I was designing an airport in ADE and switching back and forth to P3D4.5 as I jockeyed objects into position to match the photoscenery.  I noticed a smell similar to that hot electronic component smell. I ran the Intel processor tool and the mobo came up with no faults or problems. Also it's never been overclocked.

The next day when I booted up I heard a thumping sound that I later determined to be one of the two 75mm fans in the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 graphics card starting and stopping (pulsing??). I removed the card (it wasn't very dusty as I housekeep my machine frequently and pulled the suspect fan and immediately ordered two identical ones for $20.

I'm on a very fixed income so I can't afford a modern build. My setup runs 4.5 really well.  I was wondering if I should order a new graphics card before the computer completely crashes?

If so, what would be recommended? Maybe a slight upgrade that isn't too expensive?

Machine specs as follows:

·  CPU: Intel® Core™ Processor i7-6700K 4.00GHZ 8MB (Skylake)

·  CPU / Processor Cooling Fan: Corsair Hydro Series H60 120mm Liquid CPU Cooling System

·  Motherboard: ASUS Z170-K ATX w/ USB 3.1, 3 PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x1, 1 SATA Express, 6 SATA3, 1 Ultra M.2

RAM: 16GB (8GBx2) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200

·  Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 (Maxwell)

·  Power Supply: 600 Watts - EVGA 600B 80 PLUS BRONZE

Thanks in advance for your time.

Slim

 

Edited April 14, 20242 yr by mslim
format

Today I ran a test with ADE open and P3D running. With only one fan remaining I watched the GPU temps climb to 95 degrees C and then lost my nerve and shut it down. Any other monitor tests I have run don't show anomolies. Supposedly my new fans have been shipped from China but who knows how long it will take to get them here. I'll stay away from high GPU usage until then.

Still looking for suggestions for a newish GPU for my existing mobo.

Regards,

Slim

Edited April 14, 20242 yr by mslim

I see I posted in the wrong forum. Mods please move to "VIDEO HARDWARE"

Apologies....

13 hours ago, mslim said:

If so, what would be recommended? Maybe a slight upgrade that isn't too expensive?

A good match for your processor would be a 1080ti which you might get for less than $150 used.  A lower cost option and still a useful improvement on the 970 would be a 1070. This has 8Gb memory compared to the three and a half useable memory on the 970. You should get one for $100 or less. Obviously more modern cards are available but will cost more.

I'm scared of refurbs because of the possibility of dealing with former mining boards and warranty issues.

I've read some reviews that said the Asus Dual Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 OC for $300 is a good 1080p gaming board. Is that right?

I pulled the trigger on RTX 4060 OC. We'll see how it runs.

Great card but your i7-6700K will hold it back significantly. I previously had the same CPU and it was a breeze to overclock though. I ran mine at 4,7 GHz permanently for several years on a top notch MSI Z170A board. Still going strong in my old rig, handed down to my son. Still will drag your GPU down but a little less so.

Thanks for replying Raptyr.

It turns out there isn't a Win7 driver for the 4060 so I got a RTX 3060 8gb OC coming on Friday. I don't know much about understanding how computer components interact so I ask for advice like yours. I know my mobo is old so it didn't make sense to spend the buck$ on a high spec card. My monitor resolution is 1920x1080.

I hope the new GPU does at least as well as my old 970.

Edited April 25, 20242 yr by mslim

Both Nvidia and AMD no longer make drivers for W7 .8. 8.1. They stopped some time ago you may get an old driver on the Nvidia web site, but you may have a problem in the sim as developers use the latest software and drivers. That`s why a reply to a problem from them, are you using the latest drivers and updates.

Windows 10 will get the same in the future, 

Edited April 25, 20242 yr by G-RFRY

The new gpu card is going to help you a whole lot, a new cpu will help even more, if you want to upgrade more. (the new cpu will be much cheaper than the new graphics card).

type MSINFO  in Windows Search. The default area of that is System Summary which will tell you exactly which motherboard you have. And that motherboard's website will tell you the best new cpu that will work on your motherboard (you might  have to flash the bios on your motherboard). Only a few cpus out of many will work with a given motherboard.

Pry off the fan from the old cpu with exacto knife blade (just use the blade not the knife), add paste on top of the new cpu after you plug the bottom of new cpu into your motherboard socket. And then screw the fan back on the new cpu.

Youtube will show you this actually being done in at least a dozen different videos showing the whole process. The fan mounts are different for Intel and AMD cpus. Your old fan mount will probably work as long as you stick to the same brand of cpu.