What is wrong with my pc? Please help!

[kabruey1]

I was playing the game Arma 3 and customizing the settings in a in game 3d editor when all of a sudden after changing the weather type my PC froze then crashed to the update screen. Now i cant remember if i turned off the PC or let the update go through but the screen turned gray and was stuck in 4:3 resolution. After that i couldn't find any solution so i reset the PC to factory settings and all was fine, Tried to load a game and got flashing black screens then a infinite black screen that would force me to restart the PC. I took out the Graphics card which was a (EVGA GTX 960 2gb) And tried to run some games and all seemed find except running full screen 1080p caused screen tearing and a lot of flickering graphics. What is wrong, is it just my graphics card? I want to get a new one but am kinda weary in case something else is broken. Thank you. (Edit: Also id like to add that the game was heavily modded. I did try the gpu again with the newest drivers but nothing worked the same problem was appearing so i took the card out again)

 

[Colif]

Is the PC a custom made PC or brand name? If custom, what are specs? If brand name, what make/model

I expect screen tearing and so on caused by you running a game off the igpu, since it didn't have the 960 in it at time (I guess?) and CPU had to do all the work

can you try GPU out in another PC and see if it has same problem?

 

[kabruey1]

Is the PC a custom made PC or brand name? If custom, what are specs? If brand name, what make/model

I expect screen tearing and so on caused by you running a game off the igpu, since it didn't have the 960 in it at time (I guess?) and CPU had to do all the work

can you try GPU out in another PC and see if it has same problem?

It is a custom PC that i had built at the local Computer Parts store. Might i add this is the second time something like this has happened with the same brand card on my system. The specs are MSI-7917 Motherboard with Inte(R) Core i5-4460 at 3.20GHz and the EVGA gtx 960 2gb SC(Presumed to be broken) 16gb of ram and 550w power supply. Hopefully soon im gonna get another card to see if it works, And no i dont have a second pc that i could put the card in

 

[Colif]

so this is 2nd GPU that has had similar problems in the same PC? Could be some other part to blame

Is BIOS up to date?

What brand is the power supply?

 

[kabruey1]

so this is 2nd GPU that has had similar problems in the same PC? Could be some other part to blame

Is BIOS up to date?

What brand is the power supply?

Yes but im prettu sure that first gpu was fried, happened on the same game too. cooler master rs-550-pcar-n1 is the power supply, And im not sure didnt know u could update BIOS. But evrything seems to be running fine can even play some older games, might i add that the fan on the gpu was acting very weird near the time of its death.
Do u think an EVGA 1050ti 4gb could run on that psu

 

[kabruey1]

Also another thing I reset my pc today and plugged in the gtx960 loaded up squad to play it crashed in full screen then after had green flashing lines, turned off full screen and played for like 10 minutes in windowed, I then touched the back of my pc and the card legit burned me when I touched it so I just took it out. it said it was at 50c but I don’t think it was.

 

[Colif]

Sure sounds like card has died to me. I think your PSU is good enough to run the GPU you asked about.

Just not sure I would put another GPU into a PC that has killed 2 already without seeing what the cause might be. I myself am not sure, so I have asked for a second opinion.

 

[Aeacus]

From hardware standpoint and when PSU is ruled out, 2 things remain that i took from the top of my head:
1. overheating
2. MoBo voltage control

1. Since your GPU felt too hot under the load, i'd opt for overheating. Make sure that your PC is well ventilated with good airflow and it's insides are dust free. Also, use at least 2 different programs to confirm the temps your hardware is producing. I'm using Speccy and HWinfo64,
Speccy (nice GUI and easy to use),
link: https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy/download
HWinfo64 (a lot more detailed + has logging feature),
link: https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

2. If your temps are within reason and if PSU is ruled out, only other thing (without thinking too hard) that can fry your GPU is the MoBo's voltage control unit. While unlikely, it's still possible where MoBo sends either too little or too much voltage to your GPU when you put higher load on it (e.g gaming). In this case, you're looking towards new MoBo.
Though, Your MoBo, MSI Z97 Gaming 5 is a good quality MoBo and i don't think it would be issue. I have the very same MoBo in my Haswell build as well (full specs with pics in my sig).
What you can try to do is putting your GPU to another PCI-E x16 slot and look if you have same issues in there as well. That much i can say that the main (upper one) PCI-E x16 slot has gone bad on MoBos, where users are left using secondary (lower) PCI-E x16 slots.