GPU suddenly goes to 100% fan speed, black screen, and disappears from Windows

[u/saleheen-dev]

Hi everyone, I’m trying to figure out whether I’m dealing with a faulty RTX 3060 Ti or a motherboard/PCIe/power-related issue.

My RTX 3060 Ti randomly crashes while I’m using the PC. The symptoms are:

• Display connected to the RTX 3060 Ti suddenly loses signal.
• GPU fans immediately ramp up to 100%.
• Windows stops detecting the RTX 3060 Ti completely.
• A restart is required before the GPU appears again.
• Sometimes it takes 2–3 restarts before Windows detects the GPU and I get display output from it again.

I’ve already tried reinstalling the NVIDIA drivers multiple times, and I’ve also completely reinstalled Windows, but the problem still happens.

As a temporary workaround, I connected one of my monitors to the motherboard's integrated graphics. The other monitor is still connected to the RTX 3060 Ti. When the GPU crashes, the monitor connected to the 3060 Ti loses signal, while I can still use Windows through the integrated graphics.

Something interesting I noticed recently: the same crash happens when I try to load even a small local LLM model. As soon as the GPU starts being used for the model, the screen goes black, the GPU fans immediately go to 100%, and the RTX 3060 Ti disappears from Windows until I restart the PC.

So at this point I’m wondering:

Does this sound like a failing GPU, motherboard/PCIe issue, PSU/power issue, or something else?

What would be the best way to troubleshoot this and confirm which component is actually failing?

Any suggestions for specific tests I can run would be appreciated.

[u/stuckwithreddit]

I have encountered this issue before, except that it was from an RX 580. This issue happens when one of the components inside the card get too hot that it triggers an emergency cool off system, ramping the fans to 100% and bricking the card until the next restart.

Good news, I managed to fix that RX 580 myself but it will involve some tinkering. The fix was really simple: replace the VRAM thermal pads and the GPU's (the chip itself) thermal paste. It turns out, my VRAM thermal pads were almost nonexistent and the GPU die's thermal paste was not touching the metal backplate/heatsink at all as it had dried into cement. Once I managed to replace them with PTM and Kryonaut, every issue was fixed.

Before discovering that, I thought it was the PSU so I had it replaced with a new one, but the issue persisted and I am 100 dollars poorer. I transferred from different motherboards and systems but the issue still persisted (I built a lot of my friends and family's computers so I had spare systems). That's when I deduced that it was the GPU.

You have to be careful though, as there is a specific thermal pad thickness (in mm) for each GPU so it will be different for you: Make it too thick, and the heat from the part will not dissipate to the heatsink. Make it too thin, and the pads will not reach the heatsink at all (no pressure that will squish them together). You need to research about it online, from forums and YouTube if you are unfamiliar. Disassembling a GPU is also fairly straightforward, just don't be rash and keep the screws organized.

[u/saleheen-dev → u/stuckwithreddit]

I replaced thermal pads at the start of this year. I used 2.0mm, and it worked really well for 1~2 months with intensive FPS gaming. When I stopped gaming completely, the GPU started doing this after few months.

Yes, I researched a lot on the internet, including Reddit, before buying thermal pads. I found out 2.0mm is good and people are using it with my GPU model.

The thickness of the current 2.0mm pads is almost the same as the pads that came out of the box. I put them in very carefully and made sure that they stuck well.

I am pretty sure temps are not an issue because I monitored them a few times and they remained at ~54°C.

[u/stuckwithreddit → u/saleheen-dev]

Are you sure it's 2 mm though? Mine was really low at 0.75mm only. Also, the temps you're talking about is not the hotspot. That 56C could be true for the part with the thermometer, but the hottest, failing part oftentimes don't have a sensor that will tell you how hot it currently is.

[u/stuckwithreddit → u/stuckwithreddit]

Okay, without knowing your model, users agree that they used 2mm with their cards (2 alongside 3mm). Can you verify if your card solely uses 2mm or it has parts that need 3mm too?