Troubleshooting Video Issue

[Dudeguy65]

So I have a i7-6700k/1070 mini ITX build I did a year and a half ago. Specifically, I have the EVGA 1070 FTW edition. Has worked wonderfully ever since I built it, no issues. The other day I was playing Assassin's Creed Origins when my display just went black and wouldn't come back on. My display was saying there was no signal, but the computer did not power down. After restarting/powering on/off, etc. I couldn't get the display to come back. Next thing to try was re-seating the GPU, no luck. Then I tried grabbing an old graphics card, some 7-8 year old Sapphire Radeon card I had laying around from an old PC. Putting that in got my display signal to come back...so my question is, is this definitive that the GPU has failed? I want to be sure I've tried everything I should before I initiate an RMA (thank god for EVGA 3 year warranty!). The Sapphire Radeon is so underpowered that it doesn't even take power from a PSU cable, it draws from the motherboard, so I'm not 100% sure I can rule out an underlying power issue. The PSU is EVGA supernova G2 650W Gold 80. Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[smashjohn]

I had a very similar issue that took me a long time to resolve because it can be so many different things. Here's some of the steps that might help:

1) check your event log. This might tell you if you have a driver crashing would might indicate a software issue. Updating or backdating the driver could assist you.
2) Swap out your video cable. Just to rule this out. I switched from HDMI to DVI to make sure I was also testing a different port on the GPU.
3) In the nVidia control panel you can enable Debug Mode. This sets the card to reference settings (nVidia spec). This will remove any overclocking or other features that could destabilize your card.
4) You can use the eVGA software to downclock your card. This will reduce power draw and heat. You can also crank your fans to 100% for testing purposes to see if heat is a part of the problem.
5) You should also be using something (like the eVGA software) to monitor your temps to make sure your card isn't over heating.
6) Check your power system. I finally found out that my problem was with one of my PCIe cables. I was using an OCZ 850 ZX Gold PSU (pretty decent PSU). I finally found out that heat was causing changes in the PCIe power connector at the GPU. My card would lose power and crash. You might try swapping your PCIe power cables. I couldn't find replacements for mine and finally just bought a new PSU (860AXi) and the problem is solved. Your PSU is pretty high quality, but I wouldn't rule it out. For what it's worth, mine was 7 years old.
7) You can often install your GPU in the second PCI slot. This will help rule out a problem with the first PCI slot. You may need to check your MB manual see if this is supported.
8) the eVGA software also has some monitoring/debug tools that lets you monitor power consumption and utilization through a logged graph. It might show you an anomaly. It didn't for me.
9) You might contact support and ask about a bios update for your GPU. there could be a known problem with your version.

I'll post anything else I can think of. These problems are REALLY hard to diagnose as evidenced in many forum posts. Good Luck!