PC Won't boot after a crash, graphical glitches on screen

Question

The background story is simple. I was playing a hardware demanding game and the PC suddenly froze up, with sound looping for a moment. I did a hard reset/full power off/power on and there are graphical glitches on the screen (some white noise-like horizontal lines while it is on the windows loading screen) and it won't get past to the login/PIN screen. I haven't had any power outage or any similar issue/crash/BSOD in the past year or two, as far as I can remember.

The computer is a 4.5 year old ish build:

-Core i7 2600k

-Corsair Vengeance 4x4GB DDR3 (kit)

-GTX 580 1.5gb GDDR5

-Gigabyte motherboard to fit all that, can't remember the model nr

-Corsair TX750 supply

I suspect the graphics card simply busted, which is a bit perplexing for me as I expected this rock solid build to last at least 6 years. Note that I do clean my PC every now and then, and there was very little dust to speak of on the card. Also, no OC. The temps overall hardly ever exceed 75C on hot days. So, I came here to ask:

Should I do/test anything else before replacing the graphics card?

Is this normal? Graphics card busting like this without OC/Overheat nor any prior warning, or with 4.5 years of use

Would a GTX 1060 work well with this build?

Thanks in advance!

Solution

Should I do/test anything else before replacing the graphics card?

I can think of a few things:

1. Verify that the PCI-e power leads are solidly plugged into your graphics card. (You need to do a bad job of plugging them in if normal vibrations could loosen them, but check before buying new hardware).
2. Verify that the rest of the system is working. This should be easy since your CPU has a build in GPU on the die.
3. If possible, borrow another graphics card. Most likely it will not add any new information, but if it also fails then your PSU (and it +12v rails) become a possible failure candidate.
4. (Actually, 3b): If possible test with another PSU.

Is this normal? Graphics card busting like this without OC/Overheat nor any prior warning, or with 4.5 years of use

Yes and no. Hardware fail. This just happens. Most of the time failed capacitors. It is not common, but it does happen.

Would a GTX 1060 work well with this build?

Probably. It a 750W PSU should deliver enough power to it. You already had a spare PCI-e slot which contained the old card. So I can say that it is very likely to work.

What I cannot answer is if it is a good choice. That comes down to personal opinions, available cash, expected performance etc etc.

Comments

[YuriW]

Excellent answer sir! For nr1. I did open up the case and plugged them into the other PCIe slot (re-plugging the power leads in the process) on the PC and the exact same graphical glitches/issue happened so I guess that's not it. On nr2 I am not sure how to make it run off the built in intel gpu. There are no other video outputs on the MB other than the two graphic card ones. How'd I go about doing that?

[ganesh]

If the motherboard does not support it then you sadly cannot. :(

[YuriW]

I will test with a spare graphics card then. If it runs stable, time to buy a new card.. This is sad, this is the third time I have an supposedly uncommon hardware failure with PCs I've built over the past 10 years or so. Thanks for the help!