My GT 240 blacks out and BSODs during intense gaming sessions

All updated to the latest W10 (19042.928). I don’t know if this should go in the BSOD section or here, as this involves the GPU (GeForce GT 240).

This has happened twice now, yesterday and today (as of posting this), and I’m now worried about the condition of my 240 (picked up on the 27th to finish the build)

Bluescreenview reports the DirectX graphics kernel, dxgmms, and the Nvidia driver (updated to 342.1 as it’s the last version to support this specific card).

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Oh, and I’m aware Tesla 2.0 cards aren’t actually supported on 10, but Nvidia’s website says 342.01 (the driver I have) supports 10. Should I roll back to 342.00 (only has 8, 7 and Vista support), try and exchange the card (picked it up from brick and mortar) or refrain from heavy gaming until I can get a newer GPU (restricting its use to a temporary display adapter)? (The next-best GPU is an RX 580 and a 1060, or a 750 Ti, and they’re severely marked up...)

Does a GT 240 (vintage 2009) meet the graphics requirements of the game you're running, at 1920 X 1080? It's a rather weak card, by current standards, and it has only 1GB of VRAM.

I wonder what kind of used market is available where you are? eBay in the USA has a number of old cards that are superior to the GT 240, at prices that are more tolerable than those of the last generation or two. (I have an old Radeon HD 7970, for example. It's worth maybe $50 currently. I believe that AMD's latest drivers support it.)

My 240 is a 512 mb but has GDDR5.

It can run non-demanding stuff like LEGO and 2D games, but crashes and burns when it comes to demanding 3D like PCSX2 and OBS + gaming. Can’t run DX11. However, this is a temporary solution until I can pick up a better GPU.

Brunei GPU market nowadays restricts cards to prebuilt and full PCs and there’s only one shop here that sells GPUs by themselves amidst this shortage, and the 240 was the only one I can afford at tolerable prices ($800 for a 1080p card...)

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Oh, it just happened again while I was recording in Audacity. Beginning to suspect either card or drivers...

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Quick peek into reliability history and it says something about Tesla 2... maybe drivers?
Should I downgrade to an earlier driver?

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Rolled back to a 2015 driver that has no compatibility with 10 (driver released 6/29/2015) let’s see how it fares...

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...no dice. Might as well try to reseat it first

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Reseating it did it no good...

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Afterburner reports 100c (!) with an average of ~70-80c, the latter with the side panel off. The card may have overheated, taking Windows with it. Might have to invest in new thermal paste, considering the card's age, or some more fans to cool it down.

TTSVids105 said:

Brunei GPU market nowadays restricts cards to prebuilt and full PCs

I honestly think they're starting to do that in the U.S.A.!

It also reminds me of Microsoft's stunt back in the late-1990s, by denying anything other then pre-builts
(or was trying to deny others) from having the OSR2 update for Windows 95!

RJARRRPCGP said:

I honestly think they're starting to do that in the U.S.A.!

It also reminds me of Microsoft's stunt back in the late-1990s, by denying anything other then pre-builts
(or was trying to deny others) from having the OSR2 update for Windows 95!

That may be true enough, if you want the latest generation of GPUs (nVidia RTX 3000 series, AMD Radeon RX 6000 series) cards. Some of them are readily available through resellers (aka scalpers). You can easily get an RTX 3080 for a mere 3X the original MSRP. (The AIB makers have raised their MSRPs over the past few months.) An RX 6900XT, for around $1700US, almost seems like a bargain as the MSRP was $1k - a mere 70% markup. (The AMD cards are supposed to be not as good as the nVidia cards for games that use raytracing.)

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I went on a wait list for an RTX 3080 from eVGA. After 7 months, I cancelled. Some people attempted to monitor the queues; nearly no movement for the 3080 since launch day in September. If eVGA is making 3080 cards, I suppose they're going to system builders.

Win95 OSR2? Blast from the past. (I vaguely recall that it was desireable because it introduced FAT32 support.) Since it wasn't for sale, I didn't buy it. I had access to the upgrade through other means. Also, XP64 was never sold at retail; MS didn't support it, and left that up to the OEMs.

There are older generation cards (like nVidia 900 series) available at prices that aren't completely crazy on eBay (used). Perhaps not helpful in Brunei. I almost regret having given a GTX 970 away last year.

bobkn said:

There are older generation cards (like nVidia 900 series) available at prices that aren't completely crazy on eBay (used).

The wanted prices that are widespread, made me afraid to even have anyone look for a used video card or any one that's some years old that was hardly being used by anyone when I was at my favorite little store. It made me feel like I was trying to get a house for only 200,000 in Beverly Hills, California, FFS!

The gt 240 is not suitable for modern games,the start point is now around the 900+ series.
Also the psu with a nominal 550w is marginal,for modern gaming purposes then a minimum of 750w is a more beneficial option.
Brunei is not the only country where pricing has gone mad,thanks to Wuflu.

I know Tesla 2.0 is EOL (only affordable card), I plan to upgrade to a 750w, and I’m waiting for prices to stabilize (which hopefully is quite soon, considering the new build’s main purpose) so I can pick up at least a 900 series or RX 500 series, or better.

Newegg currently sells the 710 direct, and a 1650 Super is currently inflated to $471 USD (ouch, considering its MSRP)

Forgot to mention that over here, even 710s and 1030s are being locked to full builds