In dire need of assistance (fried GPU/CLU?)

[Nessaja]

About 1 week ago I opened up my GTX 770 to clean the fans and check for any abnormalities since I had recently began experiencing black screens (I was playing around with OC and 3DMark) when I noticed that my perfect layer of CLU had spill over the die, creating a small blob near one of the transistors (I assume?).

I immediately cleaned up the whole die and nearby locations with TIM Clean and isopropanol, going naked so I could test out if the CLU had damaged anything before reapplying some new TIM.

Yet the symptoms remained.

I reverted to stock speeds before opening her up and removed Afterburner just to be on the safe side. Still, I get a 1 cm~ thick line going across the screen before getting the dreaded black screen of death. This happen when normally booting up W10, about 10 seconds into the desktop.

In safe mode I'm still running it off the card and have no issues whatsoever. I can't see any visible damage so I assume it's either a damage die from OC or transistors damaged from the CLU or both.

I'm kinda on a low budget here so I could either fix my GTX 760 (missing a cooler) or try and fix this card if there's any hope left that is.

Love the new forum look btw (^.^)b

 

[tinytomlogan]

What thermal paste did you use?

 

[Nessaja]

Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra (I know... bad choice, but I've used it on 500+ CPU/GPU dies as of yet without any issues)

 

[SPS]

Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra (I know... bad choice, but I've used it on 500+ CPU/GPU dies as of yet without any issues)

500+?? Really? lol

 

[tinytomlogan]

Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra (I know... bad choice, but I've used it on 500+ CPU/GPU dies as of yet without any issues)

If its touched anything electrical its probably dead / dieing / fudged

Should have used something non conductive - 500 applications yet youre still wearing a n000b I know better badge

 

[Nessaja]

A couple of other things to mention: It works with MS Basic Display Adapter (I used DDU to purge the driver) and in safe mode which I assume uses the same thing.

The card works perfectly fine in Ubuntu as well.

 

[Tolemac]

If its touched anything electrical its probably dead / dieing / fudged

Should have used something non conductive - 500 applications yet youre still wearing a n000b I know better badge

I have tears of laughter Tom you have really made my day

 

[Nessaja]

Ahh... come on guys!

 

[SPS]

A couple of other things to mention: It works with MS Basic Display Adapter (I used DDU to purge the driver) and in safe mode which I assume uses the same thing.

The card works perfectly fine in Ubuntu as well.

So it only artefacts under high load?

 

[AlienALX]

A couple of other things to mention: It works with MS Basic Display Adapter (I used DDU to purge the driver) and in safe mode which I assume uses the same thing.

The card works perfectly fine in Ubuntu as well.

This is very common with a dead GPU. When you use it in safe mode it only loads with a 256 colour driver and is very basic. Once you enable the real driver and it tries to use functions of the card you will run into issues. Black screens, blocks, pink lines etc.

It all indicates a fudged card. Whether the solder has gone or you've shorted something out using that TIM is anyone's guess. It's usually solder failure though.

 

[Nessaja]

So it only artefacts under high load?

Doing a normal boot into desktop give me a BSOD after about 10 seconds doing nothing but idling.

 

[SPS]

Doing a normal boot into desktop give me a BSOD after about 10 seconds doing nothing but idling.

This does have traits of a rather broken card..

 

[SuB]

If the CLU touched anything aluminium, you're screwed.. But as Tom said, after 500 applications you should be doing better than this dude...

I still don't agree with always using none conductive paste, because you shouldn't be using enough of it that it should be a problem But that's just because I probably have more time to do slightly more time consuming applications than Tom does for testing. (i.e. I know he uses the blob and pressure spread method, where as I religiously spread mine super thin)