My ASUS TUF RTX 4070 Ti SUPER worked normally for about a year and a half before developing freezes, signal loss, severe FPS drops, and occasional desktop artifacts. It eventually became unusable, so I replaced it after the warranty had expired.
I also replaced the motherboard and power supply, but my new ASUS RTX 5080 began showing similar problems within two days. The freezes are much less frequent, but several games intermittently launch with dramatically reduced performance. For example, Crimson Desert normally runs around 170–180 FPS at 4K with DLSS and frame generation, but sometimes stays around 35–45 FPS despite 99% GPU usage. Forza Horizon normally runs near 90 FPS but can occasionally drop to about 22 FPS while GPU usage falls to 10–20%. Restarting the game or PC often restores normal performance. Control also shows the issue occasionally.
The current system is a Ryzen 7 5700X3D, Gigabyte B550M AORUS ELITE, 32GB DDR4-3200 currently being tested with XMP disabled, ASUS TUF Gaming 850W Gold ATX 3.1 PSU, ASUS RTX 5080 OC, and an MSI 4K 240Hz OLED display using the PSU's native 12V-2x6 cable. I am running Windows 11.
I have already tried clean driver installations with DDU, multiple driver versions, different display cables and outputs, different monitors, BIOS resets, reinstalling games, replacing the PSU and motherboard, and resetting game settings. I have also seen occasional USB device errors where my mouse disconnects, and that happened with both motherboards. The new card has produced a few freezes and one LiveKernelEvent 117, which makes me worry that it could eventually fail like the previous card.
The parts shared between both builds are mainly the CPU, RAM, operating system, monitor, and peripherals. What should I test next, and could an underlying system problem be damaging or destabilizing both GPUs?
5 Answers
Because USB disconnects occurred across both motherboards, inspect the common physical connections and devices too. Disconnect unnecessary USB hardware, hubs, front-panel USB headers, and external controllers, then test with only a basic keyboard and mouse connected directly to the rear I/O. Reseat the CPU, RAM, and GPU, check for bent socket pins, and make sure the GPU is fully supported and the 12V-2x6 connector is completely inserted without sharp cable strain.
Do a genuinely clean Windows installation on a wiped system drive, then install only the chipset driver, graphics driver, and one test game. Avoid restoring old tuning utilities, overlays, RGB software, or previous settings until the system is stable. If the issue remains on a fresh installation, test the remaining shared hardware rather than repeatedly replacing GPUs.
A LiveKernelEvent 117 generally indicates that Windows detected a graphics timeout, but it does not automatically prove the 5080 is dying. If a fresh Windows install, memory testing, minimal USB setup, and stock BIOS settings still reproduce the issue, the CPU or another shared platform component becomes more suspicious. At that point, test with a known-good CPU or RAM kit, or have the system diagnosed as a complete platform rather than RMAing another graphics card blindly.
The most useful clue is that the problem follows the system rather than the graphics card. The CPU, RAM, Windows installation, peripherals, and possibly the electrical environment are still shared. I would monitor GPU power, clocks, temperatures, CPU clocks, and frametimes while the game is performing normally and while it is stuck at low FPS. A large drop in power or clocks can point toward a driver, power-management, thermal, or PCIe issue. Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor may also show whether the freezes line up with the LiveKernelEvent or USB errors.
Test the RAM thoroughly with XMP off first, preferably with several passes of MemTest86 or another bootable memory test. Also test with one DIMM at a time and swap slots. Unstable memory or a marginal CPU memory controller can cause graphics-driver crashes, USB problems, and inconsistent game performance even when the GPU itself is healthy.
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