Posts by David Collins6

I’ve been watching a lot of sports lately, and I can’t help but notice this recurring pattern with certain fanbases. There’s always that specific moment in the season where the atmosphere shifts from "let's see how this goes" to a desperate, "we need to move heaven and earth right now" mentality. It’s an incredible rush when it works, but man, the hangover is brutal if you overextend yourself for a window that might close before you even get a shot at it.

Personally, I’m a bit of a skeptic when it comes to these massive mid-season pushes. I love the passion, but there’s a fine line between being a contender and just being reckless with your future. I’ve seen teams trade away every ounce of potential they had just to chase a single trophy, only to spend the next five years stuck in a rebuilding loop that feels endless. It feels like a massive gamble where the house usually wins.

Do you guys think it's better to play it safe and build something sustainable, or is the whole point of being a fan to go absolutely crazy for a championship run whenever the opportunity hits?

Unfortunately, I’ve run right back into the same issue again..
I feel like I've tried just about everything under the sun, yet nothing seems to stick.
At this point, my only real move is to have someone test the graphics card for me; does anyone out there near Los Angeles happen to be willing to help me run some tests to see if the GPU is actually the culprit? Since I honestly have no clue where I'd even take it to get it looked at..

driftingridge7 said:1. Are you using two separate PCIe cables to power your card?
The RTX 3070 is actually quite a beast, so you really ought to be running two individual power cables from the PSU rather than just one daisy-chained one.

2. Is this card brand new, or did you pick it up used?

3. It’s definitely possible that some old drivers left over from an RX 480 might be causing a headache here.
I'd recommend wiping everything clean using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) before you go ahead and do a fresh install of the Nvidia drivers.
You should also grab HWiNFO and FurMark; if you run FurMark while keeping an eye on the temps via HWiNFO, you can see exactly what's happening under load.

LP

Just a quick heads-up for anyone else struggling with this: adding that extra power cable actually fixed my issue. If you're seeing similar symptoms, that should do the trick.
Thanks to everyone for the help!

driftingridge7 said:In the meantime, you could always grab their Thundermaster software 😵 and just use that to dial back the power target (or the limit) to about 60%.
If you want to keep an eye on how much juice that GPU is actually pulling, you can just run HWiNFO

https://www.palit.com/palit/thundermaster.php?lang=en

Sadly, dropping the power limit didn't do much for me...

driftingridge7 said:Maybe just throw a question out here on the forum to see if anyone has a spare cable lying around. If you look closely at the cable itself, there’s usually a code printed right on it—Corsair uses Type 3 and Type 4 cables, and Seasonic uses the BG33 standard, so checking that code is probably your best bet for finding the right match without any guesswork.
Just a heads-up though, that 3070 pulls upwards of 300 watts; it grabs about 75W directly from the motherboard and gets the rest through the PCIe cables. Since a single PCIe cable is typically rated for 150W, if the card starts pulling more than that, your power supply's built-in protection is going to kick in and shut things down.

LP

Thanks a lot, I'll try to track one down from someone.
Lp

driftingridge7 said:Hey there, good evening! So, just a little heads-up—it’s generally not a great idea to start mixing and matching different cables like that, you know? It can get messy fast. But, since your power supply actually comes with two separate PCIe cables included, why don't you double-check the box? There might be an extra one tucked away in there somewhere!

LP bok

Unfortunately, all my boxes and extra gear are back home in Chicago.
Which means I'll just have to figure out a new setup from scratch.

driftingridge7 said:1. Are you using two separate PCIe cables to power your card?
The RTX 3070 is actually quite a beast, so you really ought to be running two individual power cables from the PSU rather than just one daisy-chained one.

2. Is this card brand new, or did you pick it up used?

3. It’s definitely possible that some old drivers left over from an RX 480 might be causing a headache here.
I'd recommend wiping everything clean using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) before you go ahead and do a fresh install of the Nvidia drivers.
You should also grab HWiNFO and FurMark; if you run FurMark while keeping an eye on the temps via HWiNFO, you can see exactly what's happening under load.

LP

Hey, I'm not using two separate ones; I've got them daisy-chained off a single cable. Could that be the culprit?
Also, if I head out tomorrow to pick up a second cable at a local shop, does it need to be from the same manufacturer, or can I just walk into a place like Best Buy and grab whatever they have in stock?

darkcyclist92 As David Collins6 pointed out:
In my own experience—and I’m speaking purely from what I’ve seen firsthand—this kind of thing typically happens when the system simply hits a wall and can't process a specific graphical task, regardless of which component is actually failing. Usually, you're looking at the graphics card first, then moving on to the RAM, and finally checking the motherboard.

Usually, you're looking at a faulty GPU or motherboard driver, though it could just as easily be a memory failure on the card itself—or perhaps another driver issue, who knows really. It might even come down to a physical connection problem, like a power or signal blackout between the RAM and the graphics card. Of course, there's always the possibility that the chip itself has finally given up the ghost.

It’s a bit grim when you look at it that way—the idea that heat expansion within the chassis is essentially waiting for a single contact point to lose its grip during a thermal cycle. It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint exactly which pin is going to fail or where it’s hiding, but there is a bit of a workaround. Cleaning the contacts and pins thoroughly before seating any components might buy you some time, though if that doesn't do the trick, you're likely looking at a full component replacement.

The power supply unit itself carries quite a bit of weight, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I am genuinely concerned about the connection points between the PSU and the rest of the components. It feels like a real dust trap waiting to happen.

Thanks for the reply.

Hey there,
I’ve been dealing with these random restarts while gaming—take God of War, for instance. Usually, it happens just once and then stays quiet, though occasionally it won't even bother restarting and just hangs.
i7-11700F cooled by an NZXT x63 AIO
ASUS Prime B460M-A R2.0
Palit RTX 3070 Ti
ASUS ROG Strix 750W PSU
My gut feeling is that the GPU is the culprit, especially since I've swapped it out for an RX 480 8GB for now, but I want to be certain. Is there any chance this could be a power supply issue, or perhaps something on the motherboard struggling to handle the power draw of a beefier card?