Does having a wire on resting on a gpu potentially cause the gpu to freeze?

[FACECHUNK]

Hi guys, I have two 560's and since a couple of days ago I started getting freezes with my sound looping while watching you tube clips and also playing a computer game.

Specs are as follows:

CPU - i7 920

RAM - Mushkin Enhanced DDR3-1600 6GB Tri Channel [Ridgeback] 998826

MOBO - Asus P6T

PSU - 850 Watt Silverstone Strider Plus

SSD - Vertex 2 60gb - Main drive - Win 7 Premium OS installed on this

SSD - Vertex 2

HDD - Velociraptor 600GB

HDD - WD Green - 500GB

GPU - Asus Direct CUII 560 ti * 2

CPU COOLER - Antec Kuhler H20 620

Had it overclocked to 3.4 stable and gpu's overclocked at 1050 core voltage and 950 core clock and left mem clock alone.

Since having this issue I have reset the cpu to its original speed and have left both gpu's on their overclock.

The reason I haven't put them back to factory clocks is because they seem to be running fine and are always at temps under 65 at full load. Also after inspecting the inside of my case I had found that there was a wire from the CPU Cooler running straight along the back of the Main gpu, across the backside of the chip. I have moved it aside and secured it with a cable tie so it won't fall onto it again.

Could this be the an obvious reason as to why my computer was hanging? I will attempt to watch more you tube clips randomly and see if it freezes still. It also freezed in a new game I installed today, MOH Tier 1 (which is a piece of shit and could have been due to the game being buggy and a console port perhaps????)

The important thing to note is that I can't move my mouse when I get a freeze and the keyboard doesn't work either, and I get a horrible loop of sound through my headphones... all I can do is switch it off manually.

Any ideas on how to narrow this down?

Also have the latest WHQL drivers from nvidia 275.33.

Any suggestions? Thanks so much for helping, this rig needs to be functioning fine for bf3 damnit, and at that stage I will be overclocking my two gpu's at 1062 core voltage and 990 core clock because they perform really nice at that setting. I will try running my cpu at 4ghz to reduce bottleknecking of my gpu's also so I would like to find out any possible hardware or software problems before I attempt this.

 

[FunkyMonkey90]

Sounds like an unstable component, best bet it to set bios to default and gfx cards,even if they don't go above 60c doesn't mean there stable.

 

[GODuk]

You will need to isolate by trial and error so as FunkyMonkey90 said "set bios to default" and try one by one. See if it stabalisee at default first though.

 

[FACECHUNK]

You will need to isolate by trial and error so as FunkyMonkey90 said "set bios to default" and try one by one. See if it stabalisee at default first though.

Ok. sweet, will try, alternatively I might up the voltage at 950 mhz to 1060 and see what that does after running everything at stock if stock has no issues.

Any suggestions on voltage sweet spots for 560 ti's????

would eventually like to have them running on 990mhz stable during gaming and knocking them down to 830 when I am just browsing the net.

 

[alienware]

If you absolutely must overclock a GPU to get it to where it needs to be then the chances are you need a new one. If the card runs games then it's likely that there's no point to overclocking, unless it's for bragging right benchmarks.

Whilst I am all for overclocking and the 'sport' that it dictates I would never personally put any of my expensive hardware that I have to rely on at risk. It's better just to buy something that is capable of your needs without having to overclock it to get you there.

I just see an overclocked system as I would a car that has been boosted and tuned to breaking point. The faster it goes the less reliable it becomes. You are putting things under stress that most of the time isn't needed or necessary.

The TI, by rights, should not need overclocking to perform its purpose in life. That purpose is to run pretty much any game that has been coded well on 1080p. If you are finding it necessary to overclock it just to make over 30fps min then it's obviously not suited to the task.

I've said this what? a thousand times before. To run a game properly you need anything over 30 fps as your minimum framerate. Anything over that the eye has trouble picking up unless you are superman or wired on meth. It's also usually very important to enable Vsync to prevent you experiencing graphical tearing and seperation. Vsync will lock you to the refresh rate of your monitor which is most always 60hz. On some very expensive models this is 120hz, but that is pretty much pointless unless you want to use 3Dvision or whatever Nvidia are calling it now.

Thus, all the power in the world is going to be wasted as the game is limiting you to 60fps max any way. Meaning the important part is down at the other end, the minimum framerate.

The biggest problem is how the overclocking market is going. The stuff is literally being marketted on its overclocking prowess. The thing is, manufacturers don't want to have to cover it should it go bad. Case in point - Radeon 6990. It comes with a Antilles overclocking switch. Move it though? you toss your warranty in the bin for a paltry overclock that makes about 4fps difference.

A couple of months ago I did an experiment with a 470 GTX at stock and then overclocked by 150mhz. Whilst my benchmark scores were indeed far higher and my FPS count quite a bit higher it made hardly any difference to what matters. Min FPS were changed by about 4FPS. This means that whilst yes, it may save me from having to buy a new GPU for a while it wouldn't prevent the inevitable for long.

Sorry to be a stick in the mud and all boring and stuff, but you're better off with a safe system rather than one that could go bang at any minute, leaving you screwed. Over an extra 4 fps.