PC not POSTing when graphics card is plugged in

[The__Malteser]

Hi. As the title suggests, my PC is not POSTing when my GPU is plugged in but it works fine when I remove the graphics card. The motherboard shows a b2 error which seems to indicate that the GPU is at fault. System spec is as follows;

MSI Radeon R9 280X
Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H
SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W
Intel Core i7-4770K
Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2x8GB)
Windows 10 Pro N

Unfortunately I'm not really sure what caused the issue. One week ago I was using my PC and I turned it off. As soon as I turned it off I remembered that I needed to check something and it didn't POST. I haven't changed any configuration and it doesn't look like there were any updates auto-installed around that time.

I've tried quite a few things (unfortunately I don't have another PC with similar specs where I can test different GPUs or PSUs);
- Booted without GPU plugged in
- Changed PCI slot
- Changed PSU PCI power connector
- Cleaned drivers using DDU
- Moved RAM round

Does anyone have any suggestions what I can try?

I have a feeling that the GPU might be dead. It has given me so many problems over the last 3 years; crashing on boot into Windows, random screen tearing on secondary monitor, random boxes of stuck pixels, boot looping etc. I also remember having this same issue before but I wasn't using the GPU at the time so I was happy to work without it. When I plugged it back in a few months later it worked. I did a full PC format and upgraded my BIOS around 6 months ago and everything has been working super well since so I'm not sure why it randomly decided to fail again. I've never overclocked the card so this sudden failure (and all past issues) are very concerning.

Although the issues seem to point towards a HW issue, I believe it is a mostly SW issue. Most of the issues seem to manifest themselves whenever I try to update drivers or the OS. Furthermore, I have a friend who has a 270x and he has been facing similar issues which started around the same time as mine did.

Any suggestions?

 

[Journey]

Sounds like the physical card rather than software.

When was the the last time you cleaned it and re-pasted it? It might be too late for it now but it is worth a try.

 

[Nasher]

That won't make a lot of difference. If it won't POST then it's a hardware problem.

You would need to try it in another PC to know if it's the card or MB.

 

[Quartz]

Does anyone have any suggestions what I can try?

Do you have another PSU? Have you tried the GPU in the x4 slot at the end? Do you have power going into the PCIe power plug by the SATA ports?

 

[Flake87]

Mine did this (GTX 780 Ti) Believed to be the RAM failing. Take to a repair shop and see if the sae happens if they plug it in, if it does then it's dead.

You could reflow the solder on the board, you could replace the RAM but to be honest there's not much point. I sold a dead card for £25 had I repaired it the cost wouldn't have justified the return I might have got.