GTX 295 keeps rebooting my PC

[Jafula]

In my experience, usually reboots are caused by faulty hardware or faulty software drivers. Bad code generally does not cause a reboot, unless its in windows (drivers) and then you get a blue screen of death.

You might like to turn off automatically restart on system failure as well (or check your event logs after the reboot) to see if Windows bluescreened or just plain rebooted. (Right-click my computer -> properties -> advanced system settings -> startup and recovery -> settings -> uncheck automatically restart).

Somethings to check:

1) Motherboard firmware - I like to get the most recent even if the release notes do not have a fix for my issue.

2) Motherboard chipset drivers.

3) Nivida GFX drivers.

4) Sound drivers - weird I know, but you might like to disable sound while you are playing a game and see if you still get reboots (this links back to dodgy mobo firmware / drivers).

5) Check your mobo manufacturer's forums for others with similar complaints.

Hope that helps and good luck!

[remanz]

Thanks for the reply good tip.

Ultimately, it is mobo that can determine whether to restart or not, not the GPU card. So the root might be in mobo. I've never upgraded my firmware. I guess it is time to do that.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Thanks for the reply good tip.

Ultimately, it is mobo that can determine whether to restart or not, not the GPU card. So the root might be in mobo. I've never upgraded my firmware. I guess it is time to do that.

Not true at all. The motherboard is only one of many players in the stability game. If the GPU stops responding to a driver thread, the driver will detect that and fault, which may cause Windows to bugcheck depending on the severity and which version of Windows you're running (Win7 has much better video driver crash recovery than Vista/XP).

In my experience, usually reboots are caused by faulty hardware or faulty software drivers. Bad code generally does not cause a reboot, unless its in windows (drivers) and then you get a blue screen of death.

The caveat here is that if you leave Windows settings to default, it automatically reboots the PC when it bugchecks, so the BSOD may flash by so fast that you don't even realize it was a bugcheck. If that happens, the only way to find out what happened is to check the system event logs and/or the MEMORY.DMP if you configured it to dump anything and if the fault isn't in the disk subsystem.

[Jafula]

The caveat here is that if you leave Windows settings to default, it automatically reboots the PC when it bugchecks, so the BSOD may flash by so fast that you don't even realize it was a bugcheck. If that happens, the only way to find out what happened is to check the system event logs and/or the MEMORY.DMP if you configured it to dump anything and if the fault isn't in the disk subsystem.

Aren't PC's PITA's? Grrr. Hey, I could make money from this!

[remanz]

I have the settings for "restart when encounter fatal error" unchecked in windows 7 though. I think that merely takes care of blue screen of death and it will halt the blue screen there instead of restarting the machine right away. It did not stop my system from restarting in this case.

I am not expert on this. But if windows is restarting, it can certainly halt the process and log the error somewhere instead of just cut my power directly. This looks like mobo or my power supply are restarting.

I have latest nvidia driver. The reason I said the GPU over heat was that when I OCed my GPU (Goddamn ff14), say from 590 hz to 700hz core clock, I get this restart the moment I open any game. I then set it back to stock clock. It is ok to play SC2/wow etc.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Well, in that case, you may be onto something. I'd suggest not OC'ing your GPU.

[remanz]

oh I did not OC in this case.

The OC for ff14 was before. I set it back to stock it still restart for Call of Duty Black Ops. I guess if upgrade bios no work. Time to get a single card GTX 580 maybe.


Dual GPU (GTX 295 in particular) is kinda fail. Two cards too closed to each other (unlike a normal SLI) and too much heat.

[Sajuuk]

oh I did not OC in this case.

The OC for ff14 was before. I set it back to stock it still restart for Call of Duty Black Ops. I guess if upgrade bios no work. Time to get a single card GTX 580 maybe.


Duel GPU (GTX 295 in particular) is kinda fail. Two cards too closed to each other (unlike a normal SLI) and too much heat.

It's a trade off.


Long shot but...power supply issue? What's your PSU and do you have another you could possibly switch out?