Question MSI 980 ti not working once installing drivers

[grayson6799]

Hey all, so I had this 980 ti that I decided to upgrade from and never got around to selling; thinking I'd maybe build a computer for my girlfriend- which I'm now doing! I hadn't noticed anything different about the card leading up to me upgrading but now it's not working on a fresh windows install. It worked just fine on first boot but once I downloaded the drivers from nvidia and tried to install them a glitchy screen like shown in the linked video happens. And now whenever I'm trying to boot up it takes a few seconds for the leds on the card to light up and the computer boots up slow and it just ends up doing that same thing after a few seconds. The card was sitting on my desk "on display" for this whole time so it couldn't have been wrecked in storage or anything. Has anyone seen a screen like this before and knows what it could mean for my 980 ti? Any help is super appreciated, thank you in advance to anyone who replies!
Video here

 

[boju]

How was the card stored on your desk? In an anti static bag or at least in something to protect slot contacts from dust/ residue from moisture? Try clean graphics card slot contacts with isopropyl and cotton swab.

 

[grayson6799]

How was the card stored on your desk? In an anti static bag or at least in something to protect slot contacts from dust/ residue from moisture? Try clean graphics card slot contacts with isopropyl and cotton swab.

It was not stored in any particular way to prevent dust, no. I hadn't thought of that. I did however clean it before installing it in the new case. I just cleaned the contacts like you had suggested and it feels like it may be booting up quicker/lasting moments longer before the same blue screen pops up..

 

[grayson6799]

UPDATE: I cleaned the contacts as suggested by boju, still no luck getting it to boot so I used DDU in safe mode to remove any nvidia drivers and now I'm pretty certain it relates to initializing the drivers. I'm still getting these weird blue artifacts in safe mode but the card will display through the HDMI port this way. Once I boot back to regular windows (not safe mode) the drivers initialize and the card crashes. Same exact visual as you can see here in safe mode, but when it does this in safe mode the entire system doesn't crash. Suuuper confused here.

safe mode image + artifacts here

 

[boju]

Was hoping for a simple fix but yeah looks like the graphics card is faulty. When it starts behaving that way once drivers load / initialise power plans for the card generally means it's had it. Similar happened to a friend of mine i gifted a gtx 780 to, after years of use it couldn't handle driver power profiles anymore. Couldn't use Msi Afterburner to try underclock the card because for AB to work needs drivers to be installed, otherwise that could work, maybe if could display from igpu same time without crashing underclocking might be a possibility.

 

[grayson6799]

Was hoping for a simple fix but yeah looks like the graphics card is faulty. When it starts behaving that way once drivers load / initialise power plans for the card generally means it's had it. Similar happened to a friend of mine i gifted a gtx 780 to, after years of use it couldn't handle driver power profiles anymore. Couldn't use Msi Afterburner to try underclock the card because for AB to work needs drivers to be installed, otherwise that could work, maybe if could display from igpu same time without crashing underclocking might be a possibility.

This is the realization I'm coming to as well. Thank you for the help boju!