Video Woes... Deeper

Well, I don't know that it's the cause of the problem, specifically... but I just found out that my GPU has been operating at 110C.

I'm amazed the son of a bitch hasn't burned out.

Uncapped the PC, and it seems the bargain basement fan on my bargain basement EVGA GF8400GS has quit working.

Gonna power down the system now, do some de-dusting, and see if that fan is just stuck or if the motor is fuxx0red.

S'all I need right now, having to blow a hunk of what little savings I've got build up on a new GPU...


Edit, 0845PST:

Yep. Fucking bearings are seized in the fan.

Good news is PSU, CPU, and secondary case fans are all working fine.

I'd also like to reiterate how much I hate living in the Columbia river basin. Even with my air filtered, there was so much dust in there that the CPU heat sink was damn near clogged solid.

Hasn't even been six months since I dusted in there, either.

Got an odd CPU heat sink and fan from a previous build that went FUBAR, suppose I get to dig it out and see if the fan is adaptable to the GPU.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate computers?


Edit 2, 0903PST:

Well, looks like I tossed the fan and heat sink in the last move. Typical. Probably wouldn't have fit, anyway.

Seems if I keep the case open and a fan blowing on high into there, the GPU idles at 77C; which while not stellar... is within safe range.

Lovely. Guess I have to buy a new one, now.

Suppose I should fire up a game and see how high it'll spike.

If it was idling at 110C before... I'm surprised I didn't smell something scorching while FO3 was running.

Real pisser of it, is I was just playing CoD4 this morning, and as usual, there were no slowdowns. I've seen no artifacting, no blue screens of death... no POST errors. Nada. The damn thing's apparently been idling happily along at 1.5x normal temperature for Gods know how long.

If I hadn't been curious and installed Speccy while I was updating CCleaner, I'd probably never have noticed until the radiant heat either killed the GPU or burned the insulation off some nearby wiring.

Oh, well. At least I've already upgraded the power supply... so I won't have to be out that expense too, this time.

You know, I bought the Chaintech GF6200 in my old PIII box in two thousand and fucking four. That PIII 800, 450w PSU, and GF6200 have outlived three Athlon XPs, and now a GPU to add to the score card. Fucker of it is that if I plugged it in and fired 'er up, that little tank would run just like the day it was fucking new.

It just wouldn't run any of my games.

Goddamned programmed obsolescence...

Of course, I did find two syringes of Militec and ten bucks worth of patches for my Otis kit while digging through boxes looking for that fan, so I suppose the morning isn't a total bust.