Borked Video Card?

[Zephos]

Specs for reference:

Video Card: nvidia 8800gt
Ram: 2gb DDR2
CPU: E8200 2.66ghz dual core
Motherboard: Gigabyte P35-DS3

So basically about a week ago my computer started crashing randomly whilst playing games. This happened a few times, and suddenly when I started to boot my pc my startup motherboard screen was speckled with heaps of weird artifact-like dots and all my bios and dmi start up screens are littered with $$ and ?? signs instead of their corresponding letters/numbers.

I've basically tried reinstalling display drivers/chipset drivers, updating the bios, taking the video card in and out and cleaning it all to no avail. The strange thing is my pc does not detect the display drivers after installation nor does it detect the 8800gt at all (I've tried dxdiag and such). I still have my monitor plugged in via the video card however, and the card itself has the fan running and such so it doesn't sound entirely dead.

Basically, I have no idea how to fix it. Would the problem lie with the video card or not? I don't have easy access to a spare video card I can swap in to check is all :/

Thanks in advance.

 

[VirusType2]

Yeah, the card sounds broken. It can still display on the monitor - mine did that also. Every symptom you describe also happened to me. I figured since it was still outputting to the monitor, that I was at least getting 2D acceleration or something; but when I removed it and used the on-board video instead, everything was much faster, believe it or not.

I'm just wondering if you've ever overclocked it. I'm trying to get a % of overclocked / dead cards. That's probably what killed mine.

 

[Schall]

Those crashes are often caused by CPU overheating. Those $'s and ?'s could also be a motherboard issue. Usually problems with the bios are traced back to the motherboard. I would examine your motherboard carefully and download a program called Core Temp and check your temperatures on your CPU. It could be your video card, but from the symptoms you provided it sounds more like a CPU/mb problem.

Good luck.

Edit: I'd just try whatever Virus did. If it worked for him it will probably work for you.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Does it display images like this now?

 

[cdoublejj]

you can bake you gfx card it doesn't always work, assuming it's out of warrantee. you have to follow the instructions when baking

 

[MorganFreeman911]

Why the **** would you bake your video card? Are you dense?

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

I assume you know what baking means.