8800 GTX, is there a light at the end of the tunnel ?

Sup ya'll
I have recently got my hands on an old 8800GTX, which from the outside, is in a pretty good shape. I have decided to change the thermal paste/pads on it, and so I did, ensuring both have good contact with the heatsink and parts they're meant to cool. After connecting it to a PC, I have found the following:
8800 GTX as only GPU:
vertical columns consisting of RED, dotted lines like so:
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -


appear few times across the screen, the computer manages to go past windows loading screen once per machine (tested on 2: WinXP 32 and Win7 64, 6 year old and 3 months old PCs respectively). During the 1st launch, GPU is not detected by nVidia drivers, and windows installs its own after a while.
Upon restarting the PC, graphics card 'turns off' during windows loading screen. The screen goes blank with 'NO DVI INPUT'-like message, and that's it (having G15 keyboard, I can determine via the LCD screen status whether the boot has completed - it doesn't). again, process looks the same on both PCs.
Having the 8800GTX connected as secondary card (non-sli), the computer successfully turns on, but drivers (determined by a nvxxx.dll file stated) freeze the computer, and throw a BSOD about 10 seconds after that.
My question is: can I bring this card back to life?
I can re-try this if you want the full file name, but you'll have to instruct me how to capture BSODs, as it stays for fraction of a second.
Thanks for any help in advance.
P.S: It's from asus, although I believe is a reference design, with bios version (on a sticker): 60.80.08.00.37, cant verify if its true though.
EDIT:
I want this card to be able to run on the 6 yr old WinXP 32 pc, if it matters.

 

Sounds like to me a heat issue.But can be wrong.

Are you sure you placed the fans and every thing back on correctly.

 

Well, the PCB does get warm to very warm just below the chip, but the problem is that the boot up sequence is always the same, regardless of running time:
based on XP example,
Power button> Dotted horizontal lines during splash > vertical lines during bios stuff > Dotted horizontal lines during widows loading > slight lag > black screen + fans turning full speed, each and every time.
I have cleaned the heatsink fins with air, same with the fan thing (it's not a fan, whats the name of it?)

 

It sounds to me like the card got fried at some point before. Sorry!