Is my graphics card dying? Random Blue and Red lines across screen and failure to boot up properly

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Danny91

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Sep 17, 2014
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Hi everyone

So, I have a MSI N580GTX Graphics Card, and earlier today, the screen started flashing randomly black and then would come to, with a message saying: "Nvidia Driver 340 has recovered from a failure."

Then, a short time ago, it flashed black and reset, and would then refuse to move past the Windows Logo screen on my Windows 7 startup. Furthermore, on the BIOS logo screen, there would be random blue horizontal or red horizontal lines across the entire screen.

I checked all the connections and plugs, and they seem to be fine, and what I discovered is that if I go into Safe Mode, the PC boots up fine, and from there, I uninstalled my graphics driver in Device Manager, and now I can boot my computer up fine in normal mode, albeit with reduced resolution and no capacity for graphics intensive programs. This works as long as I don't try to reinstall my nVidia drivers, whereupon it would again fail to boot up properly.

What I would like to know please if anyone can help: Does this mean my physical graphics card is moments away from breaking completely? Is there anything I can do? It seems like it just cant generate enough processing power to manage higher resolutions, and if there is anything I can do, I would appreciate it very much before I start shopping for a replacement card.

Thanks for your time.
 
Solution
Eximo
GTX580 is a power consuming monster. Capacitors within the supply age and effectively lose their maximum rating as time goes on.

If you haven't yet taken your system apart and re-inserted the graphics card, give that a try. You would be surprised how often an errant spec of dust or a slight misalignment (plus the constant heating and cooling cycles) can mess up that connection.

What is the clock frequency of the card? You could try underclocking it a little. Might just have become unstable over time.

Any electrical component can fail at any time. Only true test of a power supply is to put a load on it. Usually requires some specialized test equipment (or a whole bunch of light bulbs) to do.
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Danny91

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Sep 17, 2014
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Is there anyway I could check if that is the case? I have been using an 850w Power Supply that has been powering the Graphics Card, two HDD, and one SSD for a couple years now. Is there any reason why it should suddenly stop providing enough power?

 
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Eximo

Eximo

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May 27, 2010
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GTX580 is a power consuming monster. Capacitors within the supply age and effectively lose their maximum rating as time goes on.

If you haven't yet taken your system apart and re-inserted the graphics card, give that a try. You would be surprised how often an errant spec of dust or a slight misalignment (plus the constant heating and cooling cycles) can mess up that connection.

What is the clock frequency of the card? You could try underclocking it a little. Might just have become unstable over time.

Any electrical component can fail at any time. Only true test of a power supply is to put a load on it. Usually requires some specialized test equipment (or a whole bunch of light bulbs) to do.
 
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Solution
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Danny91

Reputable
Sep 17, 2014
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4,510


Thanks, I've tried every possible way of taking it out of the tower, cleaning it, and putting it back in again, so that doesnt seem to be the prob.

What does concern me is that is the issue of underclocking, you see, I can't recall out of the top of my head what it is running at, but I do know that it is factory overclocked. I would like to try underclocking it, but I'm not sure how, the program I normally use is MSI Afterburner, but that program doesn't seem to be picking up the graphics card when I start it up, I assume because the card isn't formally installed with any nVidia drivers. Is there another program I could for this purpose or what do you think might help?
 
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