closed

[cordato]

Fixed it, sort of. Thanks for the suggestions!

[stoanee]

So to be clear here your rig will keeping working satisfactorily with case open and a fan blowing inside?

[stoanee]

Obvious overheating for sure, you could try something like coretemp to monitor cpu temps and some sort of gpu temp monitoring app to watch your vid card when you turn fans off & close case.

[Dzzope]

Agree with Stoanee, if it runs with the side off and a desk fan then overheating is most-likely the issue..

Could very easily be the PSU, check and make sure the fan still runs on it and that it's not choked with dust..

If you could take some pictures of your set-up there might be something simple that we could see that you may have missed.

[cordato]

I found an image from someone else, who has stripped his GTS 250 naked. I edited the image to make it easier to tell you guys which chips I'm talking about.
Please do note that some components may be positioned somewhere else since he didn't have an ASUS card, it was a different brand, thus a different layout of the PCB.
On the left is my card with the cooler on, on the right the stripped down card.

Ignore the RAM chips, GPU core and the blue chip. They don't feel hot.
The green and red components do get hot though, I can feel it through the card on the back, can anyone tell me what they are?
I put two left over zalman zm-rhs1 heatsinks on the 4 red components (possibly power converters?),
after I put most heatsinks on the RAM chips (on the chips and on the opposite side of the PCB), and the green chips already have a black heatsink on them.

[Apathetik]

Sounds like exactly what was happening to me. Turned out to be a dying power supply. You could definitely do damage to more parts if it surges when it dies, so I would definitely look at getting a new one, as thats most likely what it is. Theres some great deals on ones at NCIX!

[Bond007]

Because it works with the side off it has to be a heat issue. Check GPU and CPU temps again. If they are fine I would say that it is the power supply.

[486]

1. Get new Seasonic PSU 520-660 range.
2. Get new AMD videocard 7850-7950 range.
3. Enjoy.