already on it's last legs if you can figure out how to keep it going for a while longer (if you need it) that wouldn't be a bad thing. It would perform better than the IGP and not force you to rush on replacement decisions.

But those are all some big if's and it depends on whether that work has any interest to you.

That being said a 3060 ti is about on par with a 1080 ti performance wise, and it has DLSS and RTX options, and DLSS is pretty nice in my opinion. But if you could keep going for a while I expect the midrange 40 series cards to be pretty good, but probably shouldn't expect them until Q1 2023.

Thanks for the tips again. Honestly, I expected a GPU especially from Nvidia to last longer than 4 years, especially given it was watercooled with a 230mm AIO, but prior to installing the watercooler on it last year, the 1080ti FE would often go up in to the high 80Cs-low 90Cs during gaming using its stock cooler, which was always worrying to me. The stock fans on the 1080ti FE really sucked and got worse over time. I'm guessing maybe that period of high temperature gaming took its toll and maybe shortened its life span.

As for replacements, I already have a 3080 arriving tomorrow which should be quite a substantial improvement. I bought my 1080ti around 4 years ago for $700, and this rtx 3080 was $793, which given the performance increase, seemed reasonable for $93 more than the old card.

I know some people are saying that once the 40xx series cards come out, cards like the 3080 will drop in price but who knows how much they'll drop and if availability will be an issue, given that many people will be waiting to buy. I don't want to wait and take that risk just to save $100-200.

[isomorphic_projection]

Test your screen first, my card still works perfect. However with old games and old drivers, is sometimes see green dots or green bars from left to right. https://www.eizo.be/monitor-test/

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Fret:

the 1080ti FE would often go up in to the high 80Cs-low 90Cs during gaming using its stock cooler, which was always worrying to me. The stock fans on the 1080ti FE really sucked and got worse over time.

The important feature of a grafic card is an "open cooler", with "many fan".

[Sassanid]

Originally posted by isomorphic_projection:

Test your screen first, my card still works perfect. However with old games and old drivers, is sometimes see green dots or green bars from left to right. https://www.eizo.be/monitor-test/

The screen is fine, no issues apart from GPU hard freezing whenever any game is launched, and it only started happening 2 days ago, and it doesn't happen using the CPU graphics output, so all indicators point to the GPU unfortunately

[Sassanid]

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

I bought a 3080 ti a few months ago, it's fine. Waiting for the 40 series to come out and be disappointed that 3080 ti's aren't suddenly $500 isn't something I intend on experiencing. And if it happens I'll laugh, first time for everything.

Exactly. Even in an ideal world, let's say the 30xx cards get a huge sale, there's no guarantee I'll find any where I live, it's a gamble. But let's see what happens :)

[Jack Schitt]

It does sound like a graphics issue. Have you tried visually checking to see if the GPU fans are running and running well, not gunked up, really dirty, caked with dust bunnies = not working as they should? The video card could be overheating and the fix for that could be something extremely simple like the fans need cleaned or replaced. Replacing the fans on a video card isn't difficult at all to do. Each fan is 4 screws and a pin connector plug.

Nvidia has the Afterburner utility that provides manual fan control. My GPU fans were going out a few months ago and I used afterburner to run the fans at 100% constantly to keep the card at a decent temp while the new fans arrived.

Fans get dirty regardless of how clean a person is.

Overheating issues in a desktop can be cured quickly and easily by doing things like:
- Lower the room temperature.

- Adding fans to the case sucking are in the front and blowing air out the back, side, and top of the case.

- If there are LED lights inside the case disconnect them / turn them the [F] off. Lights produce heat. Kill the lights, not the fans, of course. My older machine's case has fans with a single LED dot in them. I blacked out the lights with a tiny piece of electrical tape. A diode LED won't produce much heat, no, but every little bit helps. That tiny bit of heat an LED produces can possibly be the tiny bit that shuts your games off.

- Go in to BIOS and check in to fan settings. Some BIOS versions have fan control settings where you can manually set the speed. The CPU and case fans can (and will) help keep everything else cooler.

Another thing it might possibly be is a power issue. You didn't mention what your power supply was. If it's just barely enough shutting things that don't need to be running like LED's off can be the trick it needs or upgrading to a PSU with 20 more watts can be the solution.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Jack Schitt:

That tiny bit of heat an LED produces can possibly be the tiny bit that shuts your games off.

I really doubt that a cooling feature gets down if a led lamp is glowing.