Has my GPU died?

[daddy cool]

MSI R9 390X GPU
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro MOBO
i7 2600k

I realise this tech is getting on a bit (system 10 years, GPU 5 years) but its been running sweet so far. This morning I was just browsing the web (not gaming) and screen suddenly started pixelating and then switched off.
Now when I restart I get this bar of pixellation on the left through POST and the initial windows loading screen - however, OS never loads. It either goes to a blank screen, or sometimes a Windows recovery/reinstall prompt.



Does this look like the GPU has died, or Mobo died, or windows corrupted, or something else? Im guessing its not Windows, as its happening in the bios screen too.

Ive removed/reseated the GPU, tried a different displayport cable, tried connecting a different monitor to the GPU.

Next thing i'll try is reverting to onboard graphics to see if that also has the pixilation...

[daddy cool]

daddy cool said:

Next thing i'll try is reverting to onboard graphics to see if that also has the pixilation...

Actually, maybe ive answered my own question... removed the GPU, and connected an old monitor via DVi to the MOBO onboard graphics, and windows loads up fine, no graphics glitches.

Looks like the credit card will be taking a hammering now I need a new card!

[daddy cool]

joshleb said:

Anything happen to cause this? Or just randomly occur? Just curious.

What are you going to go for now?

No, the weirdest thing - was just browsing the web and chunky pixels/artifacts starting appearing all other the screen and spreading like a virus, and then it went blank. And on restart theres just this band on the left hand side, and windows wont start!

Well, I have a freesync-enabled LG ultrawide, so it'll be another AMD card... maybe it time for a big upgrade - RX 5700XT maybe?

[daddy cool]

ollyprice87 said:

If you are considering a 5700XT then probably best to batter the credit card more and update your CPU/RAM/Mobo too. 2nd gen i& is a bit long in the tooth.

Yep, the card was ordered yesterday and is on its way to me today!

CPU/RAM/MOBO is on the radar too (I started a thread on that about a month ago) so will do some research and hopefully purchase in the near future. Planning on making the swap to AMD chips for the first time (Ryzen 5 3600X ?) so if you have any recommendations on motherboards im all ears - ive never really understood why some are £100 and some are £500!
Ive dabbled with light overclocking in the past but not that bothered - would rather have a fast stable system than pushing for that last 1% of power and making things unreliable.

[daddy cool]

eps said:

Are you sure it isn't the panel itself? I used to have this on an old Dell monitor. The contacts become a little loose and start to get worse as it heats up.

I can test this by squeezing/pinching the top or bottom of the panel to re-make the contact.

I think the 'fix' was taking it apart and wedging something in between the back of the case and the contact strip in question.

Might not be the issue here, but certainly was on my old Dell monitor. Worth trying another panel or screen to test. Maybe it's still got warranty left on it?

99% sure its not the panel - im using it as I write this with my works laptop connected by HDMI (the gaming PC was connected by DisplayPort cable, but I don't have another device to test that).

I connected an old monitor via DVI from the graphics card and no signal. I connected the same old monitor by the same DVI cable but to on-board graphics and windows boots up fine.

So pretty confident its the card that's died... will update later when the new card is here, and hopefully its all good in the hood.

[daddy cool]

Jinx said:

You need to decide if you want PCIe 4.0 or not. If not then a decent B450 mother board ( Techspot) would be good enough. If you want PCIe 4 then you have a choice of X570 or B550
At the moment PCIe 3.0 is enough bandwidth for any GPU (well except the RX5500 - only has 8 lanes so PCIe 3.0x8 is saturated) so the main point of PCIe 4.0 is for the latest NVMe drives.
Some of the new B550 boards come with all the bells and whistles you would expect from an X570 and have the advantage of not needing a chipset fan (as the chipset is PCIe 3.0) including 2.5GB ethernet, wifi 6 and plenty of USB 3.2 connectivity.

Ta

The new graphics card supports PCIe4.0 so would be good to take advantage of that and be a bit more future proofed... need to do some reading-up about it all...

[daddy cool]

pquinn said:

I'd put money on that being a memory failure on the card - either a chip has gone bad, or a connection at the GPU or one of the memory chips has fractured. The effect is always the same.

Funnily enough, after I read that I glanced over at the old card and noticed this bit that looks a bit *cooked*… or is that normal?

[daddy cool]

Horace Van Khute said:

That looks like a VRM, if that got toasted maybe your PSU is faulty?

Ooof, i hope not... and i dont think im getting any other symptoms of a failing PSU. However, just checked and i bought it in 2008 (Corsair 750W TX). Maybe its worth getting a new one as part of my upgrade...

In other news, the new card arrived yesterday (RX 5700 XT) and everythings good now
Just need to decide on the final CPU/MOBO etc to order, and i should be sorted for another 5 years...