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ZOTAC: Thumbs Up
If you will recall, my GTX 970 card died recently. Here is the timeline of events:
- Feb 12th – Submitted RMA request to ZOTAC.
- Feb 13th – RMA request is approved.
- Feb 15ish – I mailed my card via UPS.
- Feb 21st – ZOTAC received my card.
- Feb 22nd – ZOTAC confirmed the card is dead. Asks if new card is OK.
- Feb 24th – New card shipped out.
- Feb 27th – New card arrived.
In other words, from the time ZOTAC received my card to the time they mailed a replaced out was pretty much less than a week. Most of the delay was on my end of things, when I tried changing the power supply, sent my PC for repairs at Microcenter, etc. Given the horror stories I have heard and the “please give us 30 days” boilerplate, this is incredible.
Also incredible was this exchange:
We unfortunately do not have your specific model in stock, so we would like to offer you the ZT-P10600A-10L. Please confirm this change is agreeable asap.
For those playing at home, this is the ZT-P10600A-10L. As in GTX 1060 6GB Mini. As in, a card that is smaller, quieter, uses less electricity, and is roughly 10% better at benchmarks than a 970. Needless to say, I confirmed that this change was agreeable.
So, yeah. I installed the card on Monday and put it through its paces. On the Heaven benchmark software, I got 100-120 fps with temps stabilizing at 72C. I’m still pouring hours into XCOM2 at the moment, but I will hopefully be back to eye-candy gaming here shortly.
All in all, my graphics card dying worked out rather well for me.
Verdict
It was a bad stick of RAM.
No, seriously.
In retrospect, a kinda “duh” moment. I mean, I had never before knew that bad RAM could make your PC just hard shutdown and (presumably) burn a graphics card. At the same time, I did get Furmark and a CPU tester to run for 15+ minutes using my 560ti card without a crash for a while there, with all temps being normal. Plus, I replaced the PSU and the PC booted up (before crashing later). All that was really left was a RAM issue.
I declined the $30 labor costs to install new RAM, but went ahead and spent $60ish to get the Microcenter guys to remove my liquid cooler on the CPU and install a mid-line fan. I’m a parsimonious miser for most things, but even I have my limits – possibly squirting liquid coolant all over my machine or having to disassemble my own rig to prevent that, is one of the lines.
As mentioned though, the 970 card is definitely still dead. I just submitted an RMA request and we’ll see what they say. It’s within the 2-year warranty period, but I’m a “worst-case scenario” kind of guy when it comes to corporations. I’m guessing this will be a 2-3 week process, at best.
In the meantime… well, WoW works perfectly fine with the 560ti. And isn’t crashing anymore. Which has allowed me to convert all but 100k or so of my in-game gold into $180 Blizzard credit.
So yeah. There’s that.
Famine
I haven’t been able to play games this week, for reasons unrelated to the move.
The issue started when I booted up WoW. I was able to play for about 5-10 minutes – enough time to try purchasing more WoW Tokens – but then the game froze for a moment, recovered, then after another 5 minutes my PC just reset. Immediately afterwards, I heard the fans on my GTX 970 turn on full blast but there was no monitor signal. About a minute later, the PC sounds like it is functioning okay, but again, no monitor signal. I reboot and the PC turns on fine.
“Weird,” I think. Turn on WoW again, and the PC resets again after 5 minutes. Again, the 970 fans kick into high gear. This time though, resetting the PC does not bring the monitor back up.
I moved the 970 card to another slot, I used a different DVI port, I unplug the PC from my UPS to plug directly into the wall outlet, and so on. Plugging the monitor cable directly into the motherboard slot, e.g. the integrated graphics card, works however. I eventually dig out my old 560ti card, and that also works. Okay, great. Maybe the 970 card died?
I run Furmark to stress the 560ti card to reproduce the error. Temps stabilize around 70c. I ran a CPU stress, and they are within acceptable limits as well. Boot up WoW, play for another 10 minutes, and hard reset yet again. “Okay, not playing WoW, gotcha.” I turn the PC back on, start filling out a RMA request for the 970 card, and my PC hard resets while inside a browser. As of today, the monitor will display nothing no matter what card or slot the cord is plugged in.
Now, the primary culprit is currently suspected to be the PSU. According to a coworker, the 12V “bridge” which powers graphics cards often goes out first. I ended up inadvertently ordering two PSUs – one was 500W, which is not likely enough to power the rig, but Amazon wouldn’t let me cancel the order – and they should be arriving soon. I’ll have to cross my fingers regarding the GTX 970 card still being functional. It is technically within the 2-year warranty/RMA period, but I’m expecting some potential pushback should the card be fried when there were PSU issues afoot.
Of course, it might be something else entirely. Maybe the motherboard.
I don’t consider myself to be particularly tech savvy as much as software savvy. Replacing the PSU is going to be the most complicated PC-related task I have completed since I installed the GTX 970 card in the first place. Prior to that, the most complicated task was installing a new SSD. It is not so much the physical actions that worry me, but rather than possibility (and repercussions) of failure. “Oops, I bricked the $300 video card.”
In any case, we’ll see how it goes. I dive into the case Thursday night.
Edit: I spent a little over 2 hours last night replacing the PSU. GTX 970 card still is not working. Moved the entire computer to a different outlet, same deal. Swapped in the 560ti card and everything booted up fine. Then I went for the test: logging into WoW. About 10 minutes in, power shutdown. Plugged monitor into integrated video slot, left the machine idle for a bit. Power cut off again.
At this point, I am at a loss. The rig is old – I bought it around 5 years ago or so – but I no longer have any idea what could be wrong. I’m going to try and take it to a Microcenter near me for diagnosis this weekend. Depending on the verdict… I dunno. Maybe I “cut” losses and go back to gaming laptop like I did in my computer prior to this one. Maybe I try to save what I got.
All I can say for the moment is that I feel lost. Everyone has a thing that keeps them centered when the rest of life gets weird. Sometimes it’s a person, sometimes it’s a game, sometimes it’s a phone. Mine is a functioning computer. Or perhaps a personalized virtual space, if I want to be more specific. I don’t have that for the moment, and it sucks.
In An Age 