PC Upgrade Ideas

Hey everyone, I'm looking into swapping out my graphics card, or maybe some other component entirely?
Lately, my PC has been crashing constantly while I'm gaming. If I'm just idling in a game—like WoW or The Sims 4—it seems fine, but as soon as things get active for more than two minutes, the whole thing shuts down. The screen gets all distorted and pixelated, freezes up completely, and then I have to manually hard-reset everything. I used to run 4GB of RAM, but when I swapped it down to just 1GB, the crashes stopped happening after two minutes, though it still tends to die after about 20 minutes or so...

GPU temps sit around 65-70 °C right when I boot the machine up. Is there some kind of failsafe on an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT that triggers a shutdown at 75 °C? Though, I've noticed it crashes regardless of whether the temp is higher or lower than that...
Mainly, I was thinking the smartest move would be to just grab a new GPU, but I'm not really sure what my limits are, considering I'm running an ASUS P8Z77 (CPU 1).
Or maybe I should just ditch the motherboard altogether, but I honestly don't know if that's even worth the money given the rest of my setup.

Thomas Adams6 said:Hey everyone, I'm looking into swapping out my graphics card, or maybe some other component entirely?
Lately, my PC has been crashing constantly while I'm gaming. If I'm just idling in a game—like WoW or The Sims 4—it seems fine, but as soon as things get active for more than two minutes, the whole thing shuts down. The screen gets all distorted and pixelated, freezes up completely, and then I have to manually hard-reset everything. I used to run 4GB of RAM, but when I swapped it down to just 1GB, the crashes stopped happening after two minutes, though it still tends to die after about 20 minutes or so...

GPU temps sit around 65-70 °C right when I boot the machine up. Is there some kind of failsafe on an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT that triggers a shutdown at 75 °C? Though, I've noticed it crashes regardless of whether the temp is higher or lower than that...
Mainly, I was thinking the smartest move would be to just grab a new GPU, but I'm not really sure what my limits are, considering I'm running an ASUS P8Z77 (CPU 1).
Or maybe I should just ditch the motherboard altogether, but I honestly don't know if that's even worth the money given the rest of my setup.

You're saying your GPU hits 65-70 degrees just by turning the computer on? That is WAAAAY too much. Your card is old, just like the rest of your rig, and honestly, the whole thing is basically on its last legs. What you can do is: blow out the dust inside the case, fix your airflow (set up some intake and exhaust fans), and re-apply thermal paste to both the CPU and the GPU. It won't cost you much, and it should help you keep that setup alive, no matter how close it is to the end.

What’s your budget for a new card?

The way you're describing those pixels makes me think your current GPU is basically on life support.

So, you've got 4 gigs of VRAM...

What kind of power supply are we talking about (brand and wattage)?
If you don't know off the top of your head, just pop the case open and check the sticker.

Those temps aren't actually that crazy for an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT; I guess they could easily hit 110 degrees under load. That said, since it’s an older card, maybe it just gave up the ghost over time. All that pixelation smells like faulty VRAM or something similar on the card itself. I'd suggest blowing out all the dust first, then maybe running MemTest via a bootable USB—especially since you mentioned things get sluggish after loading just 1GB—just to make sure your system RAM isn't the culprit. Also, what kind of power supply are we talking about here?

fadedorca66 said:Those temps aren't actually that crazy for an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT; I guess they could easily hit 110 degrees under load. That said, since it’s an older card, maybe it just gave up the ghost over time. All that pixelation smells like faulty VRAM or something similar on the card itself. I'd suggest blowing out all the dust first, then maybe running MemTest via a bootable USB—especially since you mentioned things get sluggish after loading just 1GB—just to make sure your system RAM isn't the culprit. Also, what kind of power supply are we talking about here?

Hitting 70 degrees right after booting up? Even in the middle of winter😁 I know those cards used to run hot, but that still feels excessive to me. Especially since you're hitting that temp immediately after macOS loads.

I know 70°C is getting pretty high, but I can't tell if there’s some kind of failsafe kicking in or if my drivers are just acting up. It feels like it used to handle much higher temps without cutting out, yet now it’s shutting down at lower levels... weird.
Tonight I'm going to swap out the thermal paste and run some tests on the RAM.
If that doesn't fix it, what kind of graphics cards should I actually be looking for given my motherboard and the rest of my specs?
Do I need to worry about the slot type—AGP, PCI?

Here's the power supply info:

When you're messing around with the PC, maybe pop the power supply open too. Give it a good dust cleaning and check if any capacitors look blown. They tend to act up on those older units.

As for the GPU, if it turns out to be dead, just let us know your budget and we can suggest something...

I was browsing some forums earlier—honestly, I don't know the first thing about hardware compatibility—but I’ve come to the conclusion that dropping $200 to $300 on $167, maybe even more if it makes sense, might be the move. I'm actually really happy with this rig otherwise; everything runs at max settings perfectly fine, except for the fact that it keeps shutting itself down 😵
It's already died on me twice today, and I didn't even notice the temps climbing past 70°C.

Maybe try borrowing an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT from someone else first, just to be absolutely sure about the issue.

Otherwise, you could look into this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/graphics-card-listing

It’s noticeably more powerful than what you have now...

What kind of CPU are you running? If it's strong enough, you might want to grab a Radeon HD 6870 for $167 since that's way faster than an HD 5770.

It’s probably not worth throwing more money at that old rig, but honestly, you aren't going to find anything worth buying new under $167, so used is likely your best bet.

Maybe try testing things out first to see what's actually broken—it might be a good idea to pop that GPU into another PC just to check it.

Memtest says the RAM is good to go.

I went ahead and swapped out the thermal paste, and now, right at startup, the temperature sits around 45°C. But then, within just a few minutes, it jumps up to 55°C and usually just hangs out around 50°C. If I crank the fan up to 35%, I can actually get it down to about 40°C, though I haven't really had the chance to see how it holds up while I'm actually gaming...

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the advice. Fingers crossed everything runs smoother now.