Graphics Card Dead?

[Aeronys]

Hi!

I think my graphics card has died, but want to make sure I'm not jumping to that conclusion too quickly.

My computer crashed while I was playing a game, and when I restarted it I could see the load screen for the BIOS and loading of Windows, but the screen would go black after the windows load screen. The BIOS also had minor graphical erros, with parts of some of the text appearing green instead of white.

It works in safe mode, and it works if I hook up the monitor to my onboard graphics, so I know the monitor isn't the problem. I also tried switching the graphics card to a different PCI slot, which actually allowed me to get into WIndows, but when I do, I have green graphical errors all over my screen. I also tried loading a game despite the graphical errors, and while it technically works, everything was running extremely slowly.

I was also going to try a system restore, but apparently I haven't changed anything recently, so I have no restore points.

Is it safe to assume that my graphics card needs to replaced at this point, or are there still things I should be doing to make sure it's really done?

I've had it for just over 5 years, and it's a Sapphire Radeon HD 7870.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Dahak]

Generally if you are getting odd artifacts at boot then the video card is probably done.

One other possibility is it could be overheating so you could see if you can clean out the fans/heatsink and try it again, but if the artifacts return then the card is done

 

[Aeronys]

Okay, thanks! Looks like it's dead.

 

[hoorah]

I'm sure you're past this, but my 7850 just failed about a week ago in the exact same way. I thought the same thing as you - wondering if the thing was really dead or if I could recover it. I tried the card in a different PCIE slot and in a different computer. Mostly it just locked on bootup but eventually it held long enough to load windows and I had green lines all over the screen - card is definitely dead. Weird that two similar cards failed at almost the exact same time after 5 years of use....

I cannibalized the heatpipe/fan from my 7850 and installed it onto my old 4850 for now. No way I'm buying a new GPU at these prices today. It will have to wait a few months.

 

[XSoldier77X]

yup, quite sure it's dead. if your bios and drivers are up to date, there's very little chance of it being anything else. on-board graphics running fine pretty much settled it.