ESO killed my graphics card?

DeltaForce64x · June 2019

so I used to own a AMD R7 370 4GB graphics card, someday when I was about to exit the game my screen became full black and then never did work again, we went into the tech store they said it died due to heat, but that can be the general excuse to make the costumer buy another graphics card, my question is, did ESO killed my graphics card? Can a video game can kill a hardware? That GPU was barely 3 years old and it was came back from tech support after the previous one so badly damaged they couldnt fix it so they gave me new gpu instead. Now I have two questions in my mind: did this AMD R7 370 gpu was already bad or eso killed it? The heat average was around 59-65c I learned this specific GPU was designed to stay and work quiet so the fans dont spin until above 60c, never reached above 70c. I also learned 60c is still a good temperature.

Now we got a new GPU and I want to play ESO again, what if same thing happens again? Can anyone have a clear answer for this or I will never be able to play this game again because Im so badly paranoid. I do not know anything about overclock and the graphics card I buy from my store is always pre-OCed or never OCed, kinda hard to make sure because I dont know how to understand a gpu is overclocked or not. My new GPU is GTX 1050 ti and its 4GB.

My only option here is to play inside of a VM, VMware provides graphics card memory too so I can play in a virtual machine? to prevent my GPU damaged again, there is no passthrough option in VMware Pro 15, but I checked my Windows 8.1 guest VM it says Decicated Video Memory 4MB, Total Video Memory 1024MB (I gave it 1GB) so its ok? can I start downloading in a vm?

Katahdin · June 2019

Doubt it

The fan on the card could have gone bad.

You might have bad cooling in the case

Is the room the computer is in hot?

ArchMikem · June 2019

That's PC hardware life, components can just up and die on you practically at any time. ESO is apparently cpu intensive, not gpu, so its more likely your card just got faulty, but who knows.

DeltaForce64x · June 2019

Katahdin wrote: »

Doubt it

The fan on the card could have gone bad.

You might have bad cooling in the case

Is the room the computer is in hot?

Room is fine as we have home fans in the corners, I dont think GPU fan is gone bad because it was working but after the it reaches to 60c. My PC case is open to get clear fresh air so there is no cooling problem. As for the dust we have air blower, using that every month.

Numerikuu · June 2019

Hardware doesn't last forever, and in my own personal experience the GPU is always first to go. If your case has poor air circulation and you don't clean it out of dust from time to time? It's gonna fry. Same for checking the fan. If the fan is going, replace it, or it will fry.

In the future get one with a nice warranty so you're covered for a couple of years

Ramber · June 2019

If you card was "badly damaged" then it might have been a power spike from your power supply or a power surge of some sort... Lots of heat or a massive spike in electricity is really the only thing that can kill a card in one moment. There is a free program called Speccy that will tell you your CPU and GPU temps as well as many others reported from your motherboard. See how your temps are before looking into getting more air flow in your case or lowering your room temp even

TequilaFire · June 2019

Heat is an always will be a killer in computer hardware.
While most people worry about cpu cooling they don't invest in enough cooling devices for their video card which can be in close proximity to adjacent cards.

Numerikuu · June 2019

Ramber wrote: »

If you card was "badly damaged" then it might have been a power spike from your power supply or a power surge of some sort... Lots of heat or a massive spike in electricity is really the only thing that can kill a card in one moment.

This as well. Make sure you have surge protection.

Radiance · June 2019

I'm not very computer savvy and don't know the proper terms or whatever BUT
I play on a laptop and learned to elevate the back end to allow it to vent properly bc I was experiencing overheating where My graphics would start to "Split" almost, Idk any other way to describe it but I would get clear lines that cut across the screen so it was not a glitch in game but my graphics card failing.

In short, Yes the game probably killed it bc it performs at such a high level but knowing overheating is to be expected, you can easily avoid it with proper ventilation.

ryzen_gamer_gal · June 2019

What was the final gpu you installed? was it another r7? If this is the case then you are likely buying used items and not new. If you are buying a new card from amd, i think the new hardware comes out in july and would be worthy to wait for them to become available.

Katahdin · June 2019

Radiance wrote: »

I'm not very computer savvy and don't know the proper terms or whatever BUT
I play on a laptop and learned to elevate the back end to allow it to vent properly bc I was experiencing overheating where My graphics would start to "Split" almost, Idk any other way to describe it but I would get clear lines that cut across the screen so it was not a glitch in game but my graphics card failing.

In short, Yes the game probably killed it bc it performs at such a high level but knowing overheating is to be expected, you can easily avoid it with proper ventilation.

Games are a lot harder on a laptop because the cooling is much more limited.

Sounds like the OP is on a desktop.

Unless you are trying to play on a computer that barely meets minimum sorcs I highly doubt the game can kill the hardware.

I have played eso and other games on both a laptop and a desktop. I've never has a game cause a problem.

Computer components get tired and die. That's just the way it is. That has nothing to do with what game it is

Tandor · June 2019

You should never leave the side off the case other than for quick monitoring. You also shouldn't rely on room fans, they simply redistribute the air and don't lower the temperature significantly if at all. Have your local repair shop check both the adequacy and condition of the fans. Be careful using air blowers. Really you just need to make sure you have enough ventilation with the case closed and then monitor temperatures if required with a suitable program. All of these things can be dealt with by you if you feel confident at such things or by your local repair shop if not.

Smasherx74 · June 2019

ArchMikem wrote: »

That's PC hardware life, components can just up and die on you practically at any time. ESO is apparently cpu intensive, not gpu, so its more likely your card just got faulty, but who knows.

And to add onto this, some hardware is blessed by the hardware gods.

I actually ran my R9 380 for about 4 years now, probably 2-3 of those years I actually ran the damn thing without the GPU fan working lol. One day my temps increased drastically but I never checked my GPU fan, so I had been playing for like 3 years thermal throttling my GPU at 99c in video games.

One day I decided to upgrade my mb/ram/cpu, and then I realized what the issue was. So I took my GPU fan off, and ziptied an old AIO cooler fan onto it, and now things work perfectly fine, and my GPU still works fine after 4 years of brutal usage.

nafensoriel · June 2019

r7s are on the same bend as r9s. Eventually, they toast themselves. All of them are ticking time bombs.
The cards themselves can actually exceed the melting point of their own solder. If that happens at the wrong time, say when you bump the case or the fan wobbles, it can break that connection just enough to toast the card. It doesn't matter if the "reported" temp is only 70c either. A regular spike of temp over hours of gameplay is enough.

You "could" try baking it.. though I do not recommend this unless you have a second stove you never intend to use for cooking again.

Just so you know its actually very difficult for a program to kill a GPU that is unmodified unless that GPU had a defect. Especially modern GPUs. The sad thing is many GPUs have small defects. It's one of the main reasons why overclocking numbers are always so different between cards.

UnseenCat · June 2019

Did ESO kill the graphics card? Not likely. But inadequate case cooling may have. Case airflow is often neglected. A good CPU cooler removes heat from the CPU, and that heat has to go... somewhere. All too often it just gets dumped into the case, and then the case fans push it out -- slowly. Meanwhile everything else inside the case is slowly cooking to death. Unless you use a graphics card with a blower-style fan that exhausts heat out the backplate, your GPU must cool itself with already-warmed air from inside the case, and then the fans move the hot air into... the rest of the case. Still waiting on the case fans to (slowly) push all that heat out.

Nobody wants screaming case fans in a case on or under the desk. But all to often, cases don't have enough fans or fans running fast enough to move the heat buildup out of the case. And any CPU-intensive task -- including CPU-bound games (Which there are plenty of, not just ESO!) don't help.

When you buy or build a desktop, don't just think of the CPU cooler. Think of the whole case and its airflow as part of the cooling system. Components will last longer that way.