Question about my damaged GPU
I'm running an old rig (late 2010) and just got back into the gaming stuff.
AMD Phenom II x4 965
2x4 Gig 1333 G.Skill Ripjaws
HD5870 1Gig
MSI 785GM-E65
CM Silent Pro M 500Watts
EKL Alpenföhn Brocken Cooler
My HD5870 used to crash like every 2 minutes, it gave me weird GSOD/colorful vertical lines/horizontal lines and sound loops. Had to reboot the PC everytime cause it wouldn't go away by itself.
After trying every single driver and using 2 diff. HDDs, it didn't change anything at all.
Was about to kick that card out of the window, when I was like "well, better a shitty card than none" and downclocked it from 850MHz/1200MHz to 700MHz/890MHz.
Now everything is stable, Saintsrow 3/L.A. Noire runs perfectly fine at max 1080p (besides some black/gray-ish pixels on black/grey things).
Just curious, why the hell is everything running perfectly smooth when I downclocked it that much?
Either it was overheating at those higher clocks, or there's a fault with the card and lowering the clocks stresses the card less and gains you some stability.
Check that the card's cooling system isn't clogged with fluff and dust. Install some software to monitor temperatures (MSI Afterburner or similar). If temperatures aren't the problem, then it's probably got a fault.