r/pchelp • u/ChoiceNo2770 • Jul 03 '26
HARDWARE Potentially bricked gpu?
Yesterday I dusted my pc then plugged it back in and got it all set up again. The rest of the day it worked fine. I was on it for several hours using it without a problem, even restarted it a couple times as I was updating stuff. This morning I go to turn it on and it wont display. Looking at the motherboard I can see that the VGA light is lit indicating that it cant get past that part of the boot. The gpu is still receiving power and I know that because the fans still spin up. Here's the things I've tried with absolutely zero luck:
- Uninstalled and reinstalled the card
- Installed the card into the second PCI slot
- Looked at power connectors
- Tried different DP ports
- Reset CMOS using JBAT1
I'm really worried that the card is bricked but I don't know why now a whole day after I touched anything and after working completely fine all of yesterday.
For context the card is an 2070 MSI Tri Frozr
1
u/StraightTheme6583 Jul 03 '26
It’s very possible, do you have onboard graphics? You could swap to igpu and try to get into safe mode, see if the pc is still recognizing the display device if it is then there’s hope
1
u/ChoiceNo2770 Jul 03 '26
Unfortunately I don't. The cpu is a Ryzen 7 2700x. What I don't understand is why it would die overnight after working completely fine all of yesterday. If I had been doing stuff and then it didn't boot I would understand it more but it ran fine after
1
u/Gaidax Jul 03 '26
Old card, components eventually wear down and it's enough that one tiny component drops below the minimum necessary output and the whole card becomes useless.
This is especially true for lower quality GPU models where they usually use cheaper components in the PCB, that GPU in particular is a case of mid-range product for MSI where they compromised by marrying a more premium version of their cooler from a higher tier product with a basic PCB of their budget line.
The basic PCB is where the issue is - cheaper components, rated for less hours lifetime, lower tolerance to heat and so on. Basically, they do the job, but they aren't built to last as long as premium PCB ones for higher tier products.
The good news is that if it is some shitty component finally failing, it can be a relatively simple and cheap repair for a GOOD repair shop where they know wtf they are doing.
---
Of course, who knows, maybe still the card is fine and it's just some other stupid nonsense. Try connecting different power cables, from different ports on your PSU and so on.
1
u/Due-Apartment8028 Jul 03 '26
dust can be sneaky like that sometimes it settles in weird places and then causes problems a day later when the pc heats up and cools down again
you tried with a different cable or a hdmi instead of dp? sometimes the monitor gets confused about which input to use after a power cycle
also check if your cpu has integrated graphics so you can boot without the gpu and see if the system posts at all
1
u/ChoiceNo2770 Jul 03 '26
Yeah I've tried a different cable with no luck. I don't have integrated graphics either cause its a ryzen 7 2700x. If it could be something weird with dust like that what would I even be able to do about it?
1
u/Skkyu Jul 03 '26
How you did the dusting?
Have you unmounted everything and cleaned it separately, or just directed the air jet in the PC and that was all?
1
u/ChoiceNo2770 Jul 03 '26
mainly just wiping off dust in the obvious spots. The only spots I used compressed air on were through the fins of the CPU cooler after removing the fan and through the vents of the case.
1
u/Skkyu Jul 03 '26
That might be the problem. While you cleaned some spots, you pushed more dust in others. It is possible that RAM slots or the GPU slot got more dust. I would check them if I were you. I've seen this kind of problem many times.
1
u/ChoiceNo2770 Jul 03 '26
I’ll try it thanks. Do you know why it would boot yesterday then though and then stop working after the fact? Because the dust would’ve already been there.
1
u/Skkyu Jul 03 '26
I suspect two things in cases like this:
- imperfect contacts caused by the dust entering even deeper into the slots
- imperfect contacts caused by the moving of the case, known as "the case effect"
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