PC/Graphics cards issues

[inquisitive_emu]

I'm having some weird issues with my PC - it's an AMD6x Phenom, 8GB RAM, Geforce 460, Win 7 setup and it's been running flawlessly for last 18 months but yesterday evening whilst playing Minecraft it froze up with some screen artefacting, so I hard reset it. During startup, before Windows welcome screen it had some weird artefacting, welcome screen looked ok, but once clicking a profile, it froze up with more mess on screen, never got to a desktop. Safe mode worked ok, and could eventually log into an Admin profile with selective startup on but everything was slow and unresponsive.

So I decided to format and reinstall Windows, then first thing I downloaded the latest nvidia drivers, seemed to install them then it rebooted but is now crashing before even getting to a welcome screen and having to resort to Safe Mode.

Is there a way to tell if a graphics card is knackered (software diagnostics or anything)? It's still detectable in the Device manager, fans are running and everything, but I am out of ideas now...

 

[mp260767]

what psu are you running and how old is it ?

what sort of temps are the processor and gpu running at.

 

[Shadz]

Doubt it is a PSU problem as its been fine for the last 18 months.

Atrefacting while you are not even in Windows (on startup) usually does indicate a faulty
card.

How old is the card ?

 

[inquisitive_emu]

PSU is a Corsair CX600. The GTX 460 is the same age as the PC, 18 months (was a system build from OCUK).

 

[honosuseri]

Welcome to troubleshooting hell.

Can i suggest you download ultimatebootcd or a similar boot disk. It's packed with lots of handy diagnostic tools to make life much easier.

I'd suggest a CMOS reset of the mobo (BIOS to factory defaults), and to run memtest on your RAM.

It could be the GPU but if we start with the core components we can work our way to the GPU

 

[inquisitive_emu]

Thanks, I tried Load Optimised Defaults in the BIOS, which didn't seem to affect anything and also a memory test which came up with nothing.

 

[Shadz]

It could be the memory on the Graphics cards, which still means its the card to be honest
with you, to do a CMOS reset you have to take the battery off the motherboard for a few
minute and then put the battery back in this will wipe the settings out of the BIOS totally.

If you have run a memtest and it came back clean then thats out ruled your RAM.

Do you know someone you can borrow a PSU off for an hour just so you can try another
PSU just incase it is that. Just 1 more thing you could rule out that way.

 

[Nickolp1974]

I would check that everything is seated properly, memory, cpu cooler, e.t.c, take gpu out while your there and give it a clean with a vac.
Check all cable connections.

And deffo check gpu temps whilst under load.

 

[inquisitive_emu]

I managed to pickup a cheap 5450 card, slotted that in, installed the drivers and everything seems ok, so I'm assuming it's definitely the 460 that's the problem?

Regarding the 460 it won't load Windows with the drivers installed so I can't monitor it in any way.

 

[Nickolp1974]

Since your problem have you ever taken the card out? Excluding the time you switched to the 5450.

As for monitoring, can you boot with driver uninstalled then let windows get driver, dont restart and try some tests then??