[SOLVED] Is my GPU KIA?

[lepb88]

So, hello and I hope you help me somehow. Let me begin with my build

CPU: FX-8300 3.30Ghz stock, turbo up to 4.2Ghz
MB: Asus M5A78L-M/USB3
RAM: Corsair vengeance DDR3 1600 4x8gb=16gb
HDD: Seagate ST500DM002 (OS drive), WD 5000AAKX (backup drive),
SSD: Kingston SA400s37120G (120gb for some games)
GPU: ASUS GeForce 1070
PSU: CM GX-750 80+ bronze
Cooling: CM Hyper 212 Plus + 1 chassis fan + 1 HDD dedicated fan

So let me explain the Best I can. 2 days ago as usual I turn on my pc and it runs as normal but suddenly I got a BSOD out of nowhere and I said what the hell, so I reset my PC and I notice it does the normal beep but I only see black screen at 640x480, weird since I have an 1080p tv plugged in via HDMI. So I notice my keyboard light up normally and I turn off my pc to reset the BIOS and see what's wrong. I pull out my ram sticks, bios battery, GPU and leave it for 2 minutes. Then put only one ram stick, the battery and the OS hdd, enough to get it to run and troubleshoot. And it does start normally but at 1024x768 because I have no internal graphics driver installed, but that's ok I got to log in to windows and then turn off my pc again to put the rest back in.
So I plug another ram stick and the GPU, and turn it back on. The normal beep that usually comes after 5 seconds or so, this time took like 30 seconds and the black screen at 480p was back but I leave it for a while, to see what happens, and it restarted itself and when it came back it was all normal again so I didn't worry. I use it normally until bedtime, then yesterday I turn it on again and to my surprise it was all messed up again. So I did the same again, this time I took apart everything, even the CPU. So I put everything back in and start with the basic, just one stick or ram and the OS hdd to get it running and it did. So I put the GPU back in and same thing again, black screen.

So I start thinking about the possibility of power loss. If the PSU was faulty, there wasn't enough to power the GPU, only the MB and HDD. So I ruled out Ram, hdd and CPU issues and narrowed it down to either GPU or PSU. The easiest way to test it was with another PC but where I live right now it's a little difficult to find a high end pc enough to test my parts, but I manage to find one, with a I5 9th gen, 16 ddr4 ram and most importantly a good PSU, a Corsair VS650. So I started getting it ready, but that pc is being used as a server for webpage hosting and movies, and it has an ATI HD7870 on it. So I thought even though I was going to put in an Nvidia card out of the blue on that PC with ATI drivers and all, I just need it to give me boot image, that way I could rule out GPU issue. Unfortunately, it was not the case. Same thing happened as with my PC. The other PC is brand new, with top brand components, gigabyte MB, WD Drives, Corsair PSU, intel I5 CPU, and that PC was running fine until I put in my GPU. I tested it on another different PC which has never had any GPU before I put mine, so if it were drivers problems, I could rule it out, but same thing happened.

So, at the end I realized it was definitely something wrong with my GPU. I also checked the voltages on the BIOS to make sure my PSU was ok and all the voltages are fine.

So, the big question is: Is there anything else I should do to be 100% sure my graphics card is KIA?

Oh, almost forgot, today I used DDU to uninstall all Nvidia drivers from my pc ( obviously without my GPU on it) and decided to change the graphics priority in the BIOS, so I put IGFX first (it was GFX0 before) and then I put back in my GPU but used internal graphics with my tv instead. And to my surprise it started as before, quickly doing beep after 5 seconds. I run the device manager to look for the GPU and there it was but appeared as basic display driver, both, because like I said before I don't have internal graphics drivers neither, but on the first one appeared a small yellow exclamation circle so I figured it was the GPU and indeed it was. So I decided to install the Nvidia driver package I downloaded and I did a clean install of the drivers but suddenly I got a BSOD in the middle of the process.

I took apart my GPU and leave it without the covers and heat radiator to look for any burned circuit or something but everything looked right, so I don't really know what to do.

That GPU has been with me for almost 4 years and it's been great, no problems at all until now. I got it used so it's older. I'm already thinking about a new one but in my country that's a luxury few can afford and you can't find a good GPU that easy. So if this one is remotely repairable, I'd really like to know how.

In advance thanks to all who read this. I'm thinking about recording a home video to show you exactly what I just explain earlier. If you would like to see it let me know.

 

[Eximo]

You've been very thorough, I think you can safely say the GPU has died.

The mode the card is capable of without the driver is a necessity and is what you see while the system is booting. Basically the VESA standard from way back and is hardwired into the GPU. The more advanced features of the GPU that the driver will try to activate immediately causing a BSOD, is a sign of something very wrong with the GPU.

Can't really rule out the motherboard/CPU unless you try another GPU in there, but since you tested the card on other systems, more then likely it has died.