Question Is my GPU dying?

dimatkachuk2607

Prominent
Nov 30, 2017
22
0
510
Basically this is the problem: computer froze while simply browsing chrome and before the screen went black I could see dots and lines on the screen, after the restart it launched with "microsoft basic display adapter" and a lower resolution and it did not crash, after restarting it launched with my GPU again and after about 20 minutes it crashed again and restarted with the microsoft display and I left that running for a few hours with no crashes at all so as I understand it only happens when it uses the GPU/nvidia drivers or so it seems

I haven't touched anything inside my computer or updated the drivers since march 5 which is the last time I updated my GPU

What I tried so far: 1) Reseat the GPU in the second slot and replace all the monitor/power cables and the cmos battery as well 2) I ran DDU in safe mode to do a clean unistall of all nvidia drivers and installed again this time with the latest version as well but same problem

I am just not sure what is wrong and I only assume my GPU is done for would like to hear some opinions maybe there is something else I can try or is this surely the GPU? if it helps I have my card for just over 5 years I believe it is the GTX 960 and my motherboard is ASROCK AB350 Pro4 and was bought 2 and a half years ago

just to mention one more thing, it did work for 2 hours this morning with the GPU and then it froze while I was playing runescape... so I am in the microsoft display once again
 
Basically this is the problem: computer froze while simply browsing chrome and before the screen went black I could see dots and lines on the screen, after the restart it launched with "microsoft basic display adapter" and a lower resolution and it did not crash, after restarting it launched with my GPU again and after about 20 minutes it crashed again and restarted with the microsoft display and I left that running for a few hours with no crashes at all so as I understand it only happens when it uses the GPU/nvidia drivers or so it seems

I haven't touched anything inside my computer or updated the drivers since march 5 which is the last time I updated my GPU

What I tried so far: 1) Reseat the GPU in the second slot and replace all the monitor/power cables and the cmos battery as well 2) I ran DDU in safe mode to do a clean unistall of all nvidia drivers and installed again this time with the latest version as well but same problem

I am just not sure what is wrong and I only assume my GPU is done for would like to hear some opinions maybe there is something else I can try or is this surely the GPU? if it helps I have my card for just over 5 years I believe it is the GTX 960 and my motherboard is ASROCK AB350 Pro4 and was bought 2 and a half years ago

just to mention one more thing, it did work for 2 hours this morning with the GPU and then it froze while I was playing runescape... so I am in the microsoft display once again

It sounds to me like the gpu is overheating. If it's 5 years old there is a good chance the thermal compound that connects the gpu to the heatsink and fan assembly has dried out. If that happens it will no longer cool the gpu and you'll get this sort of issue.

It's easy enough to fix- you'll need to remove the cooler and fan assembly from the gpu, clean off the old thermal paste and apply new. I'd also recommend taking the fan off the heatsink and use an old toothbrush or similar to remove any dust that has build up in there. Once done it should bring the gpu temps back down to normal and it should be stable again.