Did my 290x short?

Dilbravishla

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Nov 19, 2014
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Woke up computer was black screen couldn't wake it up, unplugged/replugged hdmi cable screen flickered worked for a second. Restarted didn't work past windows splash screen. Ended up opening the case and one of the metal clips that holds the fan onto my cpu cooler had fallen onto the top of the card. Eventually found a solution on sapphire FAQ that suggested using 13.12 catalyst drivers if I had black screen on booting and surprisingly that worked but from time to time my screen starts to flickers and I get buggy horizontal lines on the right side of the screen. Warranty is out. Any suggestions on what I might be able to do? Do you think it's an inch from death?

PS: I was almost certain that it was dead. What I did was I took it out cleaned it off, there was a bit of dust and hair on it which may have been messing with it then I reseated it and cleaned off the cords. New drivers are working great no black screen everything is peachy. I'll leave this up if anyone else has problems like this.

PSS: Woke up today same problem, 13.12 drivers didn't work though ended up being able to show after boot screen in low resolution mode but had scan lines all over and screen flickering so I'm pretty sure the card is fked.

Any suggestions on how to prevent it on happening in the future? I've heard putting a black piece of paper between cpu cooler and gpu is ok. Any specific type of paper? No worries that it will heat up or anything?
 

Dilbravishla

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Nov 19, 2014
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Ah yeah? Anything I might be able to do or should I take it out back and put a bullet in it?
 

Dilbravishla

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Nov 19, 2014
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You're such a speedy replyer. Weird thing is when I boot it normally I get the black screen but I found out if I boot it in low resolution mode 640x480 it will run fine even got witcher 3 running just now but in low resolution. My drivers are working well I used Display Driver Uninstaller got rid of everything then installed the newest ones.
 

Killer MO

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Aug 10, 2015
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So try first the refresh rate. If it's not the cause than if you have an igpu get the gpu off and use the igpu with some tools like these.
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-system-stability-by-putting-heavy-load-on-system-resources/
If the problem persists it's a psu problem. Otherwise it's a faulty gpu or pci.
 

Dilbravishla

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Nov 19, 2014
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Integrated gpu works without problems. Pretty sure the psu is okay I bought it within the year, ill try to get a different graphics card test it out see if the cable is faulty. Think it's my card though it's crapped out since that metal wire that holds the fan fell on the circuit board. Reinstalling the card bios probably wouldn't do anything eh?
Thanks for the help so far

So I tried out another graphics card and it runs fine. I also tested the original cards vram and it didn't seem to run into any problems. So something about the card is messed up I will try to re-jigger the bios maybe. Really my only problem right now is that anything above resolution 720x480 gives me a black screen.

Okay, so next day here. Took apart the entire computer unplugged everything cleaned a bit of dust out of it , hooked a few things up computer would only start for a few seconds then turn off. Eventually unplugged the purple and black cable think it was for the reset button and it turned on, sometimes it would sometimes it wouldn't sometimes the bottom half of the motherboard bios screen would show up, seriously I couldn't replicate anything to see if what I was doing changed anything because everytime it was different. Anyways got pissed off and shook the sht of it and it turned on hooked everything up Atx cable fkn got caught in the fans everytime I seriously don't get this cable the way it sits it's always hitting a one fan or another so I jimmy rigged that to the sideand pinched it behind the cpu cooler. Hooked the card up installed drivers again and now everything seems to be working except the back fan but the LED lights are working on it but I think it stopped spinning a few months ago and I just haven't noticed so I took that out and cleaned it but it still won't spin but since LED works I know power is going to it. So all in all everything is working now. This mfing POS randomly breaks down like this every 3-4 months and I have to stress myself the fk out taking this thing all apart and putting it back together (reeee). I think while it's working right now I'm just going to sell this thing and use it to fund a new computer because I'm 1 or 2 more break downs from just making a good ol' bowl of glass and rocks and just scarfing it down with some water.

Thanks again though man.