Think my graphics card has died

Hi guys,

Yesterday I was playing a game of EVE online and suddenly my screen had blue vertical lines, but felt like it was still running. As in I could still hear the background music of the game. None of the keyboard shortcuts: ctrl alt delete/alt tab etc worked at all. So thinking it was some sort of issue with the game I restarted my computer.

On restart it went into the windows starting screen but just when it was supposed to go to the login screen it went black. I'm pretty sure the "black screen" isn't a monitor issue as it looks like it's slightly "bluer" than when the monitor is turned off.

First thing I did was to open her up and found the gpu to be extremely dusty. My fault I know as I should be cleaning it, but it's a busy time of my life (new job/getting married). I gave it a good "undust" and re-fitted it making sure it was sat correctly. Unfortunately this made no difference.

I am able to reboot into safe mode perfectly fine. And so next I tried uninstalling my video card drivers, which it successfully does and when I reboot back into normal mode it works fine! But when I re-install the video card drivers and reboot it repeats the "black screen" issue. I'm currently on my computer with the drivers uninstalled.

I have tried looking in my bios to see if it's recognised there but I haven't had any luck. The BIOS that I reach is ASUS EFI, which appears to be mostly suited for overclocking.

I've also tried doing checking windows with chkdsk + some other commands and the different startup repair options. Plus I've tried starting windows in a low Resolution with the same problem.

Also it's worth noting that the fans of the GPU do run when I boot up with fitted in.

Unfortunately I don't have another system to test my graphics card or anything else on, which makes it extremely hard to diagnose the exact problem. From what I've discovered so far I'm reasonably sure that it's my graphics card or possibly my Power Supply.

What I really need to know is if anyone has any tips for attempting to fix this or if not, any way I can find exactly which part it is so I can get a replacement asap.

My specs are:

GPU: HD 6950 2GB

CPU: Intel 2500k

Memory: 8 GB

PSU: 500W Coolermaster

Windows 7

Cheers

sounds like you've covered all the basics, so can't really suggest anything new, yes the problem is probably the gpu but might be a power problem even tho i think that is less likely.

it sounds like a card fault caused by over heating to me and you'll need to contact the manufacturer, see if it's under warranty and get a replacement or repair.

i'd try using amd's clean uninstall utility to completely remove any old files then run ccleaner and clean out any temp files, i'd also go into device manager and completely remove the gpu do a reboot and let windows find it again and install the drivers and see if it now work in normal mode.

next download and install the correct drivers again from amd's site, can't really think of anything else you can try.