Is my Graphics card gone?

[rahimlee54]

I set up a RMA with evga, and since holiday sales were going on I treated myself. I hope the card is actually dead and I am not wasting my money shipping it to them. So if anyone is in the market for anything let me know, I'll have some sort of refurb in a couple of weeks.

GTX 460 SC

Should be fun later this week.

[shankster]

Nice card and a great price! It's nice to treat oneself every now and then...

[rahimlee54]

I probably treat myself a little to often, but I hope to enjoy it for a couple years, until it dies anyway.

[shankster]

A couple of years is all we can expect from a video card before it dies or becomes obsolete.Computer upgrades(video cards,cpu's,ram etc) used to be a bit of an obsession for me,until I finally realized,what's the point.You can't keep up with the latest and fastest parts. One day it's hot,the next month it's not.I think I'll try knives for a while....

[rahimlee54]

I put in the new card last night and viola a working system again. Not a big jump in performance but a little boost none the less. 240 Shig with it to keep on topic. Mahogany board as well.

[olpappy]

If you are displaying accurate graphics during safe mood and boot up, I wouldn't bet on the graphics card being spoilt. If it is wonky you normally either get no visual output at all, or inconsistent graphics quality that is on-again-off-again. Not usually a consistent problem at a consistent stage.

I would guess it was your motherboard giving you problems. Or the CPU itself overheating? Not much to go on, but if it were my setup, I would:
1)Reapply thermal paste to the CPU/Fan contact point after degunking the whole fan of dust bunnies- try it again
2)Run it up in safe mode with a full install of your choice of OS
3)If you can't complete step two, borrow a cheap graphics card from a buddy who has one lying around. Most of the old cards, the modern PCs are legacy enabled. So you can at least finish setup, even if you can't run anything much with it.
4) If you don't have a buddy with a spare Graphics card, pop yours out and bring it to a friend's. If you can get his setup to work with your card, then you'll eliminate that as the problem.

Sorry there are no certain fixes with this one. I had a computer that was problematic once, went through like 2 repair stops after me and five buddies tried everything we could on it (ran down the entire list of what was possibly wrong)... I finally figured out that it was the reset switch wire that was shorting, causing it to reset at random intervals (no visible degradation of wires) so... the ghost in the machine could be from nearly anywhere.

Tristan, were you able to find a replacement switch? My computer has been acting up, sometimes I have to press the power button more than once to get it to stay on, sometimes it lights up and spins the fan a couple of seconds then goes off unless I press it again. I have no idea where to get a replacement switch. And Oh yeah, I had to replace the video card on it a few months back.

I took it to a computer repair shop, and of course it always turned on perfectly every time when it was there. As soon as I took it back home, it did it again....