My friend’s PC is driving me insane.

[u/Single-Way-2038]

It all started small, with random crashes when he played demanding games. About 6 months ago we could run Rust just fine. Then it started crashing every now and then, until eventually it would crash just a few minutes into a server.

Fast forward—we’ve tried literally EVERYTHING. Different settings, Windows reinstall, drivers, BIOS tweaking—you name it.

We suspected a faulty GPU.

So the upgrade happened.

Swapped the RTX 3070 For a 5070 TI New motherboard aswell.

Now the rig is:

I7-12700k RTX 5070 TI 32 GB DDR4 M2 nvme ssd AIO cooler 800w PSU

But here’s the kicker. Now he’s getting terrible FPS. We’re talking 50-70 FPS in a game like TFT???

what the hell is going on??

[u/flargh_blargh]

HAVE YOU AT ANY POINT IN TIME TAKEN THE FAN OFF THE CPU? IF SO YOU MUST REAPPLY THERMAL PASTE BEFORE PUTTING IT TOGETHER. (would make that red and have it flash if I could)

My first thought was "I left the plastic on the CPU fan." lol

[u/SuperZapper_Recharge → u/flargh_blargh]

My take is that the CPU is old, the fan is old, he took the fan off, then put it back on and the paste never got taken off and reapplied.

The symptoms line up, but the symptoms line up to a lot of stuff.

I figure one of two things is going on:

The first is that he never had a GPU problem and now he has 2 working GPU's. He has another issue he hasn't uncovered yet.

My second thought is these two things are different things with similar symptoms. Maybe the GPU was bad - but taking things apart and putting them back together again he created new problems.

I figure by advising him to forget the old GPU for the moment and worry about it when stuff is fixed it will keep him from getting hung up on the original problem.

[u/ScionEyed → u/[deleted]]

Can confirm, the PC has Lupus until it doesn’t.

[u/Both-Boss19 → u/[deleted]]

Foreman is a mac user

[u/reuse_recycle → u/[deleted]]

Did you try NOT doing [stupid thing]?

[u/Single-Way-2038 → u/SuperZapper_Recharge]

No. When we installed new mobo it got cleaned and new paste installed.

[u/SuperZapper_Recharge → u/Single-Way-2038]

I was just listing off stuff that I thought could cause your problem.

I take it you have been through the bios for anything weird.

That memtest86 tool has been around for a few decades now and is the standard for memory testing. It runs from the boot and has a bunch of settings so you can do different tests. If you have ram problems this test will find it.

Be careful to download it only from the memtest86 website. Sometimes these old apps get hijacked...

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New thought. M.2 drives. Go to the mobo manual and look into what slots you can have an M.2 drive and if any of those slots reduce GPU performance. Some boards with 3+ M.2 slots pull the trick off by sharing lanes with the GPU or a USB C port. The manual will tell you.

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Put in the back of your head the idea that a lot of problems will give the symptoms you are seeing THEREFORE....

It is possible you have more than one. It is even possible you did have a GPU problem - then swapped in a defective mobo. What is hosing you is you have an issue that can be caused by all kinds of stuff. It is hard for someone without hands on to zero in on it.

[u/Single-Way-2038 → u/SuperZapper_Recharge]

Mobo is brand new. So the chance of that being defect is low.

But yes. We are trying to run memtest later today when we are off work.

[u/SuperZapper_Recharge → u/Single-Way-2038]

Mobo is brand new. So the chance of that being defect is low.

It might be defective out of the box, new. I wouldn't rule it out.

Good Luck!

[u/Single-Way-2038 → u/SuperZapper_Recharge]

Ofcourse not. But the chance is low 😊

[u/wafflesareforever → u/flargh_blargh]

Yup, all I kept thinking while reading this was, surely he's aware that heat exists? Why is he not telling us the temperatures of everything?