Are my 7970 and r9 280x broken?

[TechiGamer]

Hi,

Lately, I've been having issues with my computer, and I've been able to narrow it down exactly to my graphics cards which are:

MSI r9 280x
Gigabyte OC 7970

The issues I was experiencing was that my computer would simply not boot up. It would either display "insert boot media and press enter", or the blue recovery options screen, or just a blank screen after the motherboard logo etc. Maybe once it went to windows, otherwise it was always some combination of this.

Interestingly, I could boot into safe mode without issue, but the environment would be quite glitchy and slow. The computer often would not react to my mouse clicks or keyboard strokes, and sometimes would just freeze, requiring me to reset the computer.

Initially, I thought it was definitely a driver issue, specifically because of how I was able to boot into safe mode, and because of how I noticed a trend of unplugging my gpus and the system running as normal on the integrated i5-4670k graphics.
So I uninstalled my amd graphics using revo, and then reinstalled the proper ones from AMD's website.
My computer was fine for a while until not too long ago, the same trend started to happen with the computer not being able to boot up.

Now I officially took out both my cards from the system, and its working fine once again.

Does this mean that my GPUs are dead?
The gigabyte one is about 5 years old, while the MSI is about 3. They've never been overclocked and haven't been used that much.
Is there any DIY, no-expense way of officially determining what the problem of the card is (assuming that it is a card issue) or some way of determining if its dead?

 

[kenzimarcel]

Never heard of this before...
Have you tried one graphics card only? It could be some crossfire trickery messing stuff up. Also try each one in each slot to see if its the slots messing up. Reset bios yet? That's always a good one.
Oven method too, if you can 100% confirm its a graphics card. It's likely only one if you haven't tried that yet. Oven method usually fixed any minor gpu glitches. GL

 

[TechiGamer]

Never heard of this before...
Have you tried one graphics card only? It could be some crossfire trickery messing stuff up. Also try each one in each slot to see if its the slots messing up. Reset bios yet? That's always a good one.
Oven method too, if you can 100% confirm its a graphics card. It's likely only one if you haven't tried that yet. Oven method usually fixed any minor gpu glitches. GL

Yes, I did try one graphics card at a time in different slots, and the same issues were experienced. I also did reset the bios. That was actually the only way I could get into my bios after it started freezing.
What's the oven method?

 

[kenzimarcel]

This doesn't really get us anywhere. Possible culprits now include:
Both graphics cards are dead
Motherboard is dead
Cpu is dead

The only way to test these is with another, confirmed working, graphics card. Perhaps ask a friend? If a new gpu works, then its 100% graphics cards. Then we move to oven method to try and revive them. This has personally worked for me in the past, on my own HD7970. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/293183-33-baking-graphics-card-oven is a good guide to do it yourself. If oven method doesn't work, then, you might be out of luck. However, what you might want to consider also is why both graphics cards broke simultaneously in your system. Your motherboard might be faulty too and caused them to break. On the other hand, if a new gpu experiences the same problems, its living with integrated graphics until you can try new cpus and motherboards. Might want to test gpus in a friend's system while you're at it too, if the opportunity is there, to narrow down cpu/motherboard easier. On a side note, whilst cpu failure is possible and can cause pci lanes to mess up, its more likely motherboard. GL