Graphics card failing?

[tian.]

So while busy working on a word document, my screen just turns off and goes into standby mode. The computer seemed to still be running just fine, music was still playing and the hdd light flickered every now and then like it always does. Moving the mouse and pressing keys did nothing, so i checked whether I could log on via remote desktop from another computer, and it sorta did, was stuck at the welcome screen with the word 'welcome' and that circle thingy going around.

Anyways, so I decide to just restart manually. Boots up fine, screen and everything working fine.

Bout half an hour ago (nearly 2 hours after the first incident), it does it again, this time the graphics card's fan went crazy as well. So I restart, all is fine again, but 2mins after I got to my desktop, screen died again and gfx card fan went crazy again. This time I just turned off and pulled the card out. Thankfully I have on board graphics, and that's been working for the past 20mins or so, so far.

I'm just wondering, could this be symptoms of a dying graphics card? Anyone have something similar happen?

BTW, it's an XFX Extreme Edition 7900GS, and i'm running Vista, with the latest Nvidia Beta Drivers, I think they're the latest at least, installed them at least a week ago, and pc's been working fine since then.

For once i'm thankful that I decided to go with a G965 chipset instead of P965, for exactly this reason, in case my gfx card died, so that I at least still have a working pc.

 

[Browser]

Try putting the 3D card into another PC and let it run for a while, maybe also let it go through a benchmark to make sure. If it doesn't have a problem on his PC then it rules out the card.

 

[tian.]

Well, that's the plan, just gotto find another PC first.

Was just wondering whether anyone else might have experienced similar symptoms, maybe because of the beta driver?

Anyways, been running for nearly 2 and a half hours with the onboard so far, and no problems. Will stick the card back tomorrow and see what it does. Just dont feel like goin through all the crap of trying to swap it out

 

[Juggy]

Maybe your fan is crapping out and causing the GPU to overheat.

I would buy another fan/heatsink assembly and stick it on and see if the problem persists.

Surely that card must still be under warranty though?