Video card fried?

I'm using a 9800GT at stock, never been oc'd, etc. Up to date drivers.

So, about a week ago my computer started locking up. Blizzard gave me a free week of WoW (lol) and since I was kind of bored and hadn't played in a while I figured I'd patch it up and log on for a bit. As soon as I loaded the game this happened for the first time. Beyond that it was somewhat infrequent and seemingly randomly, except it always happened when I launched a game.

When it locks up it looks like this (my apologies for the shitty cell phone picture, but at the moment I can't even make it to windows, and if I could I wouldn't be able to do a Printscreen anyway).

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/204/windowsh.jpg

At first the green lines were less dense, and sometimes different colors (usually bright ones...pink, lime green, etc).

Anyway, like I said, it was somewhat random before. It could happen right after logging on, browsing, watching a video...but it would always happen when I launched a game. That being said, until yesterday it never happened before logging into windows..now it happens pretty much right after I hit the power.

I'm leaning towards video card for obvious reasons...possible my VRAM is fried? I keep my computer pretty clean, so I don't think dust would have been a problem. Two back fans, one front, one side...the video card isn't overclocked, rarely play any games, so I don't think overheating would be a problem.

Unfortunately I don't have another PCI-e card handy, so I can't test another card.

The only thing leading me to believe it could be something else is the fact that the computer completely locks up. Is this normal if it's just the video card? (ie. can't move the mouse).

Thanks in advance for the help. Let me know if you need anymore details, unfortunately I can't get into windows, so can't get temps, etc. That being said I rarely play any games lately...the computers mostly used for browsing/music/video, nothing that should cause any stress on the card.

 

I can't see the picture but based on the description it does sound like a bad graphics card.

 

So this is happening during the POST screens, i.e normally black background with all the white POST text displaying "pre-OS"?

I agree your image link didn't work (but I could see it was thr when doing a quote).

It does sound like either VRAM degradation or GPU TIM has dried out even with a "clean" environment.

Try running GPU-z for a while and play a game while it is running and then take note of the indicators.

If it is the TIM then the card can easily be revived with a strip down and refresh but VRAM degradation takes a lot more technical expertise and is not "worth the effort" considering the price of a comparable card.

 

Alright guys, thanks for the help/opinions. I ended up just getting a new card...but I'm still having some issues.

My computer still sometimes freezes on startup (no graphical errors, though). Right after logging into windows (it either freezes after I hit logon, or when I hit the desktop). Now I did some searches on google, and a lot of pages seemed to indicate it could potentially be due to dust in the CPU and such. That being said my computer boots fine in safe mode, so is it fair to assume that it's a problem with my Windows and not my hardware?

I also came across a few posts indicating that AVG has caused similar issues...which is strange because it does appear as though my AVG is ****ed (likely Malware), I'm unable to install it from Windows, Safemode, or using CCleaners uninstaller. I've disabled AVG during startup, but that doesn't seem to help.

Tried running a Startup repair but it didn't find any problems. I unfortunately don't have any restore points that seem to help.

I'll probably just end up reformating, the files I care about (music, mostly) is on a separate harddrive, hopefully one that isn't infected (if that's even the problem.)

I'm mostly just looking for some second opinions to confirm whether or not it is in fact an OS issue. Not sure if I'm completely right in assuming that if it was the CPU it would lock in safe mode as well...

Thanks.

 

just an fyi, when I can get into windows my CPU is hovering around 40-43C. GPU is ~32C.

Makes me lean towards the issue with Windows files...but at the same time the fact that I can get into windows sometimes makes me question that.

 

My first guess would be a driver issue. If the card that you installed doesn't use the exact same drivers as the one that you removed, it can cause some funky stuff to happen. (Stuff like BSODs, hangs during boot, etc)

Can you boot into safe mode? If so, I would definitely lean toward some driver issue.

I know there are driver cleaner programs here on MG, but I can't really recommend any since I've never used them. Maybe someone else can. Or, obviously a clean install of Windows should fix it, which is what I usually do with issues like this.

 

Yeah, that's definitely a good point. Considering it had the old driver for the 9800GT, then when I plugged the new card in Windows Installer installed a driver, then I overwrote that with the latest ones from the nVidia site.

I'll probably just reformat, nothing important on that drive. As long as it isn't a hardware issue I'm satisfied.

Thanks!