Can multi-boxing on one pc fry your graphics card?

[scrypps]

So I'm playing three accounts on one machine, intel wolfdale 2 core chip and a 8800 gts 768mb, 4gs ram.

It plays fine for a while, then I get to a point in my multiboxing leveling where sometimes I get lag, the cpu usage is at 100%, even if I exit wow on all three accounts the cpu usage will be at %100. I assume it is just some sort of glitch.
Then later I'm playing on a 70 in kharazan and I notice little clear lines across the screen, with occasional lag, this is when I'm playing one account.

So long story short, I have a new, sweet ATI graphics card with 800 streaming pixel processors. I haven't multi-boxed on it yet because I"m afraid I might mess it up. So do you think that it is multi-boxing that is causing the problems. Have you ever heard of frying a card just from playing 3 accounts at once?

[mikekim]

yes multiboxing can "fry" your graphics card, as you would be running multiple instances and therefore running the card that much harder. your best bet would be to look at improving your case cooling (extra fans and better airflow)

[Alienenduro]

yes it can :(
also I experienced these same problems a while back ( a part from the lines) It turned out to the quest helper mod that was causing my problem

[skinart]

To be honest, the video card "should" be built to run at full capacity and be able to keep its core cool if its a high end card (in the right enviroment ex: a well cooled case). But that being said, it deffenatly cannot hurt to have extra cooling in your machine. The cheapeast way to do this without phase change cooling or water cooling, would be to get cross flow air through your whole pc. The best way to do this is have intake fans on the front lower end of the case as cooler air is always at the bottom and then have some rear exhaust fans that are mounted in the rear upper section of the case, or even better have a couple of exhaust fans at the top of your case as you know hot air rises.

If you have a few bucks to spend, DIY water cooling for CPU and Video card can work extremely well, and is also fun to build. And im sure alot of you guys omn this forum and pushing machines to there limits :)

Hope this helps.

Chad

[magwo]

Heh, this is ridiculous. You can't fry your card more with multiboxing than you can with a single instance of a GPU demanding game.

To clarify: Basically only if there's a manufacturing defect or similar with your card. Not under any normal circumstances.

[Sarduci]

That's like saying running full screen video on two monitors with "fry" your video card.....

If your case cooling is not good, then you have issues. Fix your issues.

[gamemaster000]

Yes, cooling is especially important now days with these super hot video cards. I hear that the 4xxx series ATI cards are running super hot (80C+) and I know my GTX260 does (75C). As a test, you can take the side off your case and blow a box fan into it to see if that helps. If so, I'd really look at adding a case fan or two (or even switching cases to one with better air flow). It's better than cooking a video card every 6 months (a friend of mine went through two of them before finally upgrading his case). By the way, once you start to see artifacts, it just gets worse over time...

[Bigdady92]

Yes.

Heavy load on an electrical device can cause a 'short' or failure. It happens from time to time, rare in this day and age but it can, and does happen.

[zanthor]

Wait a damn second here...

To all those who said yes it can...

BULLSHIT.

Driving a car on the freeway can cause your car stereo to fail.

The fact is that ANY video card under a big load can get thermal damage and fail. Multiboxing puts a big load on your system, but if you keep your system maintained, clean and FUNCTIONAL fans, clean airflow, dry conditions, etc, and the system isn't flawed by design (shitty heatsync, etc) then multiboxing wont break shit.

[Bigdady92]

Wait a damn second here...

To all those who said yes it can...

BULLSHIT.

Driving a car on the freeway can cause your car stereo to fail.

The fact is that ANY video card under a big load can get thermal damage and fail. Multiboxing puts a big load on your system, but if you keep your system maintained, clean and FUNCTIONAL fans, clean airflow, dry conditions, etc, and the system isn't flawed by design (shitty heatsync, etc) then multiboxing wont break shit.I'll use your example to explain how it's possible.

If you were to drive down the freeway with the windows up every day with the sun shining then you are right. There's no way for it to happen.

But what bout the time you said "You know what, screw it, it's nice let's roll the windows down." then you go cruising like you normally do and it rains, shorts your system right out when water gets on it.

Sometimes, shit happens, that the facts of computer life. Sometimes fans fail, sometimes, electronics fail, sometimes resistors, transistors, fail. Sometimes your PSU overheats due to brown out and power surges (it's bad in old homes). Everything will fail at one point or another, the best thing one can hope to do is prevent that mean failure from occuring by doing exaclty what you are saying: keep your computer dust free, keep a surge protector on the power, and keeping it nice and cool.


I can't tell you how many times in my long career I've seen tech guys swear up and down they run the hottest Shite on the face of gods green earth and their air intake fan is clogged with dust or have a Powerstrip instead ofa battery backup on their gear. Let's not count normal users who keep their computers in closets or under desks with no air circulation.

[zanthor]

But what bout the time you said "You know what, screw it, it's nice let's roll the windows down." then you go cruising like you normally do and it rains, shorts your system right out when water gets on it.Thus proving my point, driving didn't fuck up your stereo, getting it wet did.

Either way I'm bitching about semantics, it just offended me that day, not sure why :).

[Phyzik]

I have a 8600 GT and 2g of RAM, a box fan on the side of my case, and a rear fan. Regularly dusted. I also have a Zalman fan on top of the card. After dualboxing on low settings for about a day, I started seeing early signs of artifacts. I immediately stopped and haven't gone back since.

From what I'm understanding in this post, I need more cooling on top of the large rear fan and the box fan? And if I have already seen slight artifacts, am I out of luck with this card for any future dual boxing?

[-silencer-]

Wait a damn second here...

To all those who said yes it can...

BULLSHIT.

Driving a car on the freeway can cause your car stereo to fail.

The fact is that ANY video card under a big load can get thermal damage and fail. Multiboxing puts a big load on your system, but if you keep your system maintained, clean and FUNCTIONAL fans, clean airflow, dry conditions, etc, and the system isn't flawed by design (shitty heatsync, etc) then multiboxing wont break shit.
I agree with you. The act of multiboxing won't "break" a graphics card any more than another single heavy graphics-intensive game will. If someone is having problems, it's because either their ambient (room) temperature around the case is too high or the airflow through the case isn't enough. Properly cooled graphics cards are built to withstand thousands of hours running at full load. If a card is acting up, there's a chance it's defective, but I'd bet the ambient or case cooling isn't good enough.

[magwo]

Yep.
GPUs aren't comparable to cars. GPUs are usually run at full speed when active. When you multibox, that "full speed" is divided into n slices, where n is the number of WoW instances you run.
Cars wear down if you run them at full speed for prolonged periods of time. GPUs and in general electronics, don't. They are designed to run at "full speed"/load.

[Kinc]

Multoboxing will not fry your graphic card. However since multiboxers run WoW in window-mode some graphic card + driver may result in that the fan dont responde as it should. In other words the fan might stay at 25% speed while it needs to run 60% to keep the card coold enough to remain within the specs. However this is very rare. If you experience very low fps in window-mode, check the temp of your card.

[pengwynman]

Multoboxing will not fry your graphic card. However since multiboxers run WoW in window-mode some graphic card + driver may result in that the fan dont responde as it should. In other words the fan might stay at 25% speed while it needs to run 60% to keep the card coold enough to remain within the specs. However this is very rare. If you experience very low fps in window-mode, check the temp of your card.pretty sure fan speed depends on actual temp of the card, not load %...

as far as the car stereo example... no, your stereo (probably) isn't going to die from normal driving. yes you can damage it from driving in the rain, but that would be the equivalent of dumping water in your computer (not water cooling... >.>), not really relevant. HOWEVER, if you hook up 5 full stereo systems to one battery/alternator, chances are you're gonna have some issues.

video artifacts in my experience come from heat issues more often than not. i know the 8800 series runs VERY hot (my old card is an 8800 gtx OC2, gets too hot to touch after only a few minutes of pushing it). newer cards like the the geforce 200 series use a 65nm processing technology, which allows them to run cooler/more efficiently than the 90nm 8800's.

to sum it up: stressing any part of your system can fry it. ample cooling makes this much less likely.

[Kinc]

Multoboxing will not fry your graphic card. However since multiboxers run WoW in window-mode some graphic card + driver may result in that the fan dont responde as it should. In other words the fan might stay at 25% speed while it needs to run 60% to keep the card coold enough to remain within the specs. However this is very rare. If you experience very low fps in window-mode, check the temp of your card.pretty sure fan speed depends on actual temp of the card, not load %...

The % Im talking about is fan speed. 100% = 12V and full speed. Some graphic cards like the Asus 9800GT Matrix or 4850 Matrix actually adjust fan speed, gpu clock freq. and gpu voltage dependent on the load on the gpu. This is done by a extra IC-processor that meassures current drawn from the power circuit which is directly linear to gpu load.

[pengwynman]

Multoboxing will not fry your graphic card. However since multiboxers run WoW in window-mode some graphic card + driver may result in that the fan dont responde as it should. In other words the fan might stay at 25% speed while it needs to run 60% to keep the card coold enough to remain within the specs. However this is very rare. If you experience very low fps in window-mode, check the temp of your card.pretty sure fan speed depends on actual temp of the card, not load %...

The % Im talking about is fan speed. 100% = 12V and full speed. Some graphic cards like the Asus 9800GT Matrix or 4850 Matrix actually adjust fan speed, gpu clock freq. and gpu voltage dependent on the load on the gpu. This is done by a extra IC-processor that meassures current drawn from the power circuit which is directly linear to gpu load.oic what yer sayin, lol it was like 3am when i posted, forgive me :rolleyes: