HELP: Black/Choppy Screen, think it's a Graphics Card Issue

[tuftycone]

Recently my computer has become unusable. When I boot in to Windows (8.1) as soon as I log in, the system becomes incredibly choppy and freezes a lot. I will get an unholy amount of NVIDIA Kernel Mode Driver has stopped working and has recovered. After looking this up online, I made sure that my power option was set to "Maximum performance" and it was. I have tried updating the video drivers as well as rolling them back. The system runs fine in Safe Mode and after I use Driver Sweeper (or whatever it is called) but before I reinstall a driver. Some users reported that this was called by a Bitcoin mining virus, and even though I could find no trace of it, I went ahead and reinstalled Windows. After installing the drivers that came with my video card (i.e. really old), the issue more or less came back, and I am currently staring at a black screen. I do not believe this is a PSU issue, but I figure at this point it has to be a hardware issue. I do not recall downloading or installing anything directly before the problems started, and I have had no problems in the past.

I have an MSI G45 motherboard, intel i7, MSI GTX 770 video card.

 

[RobWHS]

Dump Driver sweeper. Those programmes can mess up your machine. Then reinstall your GPU drivers.

 

[tuftycone]

Even after doing a fresh install of Windows and reinstalling default drivers the problem remained, unfortunately.

 

[RobWHS]

Even after doing a fresh install of Windows and reinstalling default drivers the problem remained, unfortunately.

It could be a memory or GPU problem.......Or something else.
Try removing your ram one by one (booting in between stick removals) and see if the problem remains.

 

[samlarz13]

Sounds like you've done all the same troubleshooting I would have originally thought of. However! I think I may have a solution that would confirm or deny whether or not it is a hardware issue. If you have any local friends who have a working GPU I would ask if you could pop it in and give it a shot. If after installing the respective drivers everything works well I would assume your 770 is inoperable. I had a similar problem with a faulty AMD HD 7970 and went to a local store, bought an R9 and checked it out in my build. It worked fine so I held on to it while I was returning my 7970 and once my new card came in the mail I returned the R9. Not that I'm encouraging that behavior, if you know what I'm saying 😉 just providing some alternative inspiration.

 

[tuftycone]

Even after doing a fresh install of Windows and reinstalling default drivers the problem remained, unfortunately.

It could be a memory or GPU problem.......Or something else.
Try removing your ram one by one (booting in between stick removals) and see if the problem remains.

I did this, and for the 8 minutes or so I tested per memory stick everything seemed to work. Currently both sticks are back in and it is working, I will update if this ceases to be the case. Is it possible the memory just needed to be reseated? Also, in my BIOS it states my DRAM is 1333 MHz, but it should be 1600 MHz, could this be a part of the problem, and do you know how I can fix this?

 

[RobWHS]

If you have any local friends who have a working GPU I would ask if you could pop it in and give it a shot.

I usually suggest this with an 'I accept no responsibility' warning should it all go wrong.

 

[RobWHS]

Even after doing a fresh install of Windows and reinstalling default drivers the problem remained, unfortunately.

It could be a memory or GPU problem.......Or something else.
Try removing your ram one by one (booting in between stick removals) and see if the problem remains.

I did this, and for the 8 minutes or so I tested per memory stick everything seemed to work. Currently both sticks are back in and it is working, I will update if this ceases to be the case. Is it possible the memory just needed to be reseated? Also, in my BIOS it states my DRAM is 1333 MHz, but it should be 1600 MHz, could this be a part of the problem, and do you know how I can fix this?

Try what samlarz13 suggested, and if it doesn't work come back.