Graphic artifacts + driver crash + computer freeze

[afi]

Hi, maybe you guys can help me on this one.

 

Since yesterday I'm getting graphic artifacts and my nvidia driver crashes frequently. Also the computer crashes or freezes quite often, even on the desktop right after the start. No bluescreen though.

I installed a legacy physix driver a couple days ago to be able to player some older games so I thought this might be the cause but I removed all nvidia related drivers now and installed the most recent ones and it didn't change anything.

I also removed all the dust from the hardware and checked for overheating but the graphic card it at 30° Celsius so it's pretty good.

 

I've got the Geforce GTX560Ti and a quite fresh installation of Windows 7. The computer itself is pretty old (8 years) but I changed some of the components over the years (ram, graphic card, hdd). Do you think it's just time to let go? I really dunno what it can be except for a hardware failure when it's not drivers or overheating.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Sounds like what I had the last time my gfx card died. Mine was three years old...and blew up too after I installed some new drivers... Have you a spare/ancient one to swap out to check?

[afi]

Ye something similar happened to me before with the 8800GT. Seems like graphic cards are not supposed to run for longer than 3-4 years. Unfortunately I don't have any old one to check...

I guess it could also be the power supply though

[Ping]

I heard that the most recent drivers were borked for some people, but they apparently fixed it a few days ago. You could nonetheless try to downgrade to an older version and see if that makes any difference.

[afi]

I'm not sure if I even get to change the drivers until the computer crashes but I'll try, thanks

[Exmirai]

Try to delete them in safe mode. And then load in normal mode. If computer will still crash - cpu/motherboard/etc problem, if no any problem then its related to gpu

[afi]

Deleted the drivers, no crash so far. I'm gonna try to install an older driver now. It'd be kinda strange if that worked though, as my problems started before I installed the most recent one.

[afi]

Ok it's definitely the graphic card. No issues for hours with no driver installed, then installing an older driver, reboot and insta-artifacts

But even if I don't have any drivers installed, the computer is obviously still using the video card so why does it work with no drivers installed? Is it because the standard windows driver only uses the very basic features which doesn't stress the hardware as much (even on desktop)?

[ent]

The GPU died. The issue sounds exactly as mine.

[afi]

Ye thanks for your help guys