Is my GTX 970 Dead? Pls help

[winter.of.z]

Ok so let me describe my problem:
So I was playing games on my gtx 970 (all specs at the bottom) for past 2 years. Everything was working jsut fine, fps were stable,temps were ok,fans were quiet and i had no artifacts at all.

Then one day (reasons doesnt matter) i gently pulled out my GTX 970 and one (4gb) ram module out of my pc, then switched settings in BIOS to integrated settings and was using my pc as usuall (wasnt playing any games - was only coding,watching movies etc) just fine.

In the mean time my card and memory module was lying in the box in my room.
After 2 weeks of break i finally put my card back where it belongs and...and I found out that the card is not working anymore..kinda.Listen carefully now.

So first thing I did was conencting my RAM and then GPU (PCI 1 slot,power supply conencted) and then connected it with my monitor with HDMI cable (cable is working because thats how my monitor was connected to my integrated card for past 2 weeks).I powered on my PC only too see that resolution was extremly low (800x600) and i had white/blue stripes all over my screen (shown on ss - not mine ss but mine artifacts looks the same).Whats funny is that the artifacts were not only in windows but in bios/everywhere else too.

https://www.overclock.net/content/type/61/id/2882664/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL

After couple of minutes I realised the following things:
1.I couldnt change the resolution
2.Fans were spinning
3.Radiator/GPU was not heating/getting any warmer
4.Card was detected as Microsoft Basic Video adapter (sth like that).
5.In GPU Z i could see nothing (gonna add ss soon)

What i tried:
1.Uninstalling Drrivers with device manager/ddu etc.
2.Reseting BIOS settings to default (both using settings and pulling out the battery)
3.Cleaning ports.
4.Removing/replacing RAM modules.
5.Checking if everything was connected/powered.]
6.Forcing driver installation - one time it helped and i could see my card as GTX 970 in device manager but nothing else has changed.

What I havn't tried yet (because i cant)
1.DVI port - no cable/adapter.
2.Different PCI slot since my mobo has only one
3.Different PC (only laptops arround).
4.Baking it in the oven.

So in short:I boot my pc,i have low res,artifacts even in bios,fans working,gpu not heating,stats/nvidia drivers are being detected,sometimes i cant even start windows (only safe mode) after i tried to install drivers.And i don't see any damage/scratches on my GPU.

Here are the specs:
1GPU - Nvidia GFORCE 970 Gigabyte Windforce 4GB
2.8 GB ram hyper x (2 cubes x 4)
3.I5 6500 Skylake
4.PSUCorsair CX600M

If you need more info tell me i will give you everything.I dont know what to do anymore and what might be the cause.

 

[Ramlethal]

did it catch humidity or something? It really looks damaged like its struggling to survive lol.
have you cleaned it up with something when you removed it or just lay it on that box for 2 Weeks?
This definitly is not looking good at all...

 

[winter.of.z]

2 weeks in a box.No humidity card was dry all the time.Simply lying on the box next to my desk.Had air and everything.
Never fell of.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Does the signal go back to normal if you reconnect to the mobo? Just want to ensure it’s not the cable or monitor.

When you say cleaned connectors do you mean the contacts on the gpu and the slot?

Can you borrow a known good 970-ish card?

If all that’s been done, then I would definitely get a new gpu.

 

[winter.of.z]

i mean yeah but as i said no matter how many times i reconnect the cable card is still broken.I can see the screen but wit hthe artifacts nad on low res only.

 

[winter.of.z]

i celaned both cable ports/gpu ports/pci and checked all the pins - everything is ok imho.Can broken HDMI Port/PCI be causing these issues?

 

[J_E_D_70]

Could be a bad port. Trying a different connector type is only way to check.

 

[RobCrezz]

Remove it, make sure the contacts are clean at the bottom and reseat in the slot again, make sure its fully home.

 

[winter.of.z]

which contacts? the ones which go to pci slot? these are clean

 

[RobCrezz]

which contacts? the ones which go to pci slot? these are clean

Yep, then try and reseat it in the slot making double sure its in correctly.

 

[winter.of.z]

https://imgur.com/TA9wdFQ thats how my pins looks before nad after...shouldnt these reach the end ?

 

[winter.of.z]

https://imgur.com/a/azEKa0V gpu z also cleaning didnt help

 

[winter.of.z]

oh nad my mobo is B150M-DS3H...but even after laoding optimised defaults nothing has changed

 

[winter.of.z]

also just now updated my bios to the latest version

 

[Rodrigodrt]

well, just to try it out, you can see if your bios have PCI-E options to force it to run as GEN 1, 2, 3 A.K.A. PCI-E 1.0 2.0 3.0. If you find try to run it as 1.0.

Also try to manually set the prefered graphics in bios to the external one, as in, your graphics card, most bios do it automatically but oh well...

 

[winter.of.z]

no options like this here...only main gpu or sth like that - i set to pci and i disabled integrated card.Only option i see is Other PCI Devices with options:legacy/ufi/none

 

[RobCrezz]

Just to check, can you make sure the PCI-E power cables are connected correctly at both the graphics card side and the PSU side (as you have a modular PSU).

 

[Rodrigodrt]

Well, once I had a geforce 9800 GT i think that simply would not run at PCI-E slot #1, but it would work perfectly on slot #2 because the PCI-E#2 would force it to run at 8x instead of 16x....


But since you dont have one for testing i guess its time to prepare your card's will, buy it a nice coffin and warn its parents...

 

[winter.of.z]

i dont understand, i unisntalled all the drivers,disabled integrated card and yet somehow still i can use gtx 970 but on lwoest possible res,cant install any drivers andits dsipayed as microsoft graphic adapter,card is cold,fans are spinning and i have artifacts ehhh

 

[winter.of.z]

gona bake it then

 

[Rodrigodrt]

Did you removed the integrated drivers also? its weird that cpu -z is not reading your external card, its so wonky. If not remove your GPU, switch to integrated graphics, boot windows, and remove all video related drivers, then switch to gpu, see if it will try to work with most basic video drivers...

 

[winter.of.z]

already tried that

 

[winter.of.z]

everytime when im trying to instal drivers its jsut stops and im getting crytical error msg.Only time when i can isntall the drivers is with the cd whic hwas ini the box with my gpu.Then its no more displayed as microsoft gpu but as nvidia gtx 970.Problem is it only boots in safe mode and when ijm trying to reboot into windows im just getting reboots all the time.And ofc artifacts are still here.

 

[Rodrigodrt]

I guess its time to call it man, bake it...

While installing drivers the screen goes black as the GPU is being initialized to work with said drivers and all... if you get problems, its certainly misbehaving while doing so, with safe mode as it loads basic drivers and stuff, thats probably why you can boot it then.

I think you really ought to try it on another rig somehow to confirm its dead. but the odds are grim.


funny thing, you know, this may sound crazy but if theres nothing left to do and nothing left to lose, you can try to remove the cooler and wash it. Yes, water and friggin soap, you'd be surprised how its effective to motherboards, get a pencil and brush it clean gently with soap and water, then if possible blow it dry to remove excess, preferably with a compressor, then leave it to dry somewhere for about 3-4 days and theres a chance it could live once more.

 

[J_E_D_70]

good luck! I had a thrice-baked 8800gtx back in the day. Limped it along an extra year before death.