Possible b0rked graphics card?

[Platinum]

Right need some help here, think I have broken my vid card but need to be sure before shelling out some £££, I installed a thermalright heatsink to my 4870 and everything was going well for a few months untill it started crashing, loaded up GPUZ and it told me the VRMs were running at 150 degrees before the lock ups.

So put the original heatsink back on and all seemed well 100 degree max on them untill last week when I started getting random reboots when the GPU was maxed out (Folding), Odd thing is Windows says the crash was caused by a missing driver and to run windows update, windows update tells me theres a new driver for my NIC even when the driver it lists is older than the one I use?

Anyhow the odd thing is it will fold all night, I use the machine in the morning, leave the machine to do something else and almost every time it will reboot 5 mins later?

So im wondering if the extra stress of Vista Areo gubbins is pushing it over the edge?

So want to test it with some 3D stuff but I cant locate a good DX10 benchmark that I can leave constantly looping for a indefinate period of time? can anyone help?, Something I can run in a window so I can have it going in the background, use the PC and see what happens, like with Folding.

If that crashes ill test it in my XP box and see if it does the same, if it doensnt on XP then it looks like a last resort reisntall of Vista.

I have tried going bck from the 9.4 drivers to the 9.3 drivers, didnt work, Tried leaving it idle and maxing out the CPU, all worked fine, no issues, Tried putting in a 9400GT maxing that and the CPU out with folding and it works fine for over 24 hours, so all this is leading me to the conclusion theres something up with the 4870?

Anyhow, any ideas / software I can use to max it other than folding?

Thanks in advance.

[Blaineoliver]

Try Furmark, and stress test.

[Platinum]

3D marks free edition doenst support looping of the benchmarks and ill be buggered if I am buying it just to test this

[Blaineoliver]

FURMARK, it is not futuremark.

[Platinum]

I fail at eyes, Ill have a look when I get home

[Lee H]

http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

That's what you need Ryan, well apart from a new liver as well

[Platinum]

Cheers guys, lets hope the card aint ****ed, well if it is then its £££ Scans way for a new one

[Platinum]

I think furmark has finished it off, it ran once, Temps hit 95 on the GPU and 155 on the VRMs! and then it crashed, now it wont run furmark at all, Time to try it in the media box...

[Blaineoliver]

Oh dear, was it screwed on properly with thermal paste? Looks like return time to me.

[Platinum]

Right put it in the media box and it seemed ok, ran furmark and didnt crash so now im baffled.
What baffles me even more is it will crash after I stop using the machine, folded all night used it this morning, turned the monitor off and 2 mins later it rebooted (the fan goes full tilt on boot).
So could it be the simple act of turning the monitor off?
I would really like to get to the bottom of it before I go reinstall Vista as it could happen again.

Any ideas?

[Platinum]

Also is there anyway to see what the machine was doing at the point it restarted? to give me a indication of what went wrong?

Event viewer shows nothing and Windows still says its due to a missing driver?

[Platinum]

-Its bleeding done it again, Been folding all day, no probs, been on the web / msn for a few hours, fine, shut down firefox, log out of MSN, close down open folders, leave folding running and turn off the monitor, bang 2 min later the familior sound of the machine rebooting (GPU fan spins up full on boot).

Baffled :/

[Platinum]

Ok last night I replaced the 3rd party cooler to achive lower noise levels and now the machine cant run furmark / Folding for more than a few mins without crashing, got a Zalman heatsink on the VRM's but one of the VRMs still gets up to 150- degrees even with it on, oddly the other VRM only hits 120 degrees?

So ordered the cheap 216core GTX 260 from Scan, the 4870 might not be faulty but I have had enough.

So connected the montior to the onboard graphics thinking my troubles were over, oh no there not :/
Left the machine on all night, turned the monitor on in the morning and im greated with a black screen, exacly the reason I reinstalled last time.

I get the laptop out and find the machine on the network, I can access the open file share and play files off the machine, so it seems all thats happened is for some reason it refuses to output a display.
Im going to install VNC server on it tonght so that if it happens again I can log in and see if theres any errors poped up (Event viewer shows nothing).
All power saving options are set to not turn the screen off.

Im pretty sure a reinstall will fix the issue but as its happend twice now I would really like to get to the bottom of it before I nuke it.

[Platinum]

Right new graphics card runs sweet no problems there, however the machine is still rebooting after I use the web and turn off the screen, Windows is still telling me that its due to a missing driver from Microsoft Corp and to run Windows update, all that's on Windows update is the option to install Silverlight?

Any ideas before I format?