Computer struggles to boot

[Aexl]

Hey i'm having a rather perplexing issue, I no longer have spare parts to run trial and error testing so i'm honestly kind of stuck and could use your advice as to what you think the issue is.

CPU: i7 3700k
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-Z77X D3H
GPU: Sapphire 280x Toxic
RAM: 8gb Corsair lp
PSU: XFX Pro 650W core edition
OS: windows 7 ultimate
SSD: samsung 850 evo

History:
A few months ago I started getting BSOD fairly regularly and an occasional screen like this (taken from google images) http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/a...pszovxz9jj.jpg

It seemed to happen when playing Pubg and my pc was under stress so I assumed it was either a heat or power issue, I monitored the heat which never seemed to hit dangerous levels for my GPU which is a little for resilient than regular 280x cards. It all culminated in a crash that wouldn't let my pc boot normally, I went into safe mode and tried a system restore and it worked completely, I never had another bsod or similar issue until yesterday so I assumed it was some kind of software issue.

Current issue:
Last night I had a crash with the grey vertical lines (pictured above) and my pc then refused to boot, it would start up, i'd see the bios screen, and i'd then see this screen not even an option for safe mode.

I then went through the repair option and it said it had worked then continued onto a black screen with my pc still on but nothing further happened.

At this point I noticed one of the 3 fans on my gpu wasn't spinning and I thought my gpu may be dead (although i'm honestly not sure if all 3 always spin or if the 3rd one is engaged when temps go up)
so I took it out, booted from the intel on board graphics and everything booted like a charm.

Honestly out of a hope that it wasn't my gpu more than anything I then started changing things around.

1: I checked to see if the card was seated properly with no changes

2: put my gpu into my second slot on the mobo (which I think only runs at 8x) and after repairing the startup files I actually got it to boot through the gpu; but after restarting the system after it prompted me to save the changed settings, it wouldn't restart and went to the black screen again after selecting start windows normally.

3: Changed the bios battery just in-case (that did nothing).

4: I noticed after I pulled the power cable out and let the system drain I was able to boot onto the gpu in my second slot again but my trixx wouldn't recognise the card at all as if it wasn't there.

Literally any thoughts or ideas for doing some more testing before resorting to sending it to someone else for testing would be appreciated or even if you had to put your money on it being the PSU not giving the gpu enough power, the gpu being dead or my mobo being rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbished i'd listen to your opinions!

Sorry for such a massive wall of text and thanks for reading,

Alex

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Just to confirm that using the IGP,the system boots fine??

I suspect the issue is either the graphics card or the PSU.

I assume the CPU is at stock clockspeeds??

When the system actually boosts have you tried downclocking the card to stock clockspeeds??

The R9 280X Toxix had a massive pre-overclock:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/7406/...x-toxic-review

It could be the overclock has become unstable over time.

[Aexl]

Just to confirm that using the IGP,the system boots fine??

I suspect the issue is either the graphics card or the PSU.

I assume the CPU is at stock clockspeeds??

When the system actually boosts have you tried downclocking the card to stock clockspeeds??

The R9 280X Toxix had a massive pre-overclock:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/7406/...x-toxic-review

It could be the overclock has become unstable over time.

Thanks for the reply!

Yes when I run just off the integrated graphics it seems to run completely fine.

When I did manage to boot using the card the overclock utility seemed to not recognise there was a card there at all so i'm not sure if i'd be able to downclock, I was using sapphire trixx.

Do you know if there would be a reason other than the pci slot being dead why it would occasionally boot in the 8x slot and not at all in the 16x slot does the 8x draw less power?

oh and yes my cpu is currently running stock speeds.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 8x slot should in theory provide less power IIRC.